Elara POV
A scent of roasted garlic and rich olive oil, alien to this sterile apartment, drifted into the dimly lit bedroom.
I sat up on the edge of the mattress, a knot of cold dread tightening deep in my viscera. Zane never cooked. In the three years we had lived in this safehouse, he had never once touched the stove.
Whenever I worked forty-eight-hour hacking binges to secure his territories, he always claimed he was too busy to even order food. He would leave me to starve in the harsh, blue glow of my monitors until I eventually passed out from exhaustion.
Frowning, I walked out of the bedroom and padded down the hallway.
Zane was standing in the sprawling, marble kitchen. He had his sleeves rolled up, revealing the dark ink of his Syndicate tattoos coiling up his forearms. He was meticulously plating a lavish, traditional Italian meal.
"Who is that for?" I asked, my voice raspy from sleep.
Zane did not look up from the stove. Instead, he carefully arranged a delicate sprig of garnish on the fine porcelain plate.
"Siena is coming over for a strategy meeting," he said, wiping the edge of the plate with a clean towel. "She has a highly refined aristocratic palate. She despises the standard rations we keep here."
I stared at the ingredients scattered on the counter, and my throat instantly felt thick and scratchy.
There were fresh black truffles shaved generously over the pasta.
"Zane." I stepped closer to the island, my heart pounding against my ribs. "I am severely allergic to truffles. Even the spores in the air can trigger a reaction."
*My throat was already beginning to itch, a warning tightness spreading down my windpipe. I took a step back toward the hallway, putting distance between myself and the kitchen. *
Zane finally looked up, his brow furrowed in mild irritation.
"Then do not eat it, Elara," he replied smoothly, turning back to the stove. "Order yourself some takeout. Just stay out of the way when she gets here."
He had memorized the elite dietary preferences of a woman he barely knew. But after three years of sharing a bed with me, he had forgotten the one ingredient that could send me into anaphylactic shock.
I backed away from the kitchen, the air suddenly feeling too thin to breathe.
I went back to the bedroom and picked up my burner phone. The knuckles of my hand turned a deathly, fish-belly white from the force of her grip, and it took her two attempts to tear open the thin plastic wrapper of a stale, emergency protein bar from the bottom drawer of my nightstand—a pathetic stash I kept because he so often forgot to feed me. Then, I sat on the edge of the bed and waited. The low-frequency hum of the ice maker now scraped against the eardrum like sandpaper, and the air was so viscous that breathing required a deliberate expansion of the chest.
An hour later, the heavy front door opened with a resounding click.
Siena Vitiello walked into the penthouse, flanked by two massive Syndicate bodyguards. She wore a flawless designer dress and carried a bottle of vintage Sicilian wine.
"Something smells absolutely divine, Capo." Siena's voice was smooth and melodic, each syllable polished to a high sheen.
Zane chuckled. It was a warm, patient sound I had not heard in years. "Only the best for the future Queen of the Syndicate."
A sudden, uncontrolled surge of gastric acid burned its way up my esophagus, reminding me of the cold, hard click of the bunker door as Zane had locked it while my father lay on an operating table, his life in the balance. I walked out of the bedroom to grab a bottle of water from the fridge, desperate to swallow the lump lodged in my throat.
Siena spotted me immediately. She offered a polite, perfectly manicured smile that didn't quite reach her eyes.
"Hello, Elara." Siena walked toward the kitchen island. She picked up a small appetizer plate and held it out to me like one might feed a stray dog. "You must be hungry. Zane's little civilian pet always works so hard behind the screens."
The words sliced through me. She knew exactly what she was doing—she was establishing dominance in the home I had paid for.
"No, thank you." I kept my voice entirely flat. "I do not eat food prepared for guests."
Zane slammed a drawer shut. The loud crack made me flinch involuntarily.
"Watch your tone." Zane glared at me across the kitchen island, his eyes completely devoid of affection. "Siena is offering you a kindness. You lack basic Omertà etiquette."
I looked at the man I loved, realizing with sickening clarity that he was publicly humiliating me to elevate her.
I turned around and walked back down the hallway. I closed the bedroom door and locked it behind me.
I slid down the wooden panel of the door until I hit the floor. The protein bar sat untouched on the nightstand, its wrapper crinkling slightly in the draft.
Through the thick walls, I could hear Siena laughing, a light, crystalline sound that mocked my misery.
Then I heard Zane. He was speaking in a low, gentle whisper; he was pouring her wine, asking if the temperature in the room was comfortable for her.
He was attending to her with the deference due a visiting monarch, while I was treated as disposable collateral.
I pressed my hands over my ears and squeezed my eyes shut, but I could not block out the sound of his betrayal.
*Three years. Three years of building his empire, of sacrificing my sleep, my health, my father's final lucid days. And I had been reduced to a nuisance hiding in my own bedroom while he fed truffles to a stranger. I pulled my knees to my chest and let the silent tears fall. But beneath the grief, something harder was taking root. Something that felt like the first line of code in a program that would delete him entirely. *
