From Unwanted Wife To Unreachable Queen

The day my guardian, Dante Moretti, announced his engagement was the day I started planning my death. Not a literal one, but the death of the girl who had orbited his world for ten years.

He was the Don of the Moretti family, the man I'd secretly loved since I was a child. But with his new fiancée, Sofia, on his arm, he began to erase me. He even forgot my severe allergy, gifting me a watch that would blister my skin.

He had ripped apart the diary where I confessed my love for him.

"I am your guardian," he'd spat. "Do not ever cross that line again."

Yet one night, drunk and stumbling, he crashed his mouth onto mine, his hands roaming my body as he pushed me against the wall.

He groaned, but the name that escaped his lips wasn't mine.

"Sofia..."

When I screamed my own name—Elara—he shoved me away in horror. He wasn't horrified by his betrayal, but by the fact that he'd kissed the wrong woman.

That was the final straw. I took the acceptance letter to a university in Toronto that I had kept hidden like a prayer. I called my estranged father and booked a one-way ticket. This time, I would burn my old life to the ground and leave nothing but ashes behind.

Chapter 1

Elara POV:

The day Dante Moretti announced his engagement was the day I started planning my death.

Not a literal one, of course. This was the death of Elara Vane, the girl who had orbited his world for ten years.

He was the Don of the Moretti family, my guardian, the man I'd loved since I was a child-and if I didn't run, his new fiancée wouldn't be the only woman he destroyed.

My finger trembled over the mouse, the cursor a blinking executioner above the folder named 'Dante'.

A click. Another. Then, 'Delete'.

A pop-up materialized: Are you sure?

I was.

I watched the progress bar fill, erasing every photo, every file, every digital ghost of the last decade.

The picture of the dragon-shaped night light he'd bought me when I was ten vanished. He'd found me crying in the dark, terrified of the monsters under my bed. He'd plugged it in, and the soft, golden glow had chased the shadows away. He'd been my protector then.

Now, he was the monster.

A hollow ache opened in my chest, a familiar emptiness I'd lived with for a year. I had to get out. Out of the Moretti manor, out of New York, out of his sphere of influence where the very air I breathed felt like it belonged to him.

My phone felt heavy in my hand. I scrolled to a number I hadn't called in years.

Julian Vane. My father.

It rang twice before he picked up.

"Elara?" His voice was hesitant, laced with a surprise that stung.

"Dad," I said, my own voice tight. "I need your help."

"Anything. What is it? Is everything alright?"

I took a breath, the lie forming easily on my tongue. "I've been accepted into the University of Toronto."

It wasn't a complete lie. The acceptance letter was real, a secret I'd kept clutched to my chest like a prayer. It was my only escape route.

"I want to go," I said, the words coming out stronger than I felt. "I want to leave New York."

There was a pause on the other end, then a wave of warmth I hadn't heard from him in a decade. "Of course. Elara, of course. I'll handle everything. Tuition, a place to live... anything you need. It's time. It's past time." He sounded choked up, his voice thick with the unshed tears of a decade's worth of guilt.

"Dante is engaged," I added, offering him a socially acceptable reason, a shield for my broken heart. "To Sofia Gallo. It's... it's not appropriate for me to stay here anymore. It's time for me to have my own life."

"That bastard," Julian muttered, the sound raw with a father's protective anger. "What has he done to you all these years?"

The pity in his voice was like gasoline on the fire of my resolve. I didn't need pity. I needed to burn the old me to the ground.

After the call, I walked into my bathroom and stared at the girl in the mirror.

Her long, dark hair cascaded to her waist, just the way Dante liked it. He'd once told me he loved the feel of it, a silken curtain he could hide behind.

I picked up the scissors from the counter.

Snip. Snip. Snip.

Thick locks of hair fell into the sink, piling up like dead things. When I was done, it was short, choppy, brushing my chin.

I didn't recognize the person staring back at me.

Good.

I found a pack of cigarettes tucked away in a drawer, a relic from a rebellious phase I'd never had. My hands shook as I lit the first one, the smoke scratching my throat. I coughed, but I took another drag, holding it in until my lungs burned.

This was a ritual. An exorcism.

I was carving Dante Moretti out of my very soul, an exorcism that hurt more than I could have ever imagined.

With the acceptance letter clutched in my hand, I walked towards his office at the end of the hall. The door was slightly ajar.

I saw his back, a powerful silhouette against the floor-to-ceiling window overlooking the estate. He was on the phone, his body tense with the weight of being the Don.

My guardian. My brother, he used to say. A role I had so foolishly, so desperately, misread.

His phone rang-a different tone from his usual business calls. He answered it, and his entire posture softened.

"Sofia," he said, and the name was a caress. A sound so gentle, so full of warmth, I had never heard him use with anyone. Certainly not with me.

I froze, hidden by the doorway.

"Yes, the caterer confirmed," he was saying. "Just the way you like it... No, don't worry about a thing. It's our engagement party. All you have to do is show up and look beautiful."

The words were a physical blow, knocking the air from my lungs.

My mind flashed back to my seventeenth birthday. I'd spent weeks pouring my heart into a leather-bound diary, filling it with every secret hope, every whispered declaration of love for him. I'd given it to him, my hands trembling.

He'd read a single page before his expression shuttered, turning to granite. The fury in his eyes was a storm I'd never seen before. He'd ripped the diary in half, then again, the sound of tearing paper a perfect echo of my own heart breaking.

"What is this nonsense, Elara?" he'd spat, his voice laced with ice. "I am your guardian. The Don of this family. I took you in when your father abandoned you. Is this how you repay me? With this... childish infatuation?"

He'd thrown the shredded pages at my feet. "Do not ever confuse my protection with something else. Don't ever cross that line again."

The memory dissolved, leaving the sharp edges of the present in its place.

A few weeks ago, he had brought Sofia here, to the manor. He'd stood before me, his hand resting possessively on her waist.

"Elara, this is Sofia Gallo. My fiancée. You will call her sister."

Sister.

The word was a brand, marking the absolute end of any hope I'd harbored. The love I thought was growing between us was just his control, his ownership. I was his ward, his project, his pretty little bird in a gilded cage.

I stood outside his office, listening to him murmur sweet nothings to the woman who would be his wife.

The pain inside me had burned past inferno and cooled into something far more dangerous: resolve.

Fine.

I would be the one to burn it all down.

I looked down at the acceptance letter in my hand, my knuckles white. When I lifted my gaze, the heartbreak was gone. In its place was a chilling stillness, a reflection of the cold, hard decision that had finally taken root.

I would extinguish this flame myself, and I would leave nothing but ashes behind.