He Faked Amnesia To Abandon His Wife

The neurosurgeon looked at me with pity, delivering a diagnosis that severed seven years of devotion in a heartbeat.

According to the scans, my husband, Dante Rizzoli, remembered how to strip a Glock blindfolded and launder millions.

He just didn't remember loving me.

Overnight, I went from being the cherished Mafia Princess to an unwanted stranger in my own penthouse.

While I filled our home with his favorite lilies trying to spark a memory, Dante brought home Gia.

She was loud, tacky, and draped over him like a cheap suit. The Capo had forgotten his wife, but he seemed to remember his lust perfectly fine.

I swallowed the humiliation, clinging to the hope of his recovery, until I stood outside his office door with a tray of espresso.

I heard his dark, amused laugh rumbling through the wood.

"The amnesia is the most useful card I've ever played," Dante told his soldier.

"It buys me time to enjoy Gia without the family breathing down my neck. Elena is a boring, safe relic. I need fire, not a porcelain doll."

My heart didn't race. It stopped.

The medical anomaly was a lie. He hadn't forgotten me; he was just done with me.

I set the tray down silently. I wasn't going to wait for him to remember anymore.

I walked out of the penthouse and dialed a number I hadn't used in years.

"Get the new ID ready," I whispered into the phone.

"Elena Vitiello dies tonight. Livia Moretti leaves at dawn."

Chapter 1

Elena Vitiello POV

The neurosurgeon looked at me with a pity that felt like a scalpel, delivering the diagnosis that would sever seven years of devotion in a single heartbeat.

According to the scans, Dante Rizzoli remembers everything-how to strip a Glock blindfolded, how to launder millions through shell corporations, how to kill a man with his bare hands.

He just doesn't remember loving me.

Only three hours earlier, I had been standing in the gallery of our shared estate, carefully mixing cerulean blue to fix a hairline crack in a seventeenth-century Madonna. That was my role in Dante's life. The fixer. The one who smoothed over the rough edges of his brutal existence as the Capo of the New York outfit.

I was the Mafia Princess, protected and cherished, living in a gilded cage constructed of his possessive love.

A housekeeper had entered, carrying a bouquet of Baccara roses so dark they looked like dried blood. The card tucked inside bore his sharp, aggressive handwriting.

My Elena. Forever.

I had pressed the card to my chest, smiling like a fool. We had history. Seven years of it. From the promise he made to my father when I was eighteen, to the summers in the Hamptons where he taught me that a man with blood on his hands could still touch a woman with reverence.

He was my protector. My world.

Then the phone rang.

Dante's voice was on the line, but it wasn't Dante. It was a stranger wearing his vocal cords. He told me there had been an ambush with the Bratva. A blow to the head. He was fine, physically.

But when I arrived at the hospital, the air was thick with the scent of antiseptic and the menace of armed guards. The doctor explained the selective amnesia. It was a medical anomaly, he said. The trauma had walled off specific emotional pathways.

Dante looked at me from the hospital bed, his eyes cold. Empty. The heat that usually simmered there when he looked at me-the heat that promised he would burn the world down to keep me safe-was gone.

"Who are you?" he asked.

It wasn't a question. It was a dismissal.

For two weeks, I fought. I fought against the silence in his eyes. I turned our penthouse into a museum of us. I filled the vases with his favorite lilies. I played the jazz records we danced to. I wore the silk dresses he loved to tear off me.

Nothing.

Every visit was a humiliation. He treated me with the polite indifference one reserves for an annoying distant cousin. Polite. Distant. A stranger in his house.

Then Gia Valenti arrived.

She was new money from Las Vegas, loud and vibrant, with skin that looked like it had been dipped in gold and a laugh that shattered glass. She didn't walk; she prowled. And Dante watched her. He watched her the way he used to watch me.

The whispers started in the family gatherings. The glances. The pity. The Capo has forgotten his wife, but he seems to remember his lust.

I refused to believe it. I clung to the idea of medical trauma. Until tonight.

I was walking toward his home office, a tray of espresso in my hands, intending to try one last time to spark a memory. The door was ajar.

"The Vitiello girl is persistent, Boss," a soldier muttered.

Dante's laugh rumbled through the wood. It was dark and amused.

"Let her be," Dante said. His voice was clear. Sharp. There was no confusion in it. "This 'amnesia' is the most useful card I've ever played. The marriage contract with her father is ironclad, but if I'm mentally incapacitated regarding the union... well, it buys me time."

"Time for what?"

"Time to reshape the board," Dante replied, the sound of ice clinking against glass following his words. "And time to enjoy Gia without the family breathing down my neck about duty. Elena is a good girl, but she's a relic. A boring, safe relic. I need fire, not a porcelain doll."

The tray in my hands didn't shake. My heart didn't race. It just stopped.

The amnesia was a lie.

Every cold look. Every blank stare. Every moment I had cried myself to sleep wondering where my husband had gone. It was all a performance. He hadn't forgotten me. He had just decided he was done with me.

I wasn't a wife. I wasn't a partner. I was an asset he was liquidating.

I set the tray down on a side table in the hallway. I didn't make a sound. I turned around and walked out of the penthouse, down the elevator, and into the cool New York night.

I found myself at Mr. Henderson's rare book shop three blocks away. It was my sanctuary. The smell of old paper and dust usually calmed me. Mr. Henderson looked up, saw my face, and said nothing. He simply handed me a book from the reserve shelf.

It was a first edition of poetry Dante had given me for our first anniversary.

I opened it. The inscription was there. To the woman who holds my soul. I will love you until the stars burn out.

I stared at the ink. It looked like a cage.

The tears didn't come. Instead, a cold, hard knot formed in my stomach. The Elena who waited for her protector was dead. She died in that hallway.

I closed the book. I didn't buy it. I put it back on the shelf.

"I don't need it," I whispered to the empty aisle.

"I'm not living for him anymore."