Elena POV
I recognized the glint of silver before my eyes could even focus on the details.
It was the locket.
Vintage sterling, engraved with a delicate tangle of vines and roses.
I was the one who found it in an antique shop in Florence on our first anniversary.
I was the one who had carefully placed a picture of us inside.
And I was the one who had clasped it around his neck before he deployed, telling him it was his compass to find his way back to me.
Dante strode back to Mia.
He didn't look at me.
He didn't see the woman dying by inches against the tree mere feet away.
"I found it," he said, his voice rough with relief. "I told you I'd find it."
He fastened it around Mia's neck.
The silver chain rested against her throat.
It looked wrong.
It looked like a lie.
Mia clutched the locket as if it were a lifeline.
"Thank you, Artie. I was so scared. It's the only thing I have of yours from... before."
Dante smiled.
Then, with a tenderness that shattered me, he reached out and tapped the tip of her nose with his index finger.
Boop.
The world tilted on its axis.
My vision went black at the edges.
That was my gesture.
He used to do that when I was mad at him.
He used to do that when I was sad.
It was our secret language.
A silly, childish thing that the feared Don of Chicago only did for his wife.
And now, he was doing it for her.
He had given her my locket.
He had given her my gesture.
He had taken the most sacred parts of our history and transplanted them onto a stranger because he couldn't remember where they came from.
He just knew they meant love.
And he loved her.
Bile rose in my throat, hot and acidic.
I couldn't breathe.
The pain in my chest wasn't just the disease anymore.
It was my soul tearing itself apart.
I turned around.
I didn't care if I made noise.
I stumbled away, my heels sinking into the soft earth, fighting for balance.
I ran toward the house.
I ran toward my room.
I needed to hide.
I needed to scream.
But as I reached the sanctuary of my bedroom and collapsed onto the floor, no sound came out.
Only silence.
The silence of a ghost realizing she had already been exorcised.
