The water was not just cold; it was a numbing, frigid embrace, far kinder than Dante’s touch had ever been.
My lungs burned for air, screaming for oxygen, but my mind commanded them to be still.
*Let go,* I told myself. *Just let go.*
Suddenly, the surface shattered.
Iron-hard arms wrapped around my waist. I was hauled upward, breaking the surface into the biting night air with a violent splash. I gasped, choking on lake water and bile, my throat raw.
Dante.
He was soaking wet, his tuxedo ruined, his hair plastered to his forehead in dark, chaotic strands. He dragged me onto the grassy bank, discarding me onto the mud like a broken doll.
"You think you can escape?" he roared, looming over me like a vengeful god.
I coughed, my body convulsing violently as I tried to expel the water. "Let... let me die."
"No!" He grabbed my face, his fingers digging into my cheeks bruisingly hard. "You don't get to die. Not until I say so. Your life belongs to me. Your death belongs to me."
From the shore, a scream pierced the air.
"Dante! Help!"
Sofia was standing knee-deep in the shallow water, clutching her chest. She looked pristine—not a hair out of place—yet she acted as if she were in the throes of a seizure. "My heart! The shock... I can't breathe!"
Dante froze.
He looked at me, shivering and half-drowned, my LVAD alarm shrieking a high-pitched warning that water had breached the casing. It was a sound of imminent death.
Then he looked at Sofia.
There was no hesitation.
His hands vanished.
He dropped me back into the mud without a second thought.
"Get the medical team for Sofia!" he yelled to his men, sprinting toward her. He scooped her up in his arms, cradling her as if she were made of spun glass. "I've got you, *amore*. Stay with me."
He carried her past me. He didn't even look down.
I lay in the sludge, watching him run to save the liar, while the woman who actually saved him lay dying in the dirt.
*
The hospital room smelled of bleach and old money. They had dried me off and changed my battery pack, but they hadn't bothered to give me a blanket.
Dante walked in. He looked dry, composed, and utterly terrifying.
"Sofia is in shock," he said, his voice level. "Because of your little stunt."
"My stunt?" I rasped, my throat feeling like it was full of glass. "She pushed me."
"Liar," he said simply.
He walked to the side of my bed and wrapped his hand around my throat. He didn't squeeze hard enough to kill, just enough to remind me that he could—that my breath was a gift he allowed me to take.
"You tried to commit suicide," he said. "You tried to take away my toy before I was finished playing."
"I'm tired, Dante," I whispered, tears leaking from my eyes and tracking into my hair. "Please. Just finish it."
"Not yet." He leaned in close, his breath ghosting over my ear. "Sofia is traumatized. She needs cheering up. You are going to plan the proposal."
I stared at him, blood draining from my face. "What?"
"I'm going to propose to her. Properly. And you are going to arrange it. The flowers, the ring delivery, the speech. You will write the speech I say to the woman I love."
"Dante, please..."
"Do it," he growled, tightening his grip on my throat until spots danced in my vision. "Or I will dig up your father's body and feed it to the dogs."
I broke. The last piece of my soul snapped with an audible crack in my chest.
"Okay," I whispered. "I'll do it."
He let go, looking at me with cold disgust. "Good. You have two days. Don't disappoint me."
He turned to leave. At the door, he paused.
"Oh, and Elena?"
"Yes?"
"Make sure the flowers are white roses. Sofia loves them."
He walked out.
I closed my eyes. Silence rushed back into the room, heavy and suffocating.
White roses.
They were my favorite flower. He knew that. He remembered.
And he was using them to bury me while I was still alive.
I reached for the notepad on the bedside table. My hand trembled as I picked up the pen.
*To my dearest Sofia...*
I started writing my own eulogy.
