Dante POV
Three weeks.
It had been three weeks since the stabbing.
Three weeks of suffocating silence.
I had put my best men on it.
I had hired private investigators capable of tracking a ghost through a storm, men who could find a single drop of water in the ocean.
Nothing.
No credit card activity. No flight manifest matches. No ping from a phone signal.
Elena Greco had simply vanished into thin air.
I sat in my study, my gaze fixed on the empty rectangular void on the wall where her painting used to hang.
It had been a dark, abstract piece she had painted during our first year of marriage. Back then, I had told her it was depressing.
Now, the pristine white square where it used to reside was the most depressing thing I had ever seen. It looked like a scar.
"Dante?"
Sofia walked in without knocking.
She was wearing a silk robe. *Elena's* silk robe.
My fingers gripped the edge of my mahogany desk until the knuckles turned white.
"Take that off," I said.
"What?" She looked down at herself, feigning innocence. "Oh, I found it in the discard pile the maids were making. It’s high-quality silk. Why waste it?"
"Take. It. Off."
My voice was low, a dangerous growl vibrating with a rage I could barely control.
Sofia flinched, the playfulness vanishing from her eyes. "Okay, fine! You don't have to be such a bastard about it."
She stripped the robe off and let it pool on the floor, standing there in nothing but her lingerie.
She expected me to look. To want her.
I didn't even blink. My eyes dropped to the crumpled blue silk on the floor—a desecrated flag.
"Get out," I said.
"Dante, what is wrong with you?" she cried, her voice rising in frustration. "She's gone! You won! We won! Why are you acting like a grieving widower?"
"I said get out!"
She stormed out, slamming the door hard enough to rattle the windows.
I reached for the bottle of scotch on my desk.
It was 11:00 AM. I didn't give a damn.
I poured a glass and downed it in one swallow. The burn distracted me, momentarily, from the hollow ache expanding in my chest.
Slowly, I opened the top drawer of my desk.
There was one thing she hadn't taken.
A letter.
It wasn't even sealed.
It was just a piece of stationery folded in half, left tucked beneath the velvet ring box.
I unfolded it for the hundredth time, the paper growing soft under my touch.
"*Dante,*"
"*I used to think love was a war. I thought if I fought hard enough, bled enough, you would eventually surrender and see me.*"
"*I was wrong.*"
"*Love isn't a war. It's a choice.*"
"*And you never chose me.*"
"*I wish you happiness with her. I really do. Because if you aren't happy after everything I lost for you, then it was all for nothing.*"
"*Don't look for me.*"
"*Elena.*"
No hate. No curses hurled at my name.
Just indifference.
She was done fighting.
I crushed the paper in my fist, the sound crisp in the quiet room.
I walked to the window and looked down at the terrace garden.
Elena had spent hours there. She had cultivated white roses, pruning them with her own hands.
Now, the garden was a ruin.
Yesterday, Sofia had hired a landscaper to rip out the roses.
"They're too thorny," she had complained, wrinkling her nose. "I want tulips. Pink tulips."
I watched the workers digging up the rosebushes, the roots tearing from the earth.
I saw a flash of white petals being tossed carelessly into a black garbage bag.
Something inside me snapped.
I grabbed the bottle of scotch and hurled it at the window.
The glass shattered with a deafening crash.
The bottle sailed through the broken pane and exploded against the terrace railing below.
The workers looked up, terrified, freezing in place.
I sank into my leather chair and buried my head in my hands.
The penthouse was full of people. Sofia, the maids, the guards.
But it had never felt so empty.
I closed my eyes, and all I could see was Elena's back as she walked out of the hospital.
And all I could hear was the silence she left behind.
It was louder than any scream.
