The Scapegoat Fiancée: I Am No Substitute

Dante POV

Marco moved past me, his stride heavy with a decision that had clearly been festering for a long time. He stopped and looked at his daughter. The Golden Child.

But there was no gold left in his gaze-only the dull, flat look of a man cutting off a gangrenous limb.

"You are done," Marco said.

"Daddy?" Chiara blinked, the rage in her eyes dissolving into a fragile, childlike confusion. "What do you mean?"

"You are not a Salinas," Marco said. His voice was flat. Dead. "You are a cancer. And tonight, I cut you out."

"You can't do that!" she screamed, her voice cracking. "I am your heir! I am the future!"

"You are nothing," Marco said. He pointed to the door with a trembling, final finger. "Get out."

"Dante!" She spun toward me, tears carving tracks through her makeup. "Help me! You love me! You peeled my grapes!"

I looked down at her clinging to my arm, and a wave of nausea rolled through me.

"I peeled your grapes because I thought you were dying," I said, my voice hollow. "I pitied you."

"Pity is love!" she argued, her nails digging into my suit jacket.

"No," I said, prying her fingers off me. "It isn't."

I stepped into her space, looming over her until she was forced to look up into my eyes. I leaned in close, dropping my voice to a lethal whisper so she could hear the monster I had become.

"You stole seven years from her," I said. "You stole my life. You destroyed the only thing I ever loved."

She froze. "You never loved her. You chose me. Tonight. In the park. You chose me."

The memory hit me like a physical blow-Alessia standing in the candlelight, her heart in her eyes. My back turning on her. The sound of her breaking.

"I made a mistake," I whispered, the words tasting like ash. "My last mistake."

I turned to the guards standing like statues in the hallway.

"Take her," I ordered. "To the sanitarium upstate. The secure unit. The one with the padded walls. She never leaves. She never speaks to anyone. As far as this world is concerned, she ceases to exist."

"No! No! Daddy! Dante!"

The guards grabbed her. She kicked and shrieked, a feral animal realizing the cage door was closing. She dragged her nails across the doorframe, leaving gouges in the wood as they hauled her away.

The screams faded down the hall, swallowed by the size of the house.

Silence returned to the room, heavy and suffocating.

Isabella was on the floor, weeping into her hands. Marco was staring out the window, looking at nothing.

I looked at the shredded photo in Giuliana's hand. Alessia's smiling face, obliterated by hate.

My hands trembling, I pulled out my phone. I dialed Alessia's number.

The silence on the line stretched for an eternity, followed by the three tone chime that signaled the end of my life.

The number you have dialed is not in service.

The phone slipped from my numb fingers. It hit the floor with a sharp crack.

She was gone. And in the silence of that room, I knew she wasn't coming back.