The Betrayed Princess's New Reign

Elena Moretti POV:

The shrill, agonizing scream pierced the quiet luxury of the Rolls Royce cabin.

Dante's hands froze on my cashmere shawl. His body went completely rigid. The soft, loving warmth in his blue eyes vanished in a fraction of a second, replaced by a terrifying, murderous void.

He recognized that voice.

Dante's hand instantly dropped to the waistband of his trousers, his fingers gripping the cold steel of his gun. He was ready to roll the window down entirely and blow the man's head off in the middle of the street.

I reached out. My calm, steady fingers gently closed over the back of Dante's hand, stopping him.

I slowly turned my head and looked out the narrow gap of the window.

Matteo was pressed against the glass. He was unrecognizable. His face was a swollen mass of purple bruises and dried blood. His clothes were soaked in black grease and mud. He looked like a rotting corpse that had been dragged behind a truck.

When Matteo saw me looking at him, a sickening, desperate light ignited in his eyes. His bloody mouth stretched into a wide, manic smile. He thought his suffering had finally earned my pity. He thought he had found redemption.

Behind him, Luca was clapping his dirty hands, pointing at me and yelling, "Pretty lady! Pretty lady!"

I stared directly into Matteo's eyes.

I didn't glare. I didn't sneer. I didn't feel a single drop of anger, hatred, or even disgust. My heart beat at a perfectly normal rhythm. I looked at him the exact same way I would look at a broken fire hydrant or a discarded plastic bag on the sidewalk.

The true letting go is not hate. It is total, absolute disregard. He had no power over me anymore.

The manic joy in Matteo's eyes shattered.

In that single second of eye contact, he understood. He saw the empty void in my gaze. He realized that he wasn't even a villain in my story anymore. He was simply nothing. He had been entirely erased from my universe.

I calmly turned my head away, facing forward.

"Roll up the window," I said softly to the driver.

The electric motor hummed. The thick bulletproof glass smoothly slid upward, completely severing Matteo's desperate screams from my world. The car didn't stop. It didn't even slow down. The Rolls Royce accelerated smoothly, gliding away into the night.

***

Matteo Vitiello POV:

The glass sealed shut.

My bloody hand slipped off the smooth, wet window. My legs gave out. I crashed onto the asphalt, my prosthetic leg twisting awkwardly beneath me.

A patrol guard sprinted up behind me. He swung a heavy stun baton, smashing it directly into the center of my spine.

Thousands of volts of electricity tore through my nervous system. My body convulsed violently on the wet road. But I didn't feel the physical pain. It was nothing compared to the absolute slaughter of my soul.

I lay paralyzed on my side, watching the red taillights of the Rolls Royce disappear into the darkness.

All the beatings, the severed leg, the ripped teeth, the miles of crawling through the mud—it was all for nothing. I had sacrificed every shred of my humanity just to reach her, and she didn't even care enough to hate me.

Luca squatted down beside my twitching body. He poked my bleeding cheek with a dirty finger, giggling.

A horrific sound clawed its way up my throat. It started as a sob and morphed into a tearing, hysterical laugh. I laughed so hard that thick clots of blood bubbled past my lips and spilled onto the road.

The guards grabbed me by the collar and dragged me backward through the mud, tossing me toward the ditch like a dead dog.

I stared up at the cold, glittering stars of the New York sky.

"I'm dead... I've been dead for a long time."