Elena POV
We trailed them.
It wasn’t difficult.
They drove slowly, carefully, respecting speed limits that my world ignored.
They pulled up to a small, white house with a peeling picket fence. It was the kind of house a child draws in kindergarten—simple, innocent, and utterly ordinary.
I signaled Rocco to stop.
We stepped out of the vehicle. The air here smelled like cut grass and gasoline, a sharp contrast to the expensive cologne and gunpowder that perfumed our home.
Mia—that was the name on the intel report—was getting out of the car.
She saw us standing on the sidewalk. She didn't look afraid; she looked curious.
"Can we help you?" she called out.
Her voice was sweet.
Too sweet.
Dante was at her side in a blink.
The speed was familiar. The lethal grace was unmistakable.
He stepped in front of her, shielding her body with his own. His hands were empty, but I knew the violence coiled inside him. I knew he could kill a man with a pencil if the mood struck him.
He stared at me.
I stopped breathing.
I waited for the recognition.
I waited for his eyes to widen in shock.
I waited for him to growl, "Principessa," and storm over to demand why I was so far from the safety of the compound.
I waited for the fire.
But there was only ice.
He looked at my face, my hair, my lips. His gaze dropped to the scar on my collarbone—the one he had kissed a thousand times in the dark.
And he saw nothing.
Nothing but a stranger.
"Are you lost?" he asked.
His voice was deeper than I remembered. Rougher.
But the tone was polite. It was the detached politeness of a man who just wants to be left alone.
My knees nearly buckled.
Rocco stepped up behind me, his hand hovering near my elbow, ready to catch me if I fell.
"No," I managed to say.
My voice trembled, betraying me.
I cleared my throat and forced the steel back into my spine. I was a Vitiello. I was a Mafia wife. I did not crumble.
"We are looking for... Arthur," I said.
The name tasted like poison on my tongue.
Dante's eyes narrowed.
"I'm Arthur," he said.
He didn't flinch. He didn't question it. He simply accepted it.
The intel was right. Severe traumatic brain injury. Retrograde amnesia. The Consigliere had suspected it when the rumors started, but he had hidden the extent of it from me.
He had wanted to protect me.
But you can't protect someone from a nuclear bomb.
Dante Moretti was gone.
The man standing in front of me was a ghost wearing his skin. And this ghost was in love with someone else.
"Who are you?" Dante asked.
His hand drifted back to touch Mia's arm, a subconscious check to make sure she was safe.
It was a gesture he used to do to me.
Always checking. Always possessing.
Now, I was the threat he was protecting her from.
I felt my heart crack, a physical fissure running down the center of my chest.
"We're family," I whispered.
