From Unwanted Wife To Unreachable Queen

The day my guardian, Dante Moretti, announced his engagement was the day I started planning my death. Not a literal one, but the death of the girl who had orbited his world for ten years.

He was the Don of the Moretti family, the man I'd secretly loved since I was a child. But with his new fiancée, Sofia, on his arm, he began to erase me. He even forgot my severe allergy, gifting me a watch that would blister my skin.

He had ripped apart the diary where I confessed my love for him.

"I am your guardian," he'd spat. "Do not ever cross that line again."

Yet one night, drunk and stumbling, he crashed his mouth onto mine, his hands roaming my body as he pushed me against the wall.

He groaned, but the name that escaped his lips wasn't mine.

"Sofia..."

When I screamed my own name—Elara—he shoved me away in horror. He wasn't horrified by his betrayal, but by the fact that he'd kissed the wrong woman.

That was the final straw. I took the acceptance letter to a university in Toronto that I had kept hidden like a prayer. I called my estranged father and booked a one-way ticket. This time, I would burn my old life to the ground and leave nothing but ashes behind.

Chapter 1

Elara POV:

The day Dante Moretti announced his engagement was the day I started planning my death.

Not a literal one, of course. This was the death of Elara Vane, the girl who had orbited his world for ten years.

He was the Don of the Moretti family, my guardian, the man I'd loved since I was a child-and if I didn't run, his new fiancée wouldn't be the only woman he destroyed.

My finger trembled over the mouse, the cursor a blinking executioner above the folder named 'Dante'.

A click. Another. Then, 'Delete'.

A pop-up materialized: Are you sure?

I was.

I watched the progress bar fill, erasing every photo, every file, every digital ghost of the last decade.

The picture of the dragon-shaped night light he'd bought me when I was ten vanished. He'd found me crying in the dark, terrified of the monsters under my bed. He'd plugged it in, and the soft, golden glow had chased the shadows away. He'd been my protector then.

Now, he was the monster.

A hollow ache opened in my chest, a familiar emptiness I'd lived with for a year. I had to get out. Out of the Moretti manor, out of New York, out of his sphere of influence where the very air I breathed felt like it belonged to him.

My phone felt heavy in my hand. I scrolled to a number I hadn't called in years.

Julian Vane. My father.

It rang twice before he picked up.

"Elara?" His voice was hesitant, laced with a surprise that stung.

"Dad," I said, my own voice tight. "I need your help."

"Anything. What is it? Is everything