He Chose The Mistress, I Took Everything

Elena Vitiello POV:

I typed the password in.

The screen flashed green.

Access Granted.

My breath hitched painfully in my throat.

Folders appeared on the screen.

They weren't financial records.

They weren't even hit lists.

They were photos.

Hundreds of them.

Sofia Ricci.

The daughter of our sworn rival.

Sofia laughing at a café.

Sofia walking her dog.

Sofia sleeping in a bed that looked suspiciously like the one in Dante's private safe house.

I clicked on a document titled Castle in the Sky.

It was a collection of letters.

Drafts he had never sent, or maybe copies of ones he had.

Elena is a good soldier, Sofia. She keeps the books clean. But she is made of cold marble. You are the fire.

I read the next line, my vision blurring.

Once the Port is operational, I will have enough leverage to buy my way out. We can go to Tuscany. I will leave the Life. I will leave her.

The air was sucked out of the room.

I wasn't his wife.

I was his bank manager.

I was the placeholder keeping his bed warm and his money laundered until he could afford to run away with his true love.

The sound of the door handle turning cracked through the silence like a gunshot.

I ripped the drive out of the port just as Dante walked in.

He was wearing his tuxedo, the bowtie undone, hanging loose around his neck.

He looked devastatingly handsome.

He looked like the devil wrapped in custom tailoring.

His eyes landed on the laptop, then on my clenched fist.

"Elena," he said.

His voice was a low rumble, the sound of a luxury car idling.

"You aren't dressed."

I stood up, my legs feeling like they were made of lead.

"Who is she, Dante?"

I didn't scream.

I didn't cry.

I asked it with the same flat, bureaucratic tone I used when discussing zoning permits.

Dante's face didn't change.

He didn't look guilty.

He looked annoyed.

He walked over to the minibar and poured himself a drink.

"You are hysterical," he said. "It is your anniversary. Go put on the red dress."

"I saw the drive," I said.

He froze.

The glass stopped halfway to his mouth.

He turned slowly.

The indifference in his eyes was instantly replaced by something darker.

It was the look of a predator recognizing a threat.

"Give it to me," he said.

He held out his hand.

It was a command, not a request.

"You promised to leave the Life for her," I said, my voice trembling now. "You are using my project, my designs, to fund your escape with a Ricci."

Dante stepped forward.

He closed the distance between us in two long strides.

He grabbed my wrist.

His grip was iron.

He pried my fingers open with bruising force and took the drive.

He didn't even look at it.

He simply dropped it into his glass of scotch.

The liquid hissed.

"There is no escape, Elena," he said, looking down at me. "There is only the Family. And you are part of the Family."

"I am your wife," I whispered.

"You are a Vitiello," he corrected. "You know the code. You do not ask questions you do not want the answers to."

He took a sip of the scotch, the ruined drive clinking mockingly against the ice.

"Now go upstairs," he said. "Fix your face. We have a dinner reservation."

He turned his back on me.

He dismissed me like a servant who had broken a plate.

I looked at his broad shoulders, the muscles shifting under the expensive fabric.

I realized then that the man I loved didn't exist.

He was a facade.

And I was done building structures for other people to live in.