Elena POV

The text arrived the next morning.

I won. I'm taking everything.

Attached was a photo. It was a small, white house with blue shutters on the outskirts of the city.

My heart stopped.

The Safe House.

It wasn't a mansion. It was a two-bedroom cottage we had purchased when Dante was just a soldier. It was where we hid when the feds were raiding the city. It was where we had painted the nursery pink three years ago, before the miscarriages, before the doctors told us "never."

It was the only place that was truly ours.

I drove there, breaking every speed limit.

When I skidded into the driveway, I saw the dumpster.

It was full of drywall. Pink drywall.

No.

I ran inside. The front door was wide open, hanging off its hinges. A crew of contractors was tearing down the walls. The living room was gutted. The window seat, where we used to sit and dream about the future, was smashed to pieces.

"Stop!" I screamed. "Stop it!"

The foreman looked at me, bored. "Orders from the Don, lady. Full gut renovation."

I called Dante. He answered on the first ring.

"Why?" I screamed into the phone. "Why the house? You have five estates!"

"Sienna likes the location," he said calmly. "It's secluded. Good for the baby."

"It's my house! It's our memories!"

"It's a building, Elena. And it's in my name."

He hung up.

I sat in the rubble for five hours. I watched the shadows lengthen until the sun died.

Night fell. Headlights swept across the driveway. Dante's black SUV pulled up.

He got out, looking impeccable in a tailored suit that contrasted sharply with the dust and debris. Sienna followed, wrapping a coat protectively around her belly.

She looked at the gutted house and smiled. It was a smile of pure malice.

"It's a bit of a fixer-upper," she said, stepping delicately over a piece of broken trim. "But the nursery will be huge once we knock down that wall."

She pointed to the wall of the room that was supposed to be mine.

Dante stood there, watching me sitting on a pile of debris.

"You look insane, Elena," he said. "Go home."

"You are erasing me," I said, my voice hollow.

"I am renovating a property," he corrected coldly.

I stood up. I walked over to Sienna. She flinched, hiding behind Dante.

"You are trash," I told her. "You are living in my leftovers."

Sienna gasped. "Dante, she's scaring me."

Dante stepped forward, his chest hitting mine. He was a wall of muscle and heat.

"Get in your car, Elena. Or I will have my men drag you."

I looked up at him. I looked for the boy I loved. He wasn't there.

"Is the house just trash to you?" I asked. "Like me?"

He looked at the ruins of our first home. He didn't blink.

"It's just wood and brick," he said. "Stop being sentimental. It's weak."

Sienna pulled a checkbook from her bag.

"I can pay you for the furniture we threw out," she offered. "If you need the money."

I lunged.

Dante caught me easily. He twisted my arm behind my back with practiced efficiency.

"Enough!" he roared.

He shoved me toward my car.

"Go back to the estate. Wait for the divorce papers. I'm done with this."

He turned back to Sienna, checking her hands, checking her face, treating her like fine china while treating me like the garbage on the floor.

Every piece of you will be erased, Sienna texted me as I drove away.

I returned to the main estate, where the silence was deafening.

I called a removal company.

"I want it all gone," I told them. "The clothes. The furniture. The photos. Everything that proves I lived here."

They worked through the night. By dawn, the master bedroom was empty. The closet was bare.

I took the photo albums from the safe. Our wedding. Our trips to Italy. The candid shots of him sleeping.

I threw them into the fireplace.

I lit the match.

I watched our history curl up, blacken, and turn to ash.

I lay down on the bare wooden floor. The house was as empty as my marriage. The pain in my body was sharp, but the pain in my soul was gone.

There was nothing left to break.

Elena Vitiello was dead. I was simply waiting for my body to catch up.

Elena POV

I mailed my marriage away in a flat, rigid cardboard envelope.

It cost me exactly twenty dollars for expedited shipping. That was the cheap price of severing a bond that was supposed to be eternal before God.

I stood outside the post office, the winter wind biting at my exposed cheeks. I felt strangely, terrifyingly light. The heavy anchor of Dante Vitiello was no longer chained to my ankle.

I had mailed two packages. One went to Giulia, containing the deed to my small savings account and my final will. The other went to Dante, containing the divorce papers I had signed with a remarkably steady hand.

I walked back to the car. My legs felt heavy, dragging as if pulled by lead weights. The energy burst-that terminal lucidity the doctors always whispered about-was fading fast.

My phone buzzed against my hip.

It was Sienna. Of course it was.

She had sent a photo. It was an intimate close-up of Dante sleeping. His face was relaxed, his guard completely down.

The caption read: "He dreams of our son. What do you dream of, Elena?"

I looked at the screen. I didn't feel the familiar stab of jealousy. I didn't feel the urge to scream. I just felt an overwhelming exhaustion.

I deleted the thread.

I drove back to the estate. The wrought-iron gates opened automatically, recognizing the car of a ghost.

