Elena POV
I watched the television screen in the electronics store window, and I felt my heart harden into a piece of cold, jagged glass in my chest.
Dante stood at the podium.
The flashes of the cameras were relentless, a strobe light illuminating his hypocrisy.
"I want to address the rumors," Dante said, his voice smooth, practiced to perfection.
"My former wife, Elena, has struggled with her health for a long time. The pressure of this life... it is not for everyone. Her absence is a matter of recovery."
He looked so sincere.
He looked like the man who used to hold me when I had nightmares, whispering promises he never intended to keep.
"However," he continued, glancing at Sofia who stood demurely by his side, "life must go on. I have a duty to the Vitiello family. Sofia Moretti has been a pillar of strength during this difficult transition."
A pillar of strength.
She wasn't a pillar. She was the rot eating away the foundation.
He was rewriting history while the ink on our annulment papers hadn't even dried.
He was erasing me.
"I love Elena," he said, and the lie tasted like bile in my own throat just hearing it. "But I must honor my commitments."
Commitments.
Like the vow he made to cherish me until death?
I looked at my reflection in the glass.
I looked tired. I looked poor.
But I didn't look broken. Not anymore.
I turned away from the screen.
The press conference was happening at the Vitiello Plaza Hotel. It was only ten blocks away.
I shouldn't go.
I should get on that boat and vanish.
But the rage was a living thing inside me now. It had claws, and it was scratching at my ribcage, demanding to be let out.
I walked.
I didn't run. I walked with the steady rhythm of an executioner.
The security at the hotel recognized me.
They looked confused, seeing the former Mrs. Vitiello in jeans and a hoodie, hesitating between their orders and old habits of respect. They didn't stop me. They were too stunned.
I walked into the ballroom just as Dante was taking questions.
"Mr. Vitiello," a reporter asked. "Is it true your ex-wife has been committed?"
"Dante," I said.
My voice wasn't loud, but it cut through the room like a knife through silk.
The cameras turned.
The silence was instantaneous.
Dante froze.
He looked at me across the sea of reporters. His eyes widened. For a second, just a fraction of a second, I saw shame.
It was there, flickering behind the impenetrable mask of the Underboss.
"Elena," he breathed.
I walked forward. The crowd parted like the Red Sea.
I stopped at the base of the stage.
"Is this your duty, Dante?" I asked. "Lying to the world? You talk about family honor while you stand next to the woman who poisoned my mother."
Gasps rippled through the room.
Dante gripped the podium. His knuckles were white.
"Elena," he said, his voice tight. "You are not well. We can discuss this privately."
"There is no privacy left," I said. "You sold our privacy for a merger with Chicago. You talk about sacrifice. What have you sacrificed, Dante? Because I sacrificed my mother. I sacrificed my dreams. I sacrificed my body."
He flinched.
He knew what I meant. He knew about the scar on my arm that throbbed every time it rained.
"Stop," he whispered. "Please."
He was wavering. I could see it. The cracks were forming.
Then she moved.
Sofia stepped forward.
She looked like a concerned angel in her white dress.
She picked up a bouquet of roses from the table and walked down the steps to me.
"Oh, Elena," she said, her voice dripping with condescending sympathy. "You poor thing. You're hysterical."
She stood between me and Dante.
She blocked my view of him. She blocked his view of me.
"Dante is just trying to protect you," she said loud enough for the microphones to catch. "We all are."
She reached into her designer purse.
She pulled out a checkbook.
She scribbled something quickly, tore it out, and held it towards me.
"Here," she said. "I know you're struggling. The apartment... it must be awful. Take this. Go somewhere warm. Get the help you need."
I looked at the check.
Fifty thousand dollars.
She was buying my silence. She was buying my dignity.
She was treating me like a beggar in front of the entire city.
"You think this fixes it?" I asked softly.
"I think it's more than you deserve," she whispered, her eyes flashing with that familiar malice. "Take it and leave, or I'll have security drag you out."
I looked up at Dante.
He was watching. He wasn't moving.
He was letting her do this.
He was letting his mistress pay off his wife.
I took the check.
Sofia smiled, a victorious curl of her red lips.
I ripped the check in half.
Then in half again.
I threw the confetti of paper into her face.
"I don't want your money, Sofia," I said, my voice shaking with the force of my hatred. "I don't want your pity. And Dante?"
I looked past her, locking eyes with him.
"Your 'family honor' is a joke. You're not a king. You're just a man standing in the wreckage of the only person who ever truly loved you."
I turned around.
"Security!" Sofia cried out, clutching her chest, playing the victim perfectly. "She's dangerous! Get her out!"
I didn't wait for them to touch me.
I walked out the way I came.
I left them with the cameras and the lies.
But I felt lighter.
Because now, the world knew I wasn't crazy.
They knew I was angry.
