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The heavy steel door of the industrial meat locker slammed shut, sealing me in at four degrees below zero. Ten minutes ago, I was the woman Dante Moretti promised to burn the world for. Now, I was the rat accused of poisoning his heir. Dante didn't just lock me in. He looked at me with eyes devoid of warmth and said, "Evidence says otherwise." He chose the lie of his arranged wife, Sofia, over my truth. For months, I endured the price of loving the Underboss. I watched him marry Sofia in a grand ceremony to secure a family alliance. I let him force me onto a table to drain my blood to save her life when she was injured. I took twenty lashes from his family's enforcers, all while he stood by and watched, claiming it was necessary to "protect" me. He told me to wait. He told me the marriage was a sham. But when I finally escaped and he came chasing after me, revealing that Sofia was a fraud and he wanted me back, I didn't feel relief. I felt nothing. Even after he threw his body over mine to save me from a collapsing building, taking a jagged shard of timber through his chest, I couldn't forgive him. In the hospital, his mother handed me his journal. It was filled with entries about his undying love for me, written on the very same days he allowed me to be tortured. "Tell him the debt is paid," I told his mother as I handed the book back. "He saved my life. I saved his child. We are even." I turned my back on the ICU and walked out into the rain. Dante Moretti might have been willing to die for me, but he never knew how to live for me.
Contents
Chapter 1
The heavy steel door of the industrial meat locker slammed shut, sealing me in at four degrees below zero.
Ten minutes ago, I was the woman Dante Moretti promised to burn the world for.
Now, I was the rat accused of poisoning his heir.
Dante didn't just lock me in. He looked at me with eyes devoid of warmth and said, "Evidence says otherwise."
He chose the lie of his arranged wife, Sofia, over my truth.
For months, I endured the price of loving the Underboss.
I watched him marry Sofia in a grand ceremony to secure a family alliance.
I let him force me onto a table to drain my blood to save her life when she was injured.
I took twenty lashes from his family's enforcers, all while he stood by and watched, claiming it was necessary to "protect" me.
He told me to wait. He told me the marriage was a sham.
But when I finally escaped and he came chasing after me, revealing that Sofia was a fraud and he wanted me back, I didn't feel relief.
I felt nothing.
Even after he threw his body over mine to save me from a collapsing building, taking a jagged shard of timber through his chest, I couldn't forgive him.
In the hospital, his mother handed me his journal.
It was filled with entries about his undying love for me, written on the very same days he allowed me to be tortured.
"Tell him the debt is paid," I told his mother as I handed the book back.
"He saved my life. I saved his child. We are even."
I turned my back on the ICU and walked out into the rain.
Dante Moretti might have been willing to die for me, but he never knew how to live for me.
Chapter 1
The heavy steel door of the industrial meat locker slammed shut, sealing me in with the hanging carcasses of cattle.
But the mechanical click of the lock hurt less than the look in Dante Moretti's eyes just before the darkness swallowed me.
Ten minutes ago, I was the woman he'd promised to burn the world for.
Now, I was the rat accused of poisoning his heir.
My breath formed plumes of crystallized ice in the air, the temperature hovering dangerously at four degrees below zero.
I wrapped my arms around my shivering body, the thin silk dress I had worn for the christening offering no protection against the biting cold of the Moretti family's favorite torture chamber.
This was the price of loving the Underboss of the New York outfit.
Dante Moretti wasn't just a man.
He was a force of nature, a predator in a bespoke Italian suit who ruled the city's underworld with a blood-soaked fist.
Three years ago, he had knelt on cobblestones for three days, taking the Discipline from his father's enforcers just to keep me-a fishmonger's daughter-by his side.
He had sworn that the arranged marriage to Sofia Genovese was nothing but ink on paper, a strategic alliance to end a decade-long war.
He promised me her bed would remain cold.
He promised me he would never touch her.
But promises in this world are cheaper than the bullets they use to enforce them.