I walked out into the garden. It was far too cold to be outside, but the house felt like a tomb. I sat on the cold stone bench where Dante had once proposed to me.

I reached into my bag and pulled out the old leather journal I had found while cleaning out the closet.

The pages were yellowed with age. The handwriting in the beginning was loopy and excited.

Entry 1: I met a boy today. He has blood on his knuckles and sadness in his eyes. I think I love him.

I flipped through the years. The entries became shorter, sharper. The ink became darker.

Entry 400: He didn't come home again.

Entry 650: I am alone in a house full of people.

I took a pen from my pocket. My hand was trembling now. The pain in my abdomen was a screaming beast, tearing me apart from the inside out.

I wrote one final line.

I am in pain. I want to go. I wish I never met Dante Vitiello.

I closed the book.

The sun was setting, painting the sky in bruises of purple and red.

I took the bottle of morphine from my pocket. I didn't bother counting the pills. I just swallowed them. All of them.

I lay down on the freezing stone bench.

Slowly, the pain began to recede. It was replaced by a warm, fuzzy blanket of nothingness.

My eyes grew heavy.

I saw a figure walking toward me through the garden. He was wearing a leather jacket that was two sizes too big. He had a split lip and a shy, boyish smile.

It was Dante. But not the Don. Not the monster.

It was the boy from the studio apartment. The boy who had promised me the moon.

"Elena," he said, reaching out a hand. "Let's go home."

I smiled.

I took his hand.

And then, there was only white.

Dante Vitiello POV

A courier arrived at my office at ten in the morning.

My assistant placed the envelope on my mahogany desk, her hand trembling. Everyone was on edge today. The shipment from the docks was late, and I was in a mood to break fingers.

I ripped the envelope open.

Divorce papers.

I stared at the document. It was signed. Elena Rossi. Not Vitiello.

I laughed. It was a harsh, barking sound that made my underboss flinch.

"She has lost her mind," I said, tossing the papers back onto the desk. "She thinks this is a game. She thinks she can divorce the Don of Chicago because I renovated a house."

Sienna was sitting on the leather sofa, flipping through a magazine. She looked up, feigning concern.

"Is it Elena again?" she asked. "She is just acting out, Dante. It's the hormones. Or lack thereof."

Her cruelty usually amused me. Today, it grated on my nerves.

I picked up my phone and dialed Elena.

It rang. And rang. And rang.

"Pick up," I growled.

Voicemail.

I grabbed my coat.

"Where are you going?" Sienna asked, standing up. "We have a lunch reservation."

"Cancel it," I said. "I am going to end this tantrum once and for all."

I drove to the estate. I was going to tear those papers up in her face. I was going to remind her that she belonged to me until I said otherwise.

I stormed into the house.

"Elena!" I shouted.

Silence.

The house felt different. Hollow. It echoed.

I walked into the living room. It was empty. Not just devoid of people, but devoid of life. The vases were gone. The throw pillows were gone.

I ran up the stairs.

The master bedroom was stripped. The closet doors were open, revealing bare racks. No clothes. No shoes. No perfume bottles on the vanity.

"She left," I whispered.

Rage boiled in my chest. She had actually run. She thought she could hide from me? I would burn down the entire state to find her.

I saw a journal on the desk. It was the only thing left in the room.

I picked it up. I recognized it. She used to write in it every night when we were first married.

I opened to the last page.

Dante, Goodbye.

I threw the book into the trash can.

"Coward," I spat.

My phone rang.

I answered it immediately, ready to unleash hell.

"Where are you?" I roared.

It wasn't Elena.

It was Giulia. And she was screaming.

"She's gone, you bastard! She's gone!"

I froze.

"Stop lying, Giulia. Tell me where you are hiding her."

"I'm not hiding her!" Giulia sobbed, the sound raw and broken. "She's dead! Elena is dead!"

I laughed again. It was a reflex. A defense mechanism.

"Nice try," I said. "Tell Elena the joke isn't funny."

"I am at the funeral home on 5th!" Giulia screamed. "Come sign the cremation papers, you son of a bitch!"

The line went dead.

I stood there. The phone felt slippery in my hand.

Dead?

Impossible. She was just jealous. She was just dramatic. She was mine.

My assistant walked in. "Boss, I tracked Mrs. Vitiello's phone."

"Where is it?" I demanded.

"The morgue, sir. St. Mary's Hospital."

The world seemed to tilt on its axis.

I didn't speak. I just ran.

I drove like a madman. I ran red lights. I mounted the curb to bypass traffic.

I pulled up to the funeral home. Giulia's car was there.

I slammed through the double doors. The receptionist looked up, terrified.

"Where is she?" I shouted.

Giulia stepped out of a viewing room down the hall. Her face was swollen from crying. She looked at me with pure hatred.

I pushed past her.

I walked into the room.

There was a table in the center. A white sheet covered a shape.

"No," I whispered.

I walked forward. My legs felt like they didn't belong to me.

I reached out and pulled the sheet back.