Escaping The Cage: I Married His Worst Enemy

Dante POV

The screen of the burner phone went black.

Silence rushed back into the morgue, heavy and suffocating. It pressed against my eardrums, tasting of ash and formaldehyde.

I stared at the device in my hand. My reflection was distorted in the dark glass—I looked like a man who had been hollowed out, gutted by his own hand.

She hated me.

The realization did not pierce me like a knife, nor did it burn like fire. It was heavier than that. It was a mountain collapsing on my chest.

Elena hadn't died because of an accident. She did not die because she was weak. She died to get away from me.

I looked at the charred remains on the metal slab. The body was small. Fragile. Just like she had been when I first brought her home at twelve years old.

I remembered the nightlight. I remembered the way her small hand used to clutch my jacket when it thundered.

I remembered the origami cranes she folded for me, thousands of them, promising a love that would outlast the stars.

I had taken that love and fed it to the dogs.

I reached out, my fingers hovering over the sheet covering her. My hand was shaking so hard the fabric rippled.

"I am sorry," I whispered. The words scraped my throat. "I am so sorry, *Tesoro*."

My knees gave out.

I hit the cold tile floor. The impact jarred my spine, but I felt nothing.

I curled forward, pressing my forehead against the metal leg of the table. A sound ripped out of me. It was not a cry. It was a howl. A primal, animal noise that belonged in a slaughterhouse.

My stomach convulsed. Bile and acid surged up my throat. I retched, spitting blood onto the pristine white floor.

My body was rejecting the reality. It was trying to purge the guilt that was poisoning my blood.

I clutched the phone tighter. It was the only piece of her I had left. The only truth I had been given in months.

*You chose her*, Elena had said. *You chose the lie.*

I closed my eyes, but I could still see her face on the screen. Cold. Dead. Resolute.

*If there is a hell, I hope you rot in it alone.*

"I am already there, Elena," I choked out into the silence.

"I am already there."