Dante POV
The screen of the burner phone went black.
Silence rushed back into the morgue, heavy and suffocating. It pressed against my eardrums, tasting of ash and formaldehyde.
I stared at the device in my hand. My reflection was distorted in the dark glass—I looked like a man who had been hollowed out, gutted by his own hand.
She hated me.
The realization did not pierce me like a knife, nor did it burn like fire. It was heavier than that. It was a mountain collapsing on my chest.
Elena hadn't died because of an accident. She did not die because she was weak. She died to get away from me.
I looked at the charred remains on the metal slab. The body was small. Fragile. Just like she had been when I first brought her home at twelve years old.
I remembered the nightlight. I remembered the way her small hand used to clutch my jacket when it thundered.
I remembered the origami cranes she folded for me, thousands of them, promising a love that would outlast the stars.
I had taken that love and fed it to the dogs.
I reached out, my fingers hovering over the sheet covering her. My hand was shaking so hard the fabric rippled.
"I am sorry," I whispered. The words scraped my throat. "I am so sorry, *Tesoro*."
My knees gave out.
I hit the cold tile floor. The impact jarred my spine, but I felt nothing.
I curled forward, pressing my forehead against the metal leg of the table. A sound ripped out of me. It was not a cry. It was a howl. A primal, animal noise that belonged in a slaughterhouse.
My stomach convulsed. Bile and acid surged up my throat. I retched, spitting blood onto the pristine white floor.
My body was rejecting the reality. It was trying to purge the guilt that was poisoning my blood.
I clutched the phone tighter. It was the only piece of her I had left. The only truth I had been given in months.
*You chose her*, Elena had said. *You chose the lie.*
I closed my eyes, but I could still see her face on the screen. Cold. Dead. Resolute.
*If there is a hell, I hope you rot in it alone.*
"I am already there, Elena," I choked out into the silence.
"I am already there."
