Dante POV
I told myself I was looking for a contract.
That was the lie I fed my conscience as I unlocked the bottom drawer of the mahogany desk in my study.
It was 3:00 AM. The penthouse was silent, save for the distant, lonely hum of the city far below.
Sofia was asleep in the master bedroom, likely dreaming of a wedding I had just exiled to the mountains.
I slid the drawer open. There was no contract inside.
There was only a small velvet box.
The velvet was worn at the corners, the blue faded to a dull, lifeless gray. It looked like trash. In this room dominated by Italian leather and imported marble, it looked like a mistake.
My hand trembled as I reached for it.
I shouldn't open it. I should toss it into the fireplace and watch it turn to ash, just like the rest of my life seemed to be doing.
Yet, I opened it.
The ring inside was pathetic by Vitiello standards. It was a thin silver band with a diamond chip so small you had to squint to see it shine.
I had bought it with money scrounged from stealing hubcaps when I was twenty. Before I was the Capo. Before I was a monster.
I remembered the day I bought it.
It had been raining.
I had been soaked to the bone, shivering outside the pawn shop, terrified that someone from my father's crew would spot me buying a promise for the maid's ward.
"I'm going to marry you, Elena," I had whispered to the empty air that day.
"We'll go to the mountains. We'll build a cabin. We'll name our kids after stars."
I stared at the ring now, the metal feeling freezing against my skin.
The memories hit me like a physical blow.
Elena laughing as we ran through the sprinklers. Elena bandaging my knuckles after my first kill. Elena looking at me with eyes so full of trust it made my chest ache.
And then came the blood.
My mother's body on the pavement. Elena's confession.
"I did it. I killed her."
The memory turned sour, curdling in my gut like poison. I slammed the box shut.
Why did I keep this? Why did I hoard a token of the woman who destroyed my family?
Because I was weak.
I stood and strode to the window. The reflection staring back at me belonged to a stranger. Dark circles under the eyes. A mouth set in a permanent line of cruelty.
Matteo said she was gone. She had taken the money. She had left.
She was probably laughing at me right now. Living it up on a beach somewhere with my money, happy to be rid of the Vitiello burden.
I felt a surge of rage so hot it scorched my throat.
I walked to the metal trash can in the corner of the room. I held the box over the opening.
Three months.
I gave myself a deadline. The wedding was in a month. The honeymoon would last two weeks. By the time I returned from the mountains, I would be a husband. I would be a father soon after.
I would scrub her from my veins.
I dropped the box.
It hit the bottom of the bin with a hollow thud.
"Goodbye, Elena."
I killed the light and walked out of the study, leaving the only pure thing I had ever owned in the garbage.
