His Angel's Final Ashes

After Dante rushed off to the clinic with Angelina, I took the annulment papers and drove straight to his headquarters at the Moretti compound.

"Miss Romano, the Don is handling an urgent matter. He can't be disturbed," his Consigliere, Marco Vescovi, said, blocking my path.

Handling an urgent matter?

My gaze drifted to the narrow crack in the heavy oak door.

What drifted from the crack in the door wasn't the voice of a Capo reporting on family business, but the soft, rhythmic beep of a heart monitor.

In what was supposed to be one of the most secure offices in Chicago, the screen wasn't displaying the family's accounts.

It was monitoring Angelina's vital signs in real time.

The man who could orchestrate a bloody turf war without batting an eye was now staring at a medical monitor, his face a mask of raw panic.

How absurd.

I still remembered, early in our marriage, I was delivering documents to him when my finger caught the edge of a bullet casing, drawing a single bead of blood.

The moment Dante saw it, he’d flung the cigar cutter across the room.

"Eliana, I hate imperfection in any form," he had said coldly, his fingers clamping around my wrist. "Clean it up. Don't let me see it again."

From that day on, I wore double-layered gloves even to prune the thorns on my roses.

"Miss Romano..." Marco's voice pulled me from the memory.

I let out a bitter laugh. "It's fine. Just have him sign this when he's free."

Marco nodded, took the document from my hand, and disappeared into the office.

I thought I would have to wait.

Surely he would watch Angelina's heartbeat on the monitor a little longer before sparing me a shred of his attention.

But in less than thirty seconds, the door opened.

Marco handed the document back to me.

Dante's jagged signature was already scrawled on the last page.

He hadn't even looked at the terms.

My fingers clenched the agreement, a suffocating tightness seizing my chest.

Ever since I was fifteen, I knew I would marry Dante.

He was the ruthless king of a dark empire—cold, untouchable, incapable of love.

And I had naively believed that if I were perfect enough, I could be the exception.

It turned out that role had long been reserved for someone else.

Now, with a few strokes of his pen, he had turned all my foolish hopes into a cruel joke.

When I returned to our estate, I ordered the maid to take down the massive portrait symbolizing the union of our two families.

"But...this painting is your favorite. You commissioned the most famous artist in Edevia for it..."

She was right.

I had once seen that painting as proof that I had tamed this cold-blooded man—I had trapped him in a gilded frame and made him my husband.

But I forgot that a leopard never changes its spots.

Dante hadn't changed; he'd just been biding his time.

"Burn it," I said dismissively. "I don't want it to be an eyesore for his new 'angel'."