Chapter 7
Dante POV:
The world was a nauseating, spinning blur. Her scream cut through the fog in my head like a shard of glass.
Elara.
The name echoed in the sudden, ringing silence. My hands were on her, my mouth on hers, but my mind had been clinging to the lie of Sofia. The realization hit me with the force of a physical blow. I shoved her away, a reflex born of pure, raw panic.
She crumpled against the wall, her eyes wide with a terror that mirrored my own.
I had crossed a line. Not just a line-I had dynamited the entire fucking border. For years, I had built walls around my feelings for her, convincing myself it was protection, that it was my duty as her guardian. I was the Don. I couldn't have her. It was forbidden. Unthinkable.
So I found Sofia. A suitable, respectable choice. A shield.
I had used another woman to build a fortress against the one I truly wanted. And in one drunken, stupid moment, I had laid waste to it all.
I saw tears tracking paths through the faint dusting of charcoal on her cheeks. I saw the absolute devastation in her eyes. And something inside me, something I had kept locked away for a decade, broke free.
I didn't think. I just moved. I pulled her into my arms, her small, trembling body a fragile weight against mine. She felt like she might shatter.
"Don't go, Elara," I begged, the words torn from some place deep inside me I hadn't known existed. "Please... stay."
She didn't fight me. She didn't respond at all. She just went limp in my arms, her body exhausted, her spirit broken. I carried her upstairs, the guilt a physical weight on my chest, and laid her on her bed. I couldn't leave her. I sat in the chair in the corner of her room and watched her sleep, the rise and fall of her chest the only thing that kept my own world from collapsing.
When I woke, the sun was streaming through the window, and she was stirring.
Her eyes fluttered open and landed on me. A flicker of fear crossed her face before it was replaced by a cold, desolate emptiness.
The morning light was an indictment, stripping away the drunken haze and leaving only the cold reality of my position. Of the promises I'd made. The weakness I'd shown last night was a liability I couldn't afford. I had to fix this. I had to regain control.
Accusation was a better defense than apology. The Don took over.
"What did you think you were doing?" I asked, my voice coming out harsher, colder than I intended.
She flinched as if I'd slapped her. Her mouth opened, but I cut her off.
"I am your guardian, Elara. Not your lover," I said, the words tasting like poison. I stood up, looming over her. "Don't you ever pull a stunt like that again. If I find you trying to crawl into my bed again, I will throw you out of this house myself. Do you understand?"
The look in her eyes... it wasn't just heartbreak; it was a death. I watched the last spark of whatever she felt for me die right there.
She swallowed, all the fight gone from her.
"I'm sorry," she whispered.
She didn't argue. She didn't defend herself. She just accepted the blame. And in that moment, I knew I had lost her.
"Five more days," she said, so quietly I almost didn't hear it. "Just five more days and I'll be gone."
I walked out of her room, my own heart a dead weight in my chest. In the hallway, I ran right into Sofia.
She was dressed, her face a mask of fury. Her eyes darted from me to Elara's room, then back to my disheveled state.
"What were you doing in her room?" Sofia demanded, her voice a low hiss.
Before I could answer, Elara appeared in the doorway behind me, her clothes rumpled and her face pale.
Sofia's eyes widened in shock, then narrowed to venomous slits.
"You shameless little bitch," she spat at Elara. "He was drunk, and you crawled into his bed? You tried to seduce my fiancé?"
Elara just stood there, her head bowed, taking the verbal assault without a word. Any explanation would be useless. I had already condemned her. Sofia had already convicted her.
"If you ever try something like that again," Sofia warned, her voice trembling with rage, "I will make sure you are thrown out of this family for good." She shot me a look of pure disgust and stormed off, slamming her bedroom door behind her.
I was left in the hallway with Elara. She didn't look at me. She just slid, slowly and silently, down the wall until she was sitting on the floor, her face in her hands.
A choked sob escaped her. Then another. The sound was the most painful thing I had ever heard.
It was the sound of a heart not just breaking, but being utterly obliterated.
And I had been the one to do it.
I stood there, frozen, as her sobs echoed in the silent hall. She was right. She would be gone in five days. And I knew, with a certainty that chilled me to the bone, that she would never, ever come back.
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