Chapter 2

Elara POV:

The bedroom wasn't just a mess; it was the aftermath. Clothes were strewn across the floor like fallen soldiers, champagne glasses sat half-empty on the nightstand, and the sheets were a battlefield of tangled linen. This room, once our sanctuary, was now a crime scene. A monument to his betrayal. But the wreckage in my chest was worse.

I walked through the penthouse like a ghost, pulling open closets and drawers. Everything that was mine-my clothes, my books, my art supplies-was gone. He had erased me. He had never intended for me to come back.

As I stepped out of the building and onto the rain-slicked street, a sleek black sedan screeched to a halt directly in my path. The driver's window slid down, revealing a woman of chilling beauty, her dark eyes cold and assessing. A face I knew from the society pages. Isabella Moretti.

She offered a slow, deliberate smile. Then her foot slammed the accelerator.

I woke to the sterile sting of antiseptic and the low murmur of voices. My leg throbbed with a dull, persistent ache.

"...just superficial, Bella. Don't cry. It was an accident." It was Dante's voice, low and soothing.

I pushed myself up, my head swimming. The movement caught his attention. He was by my side in an instant, his relief so fleeting it was swallowed by a mask of cold fury.

"Why did you come back without my permission?" he demanded, his grip on my arm a punishing brand.

The question felt like a slap. "Who is she?" I choked out, nodding toward the woman performing a delicate sob in the corner.

Isabella stepped forward, dabbing at her perfectly dry eyes with a silk handkerchief. "I'm Isabella Moretti," she said, her voice dripping with condescending sweetness as she looked me over like a piece of trash the wind blew in. "Dante's wife. It's a pleasure to finally meet you, little sister."

"Call the police," I said, my voice trembling with a rage that barely held me together. "She hit me. She did it on purpose."

"Enough," Dante's voice was a low growl. He shot me a look that promised consequences. "This is a Family matter. We don't involve outsiders. Are you hysterical? Is your 'condition' clouding your judgment again?"

He then gently escorted his weeping wife from the room, promising to take her home. He left me there, alone in the sterile white room, the throbbing in my leg a faint echo of the gaping hollow in my chest.

He came back the next evening. He was carrying a box of my favorite pastries from a small bakery across town, but it wasn't the peace offering that caught my attention. It was the exhaustion etched around his eyes, a weariness that went deeper than a lack of sleep.

"I need you to understand, Elara," he said, his voice softer now, almost pleading. "This marriage is a political alliance. A contract to secure a truce. Once she gives me an heir to solidify it, it's over. Then I'm yours. I've always been yours."

He was trying to put me back in my box, the cherished possession to be taken out and admired at his convenience.

His phone buzzed. He glanced at the screen, his expression hardening back into the man I didn't recognize. "I have to go. Urgent Family business." He kissed my forehead, a gesture that felt practiced and hollow. "I'll be back later."

But from my hospital window, I saw exactly where his urgent business took him. To the VIP suite on the floor above mine. I watched as he stepped into the room and wrapped his arms around Isabella, who was putting on a convincing performance of distress.

I watched him hold her, stroking her hair. I saw his lips form the words, "I'm here."

That's when the whispers from the nurses down the hall finally reached me, sharp and clinical. Mrs. Moretti had suffered a "miscarriage" from the shock of the accident.