Chapter 3

Elara POV:

Sleep was a luxury I couldn't afford.

The sounds from Dante's bedroom next door-a soft murmur of voices, a low laugh from Sofia-were a constant, torturous reminder of my new reality.

I slipped out of my room and onto the balcony, the cold night air a welcome shock to my system. I lit my second-ever cigarette, the acrid smoke a punishment and a release. The tiny orange ember glowed in the dark, a solitary star in my private universe of pain.

The sun was just beginning to bleed purple and pink into the sky when I saw her. Sofia emerged from Dante's bedroom, wrapped in one of his silk robes, a radiant, satisfied smile on her face.

She looked like the cat that got the cream.

I, on the other hand, looked like something the cat had dragged in-hollow-eyed and exhausted.

"Oh, Elara, you're up early," she chirped, her happiness a sharp sting.

She leaned against the railing beside me, stretching luxuriously. "I was just asking Dante what he wants to do for his birthday party. He's impossible to pin down. Do you think he'd prefer the beach house or something more formal?"

A memory, sharp and unwelcome, pierced through my exhaustion. A rainy afternoon years ago, huddled under an umbrella with Dante.

"Our birthdays," he'd said, his voice a low rumble against my ear, "will always be celebrated at the beach house. Just the two of us."

Just the two of us.

The words echoed in the hollow space where my heart should have been.

Before I could answer Sofia, he was there. Dante, dressed in a sharp suit, his eyes only for his fiancée. He placed a kiss on her temple, his hand possessively on her waist. He didn't even acknowledge me.

"I need to leave," I mumbled, desperate to escape the suffocating display of affection.

"Stay," Dante's voice cut through the air, cold and commanding.

It wasn't a request. It was an order.

He finally looked at me, his gaze dismissive. "I need you to go to the consulate today. Get your visa for Canada sorted." His tone was laced with an irritation he didn't bother to hide.

"And Elara," he added, his voice dropping to a low warning, "don't cause any trouble for me while you're there."

The words landed like a slap. He wasn't sending me away for my own good; he was shipping me off like an inconvenient package. I was a problem to be managed.

He took Sofia's hand, and they walked away together, leaving me alone on the balcony, the cigarette smoke mingling with the morning mist. The carefully constructed dam I'd built around my emotions shattered. A single tear escaped, then another, blurring the perfect image of them disappearing into the house.

I remembered all the times he'd held an umbrella over my head, pulling me close to shield me from the rain. He was my shelter. Now, I was standing in a downpour of my own making, and he was the storm.

A sudden, reckless impulse seized me. I ran from the balcony, down the stairs, and out the front door, straight into the drizzling rain. I didn't care. I let the cold water soak my hair and clothes, a torrent washing over me.

It felt like a baptism. A cleansing.

I didn't need his umbrella. I didn't need his protection.

I would stand in my own rain.

My phone buzzed in my pocket. I pulled it out, my fingers numb. It was a social media notification. Sofia had just posted a photo.

It was a picture of her and Dante at the beach house, a picture clearly taken some time ago. The ocean churned in the background under a stormy sky.

The caption read: "Happy early birthday to my Don. Can't wait to celebrate with you."

My Don.

A wave of numbness washed over me, a cold deeper than the rain. I navigated to Dante's profile, my fingers moving automatically. I found the post and typed a comment.

"Congratulations." I added a polite, smiling emoji.

It was the final nail in the coffin of my past. A declaration of surrender that felt, strangely, like a victory.

Then, just as quickly, I deleted it.

He wouldn't see it. He wouldn't care. And I didn't need him to.

Back inside, soaked and shivering, my eyes landed on the metal watch from Sofia, glinting on the desk. Without a second thought, I picked it up and dropped it into the trash can.

I knelt before the fireplace, the torn pages of my diary-salvaged from my suitcase-already clutched in my hand.

I struck a match. The flame flickered, small and defiant. I touched it to the edge of a paper scrap.

It caught fire, the words of my childhood love turning to black ash. I watched them burn, page by painful page, until nothing was left.

I stood and looked out the window at the rain. The storm outside was finally starting to quiet. And for the first time in what felt like an eternity, so was the storm within me.