(Dante Vitiello POV)
"Elena!"
The line went dead.
I pulled the phone away from my ear, staring at the black screen. My heart hammered a rhythm against my ribs that felt alien, frantic. It wasn't just a dropped call. It was a severance.
*What was that noise?* That click. That sudden, absolute silence.
"Trace the phone," I snarled at Lee, my Consigliere, who was behind the wheel. "Now!"
"Boss, she's probably just hiding," Lee said, his fingers flying across the console even as he tried to placate me. "She does this for attention."
"Trace it!"
I punched the dashboard. The expensive leather split under my knuckles with a sickening tear.
"Okay! Okay. Signal is..." Lee hesitated, his face paling in the glow of the GPS. "The cemetery. The old sector."
*The cemetery.*
A cold dread coiled in my stomach, heavy and leaden. Not anger. Dread. It was a sensation I hadn't felt since the night my father died.
"Drive," I ordered, my voice low and dangerous. "Run every red light."
The rain lashed against the windshield like shrapnel as the SUV tore through the streets of New York. In the rearview mirror, I saw Sofia in the back seat. She wasn't looking at the road; she was checking her makeup in a compact mirror, utterly unbothered.
"Dante, relax," she said, snapping the compact shut. "She's just being dramatic. She's probably sitting on her parents' grave crying for sympathy."
"Shut up," I snapped.
She froze, her mouth hanging slightly open. I never spoke to her like that. But right now, I didn't care about her feelings. I didn't care about anything but the silence echoing in my head.
We screeched to a halt at the cemetery gates, tires smoking against the wet asphalt.
I didn't wait for the car to stop completely. I shoved the door open and jumped out, my Italian leather shoes splashing deep into the mud.
"Elena!" I roared.
The rain swallowed my voice, drowning it in the relentless downpour.
I ran toward the Rossi plot, ignoring the stinging wind. My men scrambled to keep up, their flashlights cutting chaotic beams through the gloom.
I saw the caretaker first. An old man, standing by a fresh mound of dirt, holding a shovel. He was looking down into a hole, his shoulders shaking. He was weeping.
I shoved him aside and stared into the abyss.
A pine box. A cheap, unfinished pine box.
And inside, Elena.
She was lying on her back, her hands folded over her chest. Her dress was torn, her skin pale, illuminated by the harsh, unforgiving beam of the flashlights.
"Get her out!" I yelled at my men. "Get her out now!"
Two guards jumped into the grave, slipping in the mud. They lifted the box awkwardly. I couldn't wait. I reached down and grabbed the handles, hauling it up onto the wet grass myself, my muscles straining, my breath coming in ragged gasps.
"Elena," I said, shaking her shoulder. "Wake up. The game is over. You win. Wake up."
She didn't move. Her head lolled to the side with a terrifying weightlessness.
I touched her cheek.
Ice.
It wasn't the cold of the rain. It was the deep, permeating cold of an object that no longer held a soul.
"Call the medic!" I screamed, turning to Lee.
"Boss..." Lee shone his light on the device strapped to her waist. The cord was disconnected. The screen was black.
I grabbed her wrist. I pressed my fingers into her skin, searching for a pulse, for a flutter, for anything.
Nothing.
Silence.
"No," I whispered. I shook her harder. "No. You don't have permission. I didn't give you permission!"
I put my ear to her chest. I expected to hear the mechanical whir of the machine she always wore. The machine I mocked. The machine I threatened to turn off.
Silence.
I pulled back, looking at her face. Her eyes were closed. Her expression was... peaceful. It was the first time I had seen her look peaceful since the day I tore her dress in the penthouse.
She was gone.
The realization didn't hit me like a bullet. It was worse. It felt like the earth had opened up and swallowed the world whole. The colors turned gray. The sound of the rain faded into white noise.
"She's dead, Boss," Lee said softly.
"Liar," I breathed. I stood up, backing away from the box. "She's faking. She's doing this to punish me."
I looked at Sofia. She had gotten out of the car and was standing under a black umbrella, looking at the body with a mixture of disgust and relief.
"Finally," Sofia muttered.
The word was quiet, but it roared in my ears louder than the storm.
*Finally?*
I looked back at Elena. My Elena. My enemy. My obsession.
Dead in a pine box in the mud.
