I Married My Ex-Fiancé's Ruthless Older Brother

Elena Vitiello POV

The air on South Mountain was thin, stripping the moisture from my lungs with every labored breath.

Dante walked ahead of me. He carried the heavy pack with the ease of a soldier, his muscles shifting beneath his shirt in a rhythmic, hypnotic cadence.

For a few hours, the world felt small. It was just the crunch of gravel under our boots and the synchronized sound of our breathing.

It was a dangerous nostalgia.

It made me remember why I had loved him. He wasn't always the Capo who broke promises. He was the boy who used to bandage my scraped knees with gentle hands.

I stepped on a loose rock. My ankle rolled.

The earth tilted violently as gravity claimed me.

"Elena!"

Dante moved faster than thought. He dropped the gear and lunged, his body hitting the dirt to break my fall before I could strike the jagged stones.

We hit the ground hard. I landed on his chest.

He groaned, a sharp, guttural sound that vibrated against my ribs.

"Are you okay?" His hands were instantly in my hair, checking for blood. His eyes were wide, frantic.

"I'm fine," I whispered. I looked down. His pant leg was torn. Blood was seeping through the denim, staining it black in the twilight. "Your knee."

"It's fine," he gritted out, sitting up. He didn't let go of me.

For a second, we were just us. The history between us hung heavy in the air, a ghost that refused to be exorcised.

He looked at my lips.

I pulled away. I stood up, brushing the dirt from my clothes to hide the tremor in my hands.

"We should go back," I said. "You're bleeding."

"No." Dante stood up, testing his weight. He winced but forced a smile. "I promised you the meteor shower. We're staying."

We set up camp at the summit. The wind whipped at the nylon tent.

The meteors came. Streaks of white fire tearing through the black canvas of the sky.

Dante lay on his back, staring up.

"Make a wish, El," he whispered.

I didn't close my eyes. I stared at the dying stars.

I didn't wish for him anymore. I didn't wish for love.

I wished for the strength to burn everything down to ash.

I fell asleep to the sound of his breathing. It used to be my lullaby. Now it was just noise.

When I woke up, the sleeping bag next to me was cold.

I crawled out of the tent. The sun was bleeding over the horizon, painting the rocks in shades of bruised purple.

Dante wasn't at the campsite.

I heard a voice. Feverish. Loud.

I followed the sound to the cliff edge, where the famous "Lovers' Tree" stood. A chain-link fence wrapped around an old oak, covered in thousands of rusting padlocks.

Dante was there. He was holding his phone up, FaceTime active.

"See?" he said, his voice triumphant. "I told you, baby. It's right here."

He zoomed in on a rusted brass lock. Dante & Sofia Forever.

My stomach dropped. It felt like I had swallowed a stone.

"Oh my god!" Sofia's voice came through tinny and shrill. "I remember! We threw the key off the cliff!"

"Yeah," Dante laughed. He looked relieved. Desperate. "We did. Nothing can break this lock, Sofia. Nothing."

He hadn't climbed the mountain to apologize to me.

He hadn't taken the hit to his knee to keep a promise to me.

He needed to verify a memory for her. He needed to prove his devotion to the ghost he was trying to resurrect.

I was just the excuse. I was the chaperone for his trip down memory lane.

He turned around, still smiling at the screen. Then he saw me.

The smile died.

"I have to go, Sof," he muttered, hanging up.

He shoved the phone in his pocket. He looked guilty. Like a child caught with his hand in the jar.

"She called," he said. "She was panicking."

"You brought me here to find the lock," I said. It wasn't a question.

"No." He stepped toward me. "Elena, don't be like that. The trip was for us. The lock was just... since we were here..."

"I'm going down," I said.

"Wait." He reached for me. "Let me pack the tent. My knee is stiff, I need a minute."

"Pack it yourself," I said.

I turned my back on him.

I walked down the mountain alone.

Every step sent a jolt of pain through my rolled ankle, but I didn't stop. The physical pain was a grounding distraction.

I didn't wait for him at the trailhead. I called a car.

I texted Matteo.

I'm sick.

I turned off my phone.

I didn't want to hear Dante's excuses. I didn't want to hear him tell me that he loved me while he was building shrines to another woman.

He came home four hours later.

He didn't check on me. He assumed I was sulking.

I lay in bed and listened to him whistling in the shower.

He was happy. He had secured his past.

He didn't realize he had just lost his future.