Luca POV
I slammed the SUV into the front gate of the estate.
I didn't mean to. My hands were shaking too hard to grip the wheel, and my vision was blurred by a panic I hadn't felt since the night Dante died.
Metal screeched against stone, a horrific, grinding sound. The airbag didn't deploy, but the impact jarred my teeth to the roots.
I didn't check the damage. I left the engine running, the door hanging open, and I ran.
The gravel crunched under my dress shoes as I took the steps two at a time, bursting through the heavy oak doors.
"Elena!"
My voice echoed in the foyer.
It bounced off the marble floors and the high ceilings, mocking me. It was the only sound in the house.
Usually, there was a rhythm to this place. The sound of her heels clicking. The faint scent of the lilies she insisted on keeping in the vases. The quiet hum of her existence.
Now, it was a tomb.
"Elena!"
I sprinted up the stairs, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird.
I threw open the door to the master bedroom.
The bed was made. Perfectly smooth. Not a single wrinkle.
I strode to the walk-in closet.
I ripped the doors open.
My breath hitched.
Her clothes were still there. The designer dresses I had lavished upon her. The furs. The silk blouses. The rows of Louboutins she rarely wore because they hurt her feet.
She hadn't left. She couldn't have left. Her things were all here.
I let out a laugh, a jagged, hysterical sound that scraped my throat.
"She's here," I whispered to myself. "She's just... she's just hiding."
Then I saw the gaps.
The wooden hangers where her simple cotton shirts used to hang were empty. They swung slightly, clinking together.
Clack. Clack. Clack.
I went to the shelf where she kept her jewelry.
The diamond necklace I gave her for our first anniversary? Here.
The emerald earrings from the Christmas gala? Here.
The sapphire bracelet I bought to apologize for missing dinner last month? Here.
Everything I had ever given her was here.
I yanked open the drawer where she kept the sentimental things. The things she brought with her when we married.
Empty.
The old silver locket with her grandmother's picture. Gone.
The leather journal she wrote in every night. Gone.
The crude wooden bird Dante had carved. Gone.
She hadn't taken my wife's things. She had taken Elena's things.
She had stripped herself of everything that made her Mrs. Falcone and took only the parts of herself that belonged to the past. That belonged to him.
I staggered back, hitting the island in the center of the closet.
I slid down to the floor, my expensive suit rubbing against the carpet as my legs gave out.
I pulled my phone out. The screen was cracked from when I had dropped it at the hospital.
I dialed her number again.
The number you have dialed is not in service.
"Pick up," I begged the robotic voice. "Please, just pick up and tell me you're punishing me. Tell me you want me to beg."
Silence.
She wasn't punishing me. Punishment requires engagement. Punishment requires caring enough to want the other person to hurt.
This was indifference.
She didn't care enough to fight. She just erased me.
My phone buzzed.
A name flashed on the screen. Sofia.
I stared at it.
A wave of nausea rolled over me. The sight of her name, the memory of her voice whining about a headache while my wife-my pregnant wife-was fleeing the country, made me want to vomit.
I didn't answer.
I threw the phone across the room. It hit the wall with a satisfying crunch and shattered into jagged pieces.
I sat in the dark closet, surrounded by millions of dollars of clothes that belonged to a ghost.
"Elena," I whispered.
But the house didn't answer. It just held its breath, waiting for a queen who was never coming back.
