Elena POV
"She attacked me!" Sofia wailed, crawling toward Dante across the soot-stained floor. "I caught her trying to destroy the urn because she hates your grandfather for the marriage! I tried to stop her, and she... she hit me!"
She held up her scratched chest as proof.
It was a pathetic, transparent lie.
My hands were pristine. My nails were manicured and smooth, devoid of skin or blood.
But Dante didn't look at my hands.
He looked at the pile of grey dust that used to be the only father figure he had ever respected.
He looked at the woman he thought was his solace, crying in the dirt.
"You desecrated this house," Dante said, his voice terrifyingly quiet.
Behind him, my father and the other Capos filled the doorway, a wall of judgment.
They were murmuring, a low buzz of condemnation.
Disrespect to the ancestors was a cardinal sin in our world.
"I didn't do it," I said.
My voice was steady, but my heart was hammering against my ribs.
"Liar!" my father shouted from the back, eager to distance himself from my alleged shame. "She's always been a spiteful brat!"
Dante stepped over the ashes, his boots crunching on the remnants of his legacy.
He grabbed me by the throat.
He didn't squeeze enough to kill, just enough to control, to dominate.
He pushed me back until my spine collided with the cold edge of the stone altar.
"Look at what you did," he hissed. "Look at it!"
"I see what she did," I choked out.
Dante released me with a shove of disgust.
"Take Sofia to the infirmary," he ordered his men.
Two soldiers rushed in and helped Sofia up.
She shot me a look of pure malice over her shoulder as she limped out, sobbing with practiced theatricality.
"Dante," Enzo, his best friend and Second-in-Command, stepped forward. "Maybe we should check the..."
"Check what?" Dante snapped. "The urn is in pieces, Enzo. My grandfather is on the floor."
He turned back to me.
"You wanted a separation?" he asked. "You wanted to act like you don't belong to this family?"
"I didn't do this," I repeated.
"Silence!" he shouted. The sound bounced off the stone walls.
He unbuckled his belt.
The heavy leather slid through the loops with a lethal hiss.
The room went deathly silent.
Corporal punishment wasn't uncommon for soldiers who failed.
But for a wife?
It was unheard of.
It was the ultimate humiliation.
"Turn around," he ordered.
I looked at him.
I looked for the boy I had saved from the frozen lake.
I looked for the man I had loved since I was twelve.
He wasn't there.
Only the Don remained.
"Dante, don't," Enzo said, stepping closer. "This is too far."
"She needs to learn respect," Dante said. "Turn around, Elena. Or I will have the guards hold you down."
I wouldn't give him the satisfaction of struggling.
I turned around.
I placed my hands on the cold stone of the altar.
I stared at the stained glass window above.
I bit the inside of my cheek until I tasted copper.
*Crack.*
The belt slashed across my back.
It felt like a line of fire being drawn across my skin.
My body jerked forward, but I didn't make a sound.
*Crack.*
The second lash was harder.
It tore through the silk of my dress.
I felt the skin break.
"Beg," Dante growled. "Apologize to the family."
I said nothing.
I focused on the pain.
I let the pain burn away the last remnants of my hope.
Every strike was a memory dying, severed from my heart.
*Crack.*
The time I gave him my blood. *Gone.*
*Crack.*
The time I took the knife for him. *Gone.*
*Crack.*
The wedding vows. *Gone.*
I counted to ten.
My knees gave out.
I slumped against the altar, sliding down to the floor.
My back was wet and sticky.
The room was spinning.
Dante stopped.
He was breathing hard, his chest heaving with exerted rage.
He dropped the belt. It landed in the ashes, kicking up a small cloud of grey.
"Get her out of here," he said to the guards. "Lock her in her room. No doctor until morning. Let her think about what she did."
He turned and walked out of the chapel without looking back.
Two guards grabbed my arms.
They dragged me through the ashes.
My shoes left two long trails in the grey dust, marking the path of my ruin.
I didn't pass out.
I wished I had.
Instead, I felt every step, every bump, every moment of the shame burning into my soul.
They threw me onto the bed in the guest room and locked the door.
I lay there in the dark.
I didn't cry.
Tears were for people who had hope.
I had nothing but the fire branding my back and the ice encasing my heart.
