The Don's Torn Diary

Twelve years ago, a street firefight erupted, targeting Dante Falcone.

Isabella, his obsessive admirer, pushed me into the line of fire.

Dante took a bullet for me and knelt in a pool of his own blood.

He swore he’d spend his life loving me, that he’d never let me be hurt again.

Twelve years later, I saw Dante with that same woman.

He gently promised Isabella that the child she was carrying would be the Falcone family's sole heir.

Overcome with grief and rage, I trashed his entire study.

In the chaos, I stumbled upon his teenage diary.

I furiously wrote: "Dante! I hate you!"

On the page, ink bled into a sentence: "Who are you? I don't care who hates me, as long as it's not Elara."

For a moment, shock eclipsed fear.

Stroke by stroke, I wrote: "I am Elara."

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1

"You're Elara?"

"Impossible. You can't be her."

"Elara would never hate me. I haven't done anything to hurt her."

The three sentences, appearing out of thin air, were so jarring that the diary slipped from my grasp.

I fought for breath, trying to force a semblance of calm over the chaos in my mind.

My hand trembling, I picked up the diary and wrote, "Is this your diary? Who are you?"

A line of text quickly appeared on the page: "I'm Dante Falcone."

The hand holding the pen trembled uncontrollably.

My heart hammered against my ribs.

Could it be? Was the person on the other side the eighteen-year-old Dante?

"Who are you really? What right do you have to claim Elara hates me?" he pressed, the words sharp on the page.

I picked up the pen and quickly wrote, "I'm the thirty-year-old Elara."

"Twelve years from now, you will betray me. So stay away from me."

"Impossible!!!"

His handwriting was a wild scrawl, the ink seeming to leap off the page in defiance.

"If you are Elara, then you should know how willing I am to die for you!"

Distant, blurred memories surfaced.

I could imagine the indignation of the eighteen-year-old Dante—the boy who loved me more than his own life—reeling from such an accusation.

The boy who would have torn out his own heart for me without a second thought could never have imagined that one day, he would be the one to push me away.

My eyes reddened, and just as I was about to write more, the study door was thrown open.

The thirty-year-old Dante strode in and went straight to the antique cabinet.

He began rummaging through it without so much as a glance in my direction.

"I'm sure I put it here," he muttered to himself.

At that moment, he finally noticed me and turned his head. "Where did you put the family ring?"

I was speechless for a moment, my throat tightening.

At our wedding, in front of all the family members, he had given me that ring—Mamma’s ring—which symbolized my position as the family's matriarch.

"Elara, from this day forward, you are the matriarch of this family."

At the time, his older brother was furious and stood up to object.

"Dante, are you crazy? An outsider, a woman who can't even give you an heir—what right does she have to wear Mamma’s ring?"

During that firefight twelve years ago, I was hit by a stray bullet, and the doctors said I might be barren for life.

A dead silence fell over the room. Everyone stared at me.

I lowered my head, my face burning with shame, utterly humiliated.

But Dante, at that moment, held my hand tightly and punched his brother.

"Shut your mouth! My choices are not for you to question! No one besides Elara is worthy of this ring!"

As everyone stared, my eyes met Dante's. They were full of affection, and in that moment, I knew I’d chosen the right man.

I thought I had found the strongest fortress in the world.

But now, for another woman, Dante had broken his own vow.

I rose numbly, took the velvet box from the safe, and handed it to him.

Dante snatched it away, opened it, and looked at the ring with its enormous sapphire, nodding in satisfaction.

"With this, I can bless Isabella and my son and keep them safe."

After saying that, he cast a lazy glance at my haggard face. "You have no use for this anyway; you can't produce an heir. I'll buy you something else later."

"We'll celebrate our anniversary later. Isabella needs me more right now."

As an afterthought, he added, "Be sensible, Principessa. No one's trying to take your position as my wife."

I watched his retreating back, a bitter, broken laugh escaping me as tears streamed down my face, my heart aching with sharp, stabbing pains.

I opened the diary again, and a new line of text appeared before my eyes:

"We had a family photo taken today. I was waiting for your reply, so I missed my shot to be in the center with my brothers."

I immediately pulled out an old photo album. His position had indeed changed.

Could it be... that the choices made by the eighteen-year-old Dante could really change everything now?

Before I could process it, another line appeared below: "If you really are Elara, then do you know where my family tattoo is?"