Chapter 3 Elena
ELENA
When I wake, the first thing I notice isn’t the pain in my body or the coppery taste of blood at the back of my throat.
It’s the scent—orange blossoms that are warm and sweet, undercut by sea salt and sun-warmed stone.
The smells wrap around me before my eyes even open, so vivid it nearly steals my breath away.
My lashes flutter when I finally open them, confusion thick and sluggish while my mind tries to catch up.
When I finally manage to lift my head and look around, the world makes no sense at all.
I’m… lying in a bed.
Not my bed. The narrow mattress in Brooklyn with its squeaky frame and threadbare sheets could never be this nice.
This one is vast with four-posters carved from dark wood, draped in gauzy white curtains that stir gently in a breeze I can feel against my skin.
Sunlight spills across the room in lazy bands, warm and golden, illuminating stone floors and pale walls washed in cream.
Beyond the open windows, the sea stretches endlessly, blue and glittering beneath the sun.
Cliffs rise in the distance, white and jagged against the horizon.
Waves crash far below, the sound distant but unmistakable.
For one disoriented heartbeat, I almost believe I’m dreaming. That this is some cruel trick of the mind… a fantasy stitched together from memory and longing for my home.
I’m in Sicily… the place I swore I would never see again.
A voice cuts through the haze, unmistakable. “Buongiorno, Elena.”
My breath catches painfully in my chest.
I don’t even need to look over to know who it is. My body is already reacting before my mind can catch up, every nerve flaring to life like it’s been waiting for this moment for four long years.
Dante Cosenza stands in the doorway across the room dressed in black from head to toe, not a crease or stitch out of place.
His dark hair is cut shorter than I remember, his jaw clenched a little harder.
Time has sharpened him, carved away whatever softness I once knew existed and replaced it with something much colder.
Yet still, the sight of him nearly knocks the air from my lungs. This is the man I once loved in secret. My ex-fiancé’s younger brother. The man whose touch had once set my body on fire even as guilt ate me alive from the inside out.
He moves through the room with a predatory calm, steps slow as he makes his way over toward the bed like I’m a rare bird he’s already caged and claimed and can’t wait to make dance for him.
I push myself upright, ignoring the way my head protests as the blood rushes back to it, fury burning hotter than fear at the moment.
“You’ve caused quite a mess, Tesoro,” he murmurs.
It makes my throat tight. My voice is hoarse when I speak. “Why am I here?”
It’s a useless question, one I already know the answer to. But I ask it anyway to buy me time from whatever sick and twisted game he’s about to force me to play.
He stops at the foot of the bed, his eyes running over me carefully. “Your father owes my family for the crimes he’s committed. He betrayed my blood and you helped him disappear. I want his location.”
“I wasn’t part of his business, you know that. I had nothing to do with his escape,” I spit out.
He moves again, rounding the foot of the bed to come closer to my side.
I can feel the familiar gravity that once pulled me under tugging at me now, singing its siren song once again.
I brace my hands against the mattress, forcing myself not to retreat, not to show weakness to the one man I know who delights in using it against his enemies.
“Do you expect me to believe that?” he asks coolly.
His eyes burn now, though not with desire like they once did for me. Now it’s with something far more dangerous.
I know that look all too well.
I’ve seen it countless times before, right before he pulled a trigger.
Right before he’d make an enemy realize they’d made the wrong choice and were now paying for it.
It used to frighten me then, even when it was never directed at me.
Now it terrifies me in a way I don’t have words for because this time, that look is for me.
“You were always good at lies, Tesoro. You lied to my brother every time you came to my bed. You must think I’m a fool to ever believe someone who so easily went behind their fiancé’s back to sleep with another.”
Shame and fury collide inside me. The past rises unbidden in my mind, flashes of stolen moments and whispered promises, the weight of guilt that never stopped pressing down on me even when his hands were on my skin. It all floods in at once.
As if I was the only one who crossed that line. As if I was the one who betrayed my own brother and never dared to care until he was dead.
I snap back before I can stop myself. “Don’t you dare use that against me. You were part of it too. You knew exactly what you were doing.”
A slow smile curves his mouth, but there’s no amusement in it. When he speaks again, his words are flat. “I want your father’s location, Elena. The debt your family owes to mine won’t be erased with tears and denials. Your best chance is cooperation.”
My blood runs cold.
“If you value your life,” he adds, eyes flicking meaningfully toward my abdomen before narrowing back on my face, “and your son’s, you’ll do as I say.”
My instinct is to curl inward and protect the part of my body that grew the pieces of us only I know about. But I force myself to stay still because I refuse to give him that satisfaction or let him see how deeply his threats cut me.
He turns away, the conversation over. My fate and the future of my child are all dismissed with a pivot of his heel. Sunlight catches on the serpent ring at his pinky as he reaches for the door, the gold flashing bright enough to make my stomach churn with nausea.
“Dante.” I swallow thickly, his name bitter on my tongue. “Please… just… let me see my son.”
He pauses at the door.
For one suspended heartbeat, the world holds still. He turns slowly, his expression unreadable as his gaze finds mine again.