Elena Rossi POV
The champagne had barely settled in my stomach when the first shot rang out.
Glass shattered.
Screams erupted.
A drive-by. A rival family sending a message.
The bullets tore through the front window of the restaurant, shredding the velvet curtains into ribbons.
"Get down!" Dante roared.
High above, I saw the massive crystal chandelier sway violently. A stray bullet had severed the main cable.
It was falling.
Directly over the table.
Time slowed down, stretching into an agonizing eternity.
I looked at Dante.
He looked at me.
His eyes locked with mine for a fraction of a second.
Then, he looked at Mia.
He didn't hesitate.
He dove across the table, tackling Mia to the floor, covering her body with his own.
He shielded her.
Then gravity took over.
The chandelier crashed down.
Metal slammed into my legs with bone-crushing force. Crystal shards sliced through the silk of my dress, biting deep into my skin.
The weight was crushing.
Dust and debris filled the air, choking the screams around me.
"Clear! Sector clear!" Mark, the head of security, shouted somewhere in the haze.
Dante scrambled up from the floor. He was covered in dust, but unhurt.
"Mia!" he yelled, his voice cracking. "Are you hit?"
Mia was curled in a ball, wailing. "My finger! I cut my finger!"
A tiny paper cut from a piece of glass.
Dante scooped her up, his face pale with a terror he had never shown for me. "Medic! Get the medic for the girl!"
I tried to move.
A jagged piece of metal was pinned across my shin. Blood was soaking the carpet beneath me, turning the beige wool crimson.
"Dante," I choked out.
He didn't hear me.
He was already running toward the back exit, carrying Mia like she was made of fragile porcelain.
He stepped right over the pool of my blood.
"Get her to the safe house!" he ordered his men, ignoring the wife buried under the rubble.
Mark pulled the metal off me. His face was grim.
"Mrs. Vitiello," he said, his voice low and laced with pity. "Can you walk?"
"I can walk," I lied.
I dragged myself up. My legs screamed in protest, shaking violently.
I refused the ambulance. I took a cab to the hospital.
While the doctor stitched the gash in my calf, my phone buzzed against the plastic bedside table.
A text from Dante.
*Mia is in shock. I'm staying with her tonight. Handle yourself.*
I stared at the screen until the pixels blurred.
Numbly, I opened Instagram.
Mia had posted a story ten minutes ago.
A selfie from a hospital bed. She looked perfectly fine, pouting at the camera.
Caption: *My hero saved me. <3*
But it wasn't the caption that made my blood turn to ice.
It was what she was wearing around her neck.
Green jade beads. An antique silver crucifix.
My father's rosary.
The one Dante had sworn to keep safe in the family vault while my father was in treatment.
The one my grandmother had smuggled out of Italy during the war.
He gave it to her.
He gave a whore my dying father's most sacred possession to wear as a fashion accessory.
I didn't scream. I didn't cry.
I stood up, ripping the IV out of my arm.
Blood dripped onto the linoleum.
I didn't care.
I was done bleeding for him.
Now, I was going to take back what was mine.