The heavy latch on the door groaned, and a sliver of harsh, artificial light cut through the dark.
Dante stepped in.
He didn't rush to warm me.
He didn't pull me into the chest that I used to fall asleep on.
He stood there, his face a mask of cold marble, looking at me like I was a stranger who had trespassed on holy ground.
"Did you touch him, Elena?"
His voice was devoid of the warmth that used to whisper my name in the dark. It was a flat line.
I shivered, my teeth chattering so hard I could barely form words.
"I would never hurt a child, Dante. You know me."
"Evidence says otherwise," he said, his tone lethal.
He stepped closer, looming over me, the scent of his expensive cologne mixing nauseatingly with the metallic smell of frozen blood.
"Sofia says you handed him the bottle. Now my son is heaving blood."
"Your son," I whispered, the words tasting like ash.
The son that wasn't supposed to exist.
The son born from the marriage that was supposed to be a sham.
He had broken every vow he made to me to create that child, and now he was breaking me to protect it.
"Tell me the truth," he demanded, grabbing my chin with a grip that bruised.
"The truth is that you are a liar," I said, staring into the dark eyes I once adored.
His jaw tightened, a muscle feathering dangerously in his cheek.
He released me with a shove that sent me stumbling back against a frozen side of beef.
"Stay here until you remember your place."
He turned his back on me.
The door slammed again.
I didn't scream this time.
I slid down the cold wall, the frost biting into my skin, and I realized that the Dante I loved had died the moment he signed that marriage contract.
I waited for an hour, or maybe a lifetime, until the door opened again.
It wasn't Dante.
It was Don Lorenzo's guards.
They dragged me out, my limbs stiff and unresponsive, and threw me onto the concrete floor of the warehouse office.
Don Lorenzo sat behind his desk, looking at me with the same disdain one would reserve for a stain on a rug.
"You are a distraction, Elena," the Don said, lighting a cigar.
"My son is weak when you are near."
I pulled myself up to my knees, my body screaming in pain.
"Then let me go," I said, my voice hoarse.
"Let me leave New York. Let me leave him."
The Don raised an eyebrow, surprised by my surrender.
He expected me to beg for Dante.
He didn't realize I was begging for myself.
"Two weeks," the Don said, exhaling a cloud of smoke.
"We will arrange your exit. You will disappear, and Dante will forget he ever lowered himself to love a fish girl."
I nodded, accepting my exile.
I was walked back to the estate, not as a guest, but as a prisoner.
I entered the main living room and saw them.
Dante was sitting on the velvet sofa, holding his daughter, while Sofia leaned against his shoulder, looking at him with adoring eyes.
It was a picture of domestic perfection.
It was a picture that cut deeper than the cold in the freezer.
Sofia looked up and saw me, a smirk playing on her lips.
She stood up, handing the baby to a nanny, and walked over to me.
She raised her wrist, flaunting the emerald bracelet that had belonged to my mother.
Dante had given it to her.
He had given my mother's heirloom, the only thing I had left of her, to the woman he swore meant nothing.
"That is mine," I said, my voice trembling with rage.
Sofia laughed, a cruel, tinkling sound.
"Possession is nine-tenths of the law, fish girl."
I reached for her wrist, desperate to reclaim the last piece of my dignity.
Sofia shrieked, stumbling back as if I had struck her.
Dante was there in an instant.
He didn't ask what happened.
He didn't look at the tears in my eyes.
He saw his wife stumbling, and he reacted.
He shoved me.
Hard.
I flew backward, my head cracking against the sharp edge of the marble fireplace.
Pain exploded in my skull, and the world tilted sideways.
Warm blood trickled down my neck.
Dante didn't check on me.
He scooped Sofia up in his arms, cooing at her, asking if she was hurt.
He walked out of the room, carrying her, stepping over my legs as if I were nothing more than debris.
I lay on the floor, watching his retreating back, and I knew the truth.
The man who promised to protect me from the world had just become the thing I needed protection from.
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