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The Vane Manor had always been a sanctuary of white marble and soaring glass, but since I had woken up from my "death," it felt like a mausoleum. The air was too thin, the silence too heavy. Every time a floorboard creaked, I felt the phantom sting of a bullet in my abdomen. I spent my days draped in soft cashmere, my eyes vacant, playing the role of the broken doll while my mind mapped out the coordinates of a massacre.
But the real haunting began today.
"He's here, Elena," Bianca whispered, leaning over my shoulder as I sat by the bay window. She smelled of expensive lilies and the underlying scent of her own desperation. "Dante. He's moved his things into the East Wing. He told Father he couldn't bear to be away from you while you were so... fragile."
I didn't turn around. I watched the black sedan pull up the gravel driveway through the reflection in the glass. I watched the driver open the door, and then I saw him.
Dante Rossi.
He stepped out, adjusting his cufflinks with a slow, methodical grace. Even from the second floor, I could feel the gravity of him. He wasn't just a man; he was an apex predator moving into a new territory. My heart hammered against my ribs—not with love, but with the primal, shivering terror of a prey animal seeing the wolf enter the fold.
"Is he... the one from the party?" I asked, my voice a hollow, airy rasp. I made sure my hands trembled as I gripped my silk shawl.
"Yes, darling," Bianca said, her voice tight with a jealousy she couldn't quite mask. "The man who is supposed to be your world. Try not to embarrass us today, will you?"
I felt her hand brush my hair, a gesture that was supposed to be sisterly but felt like a threat. I wanted to scream. I wanted to tell her I remembered the way she laughed while I bled. Instead, I gave her a small, vacant nod.
Bianca watched Elena stare out the window and felt a surge of pure, acidic hatred.
"How" how did this happen?
For years, Bianca had been the one in the shadows, the one Dante whispered to in the dark corners of the Rossi estate. She was the one who knew his true nature, the one who craved the blood on his hands. Elena had been nothing but a golden obstacle, a boring, saintly figure that needed to be removed.
But ever since the "accident," since Elena had lost her mind, Dante had changed.
He didn't call Bianca at three in the morning anymore. He didn't ask her to meet him at the penthouse. He was obsessed with the empty shell of Elena Vane. He was fascinated by the way she looked at him with those wide, hollow eyes—eyes that didn't hold the adoration he was used to.
"It's a trick," Bianca thought, her nails digging into her palms. "She's faking it. She has to be." Bianca hated the way Dante looked at Elena now—with a hunger that was no longer about money or power, but about a dark, twisted need to be recognized. Bianca was the one who had helped him plan the murder. She was the one who deserved the Rossi crown. But as she looked at her cousin's fragile silhouette, she realized she was being pushed back into the shadows. And she wouldn't go quietly.
I heard his boots first.
"Click. Click. Click."The sound was a rhythmic echo of the wedding night. My breath hitched. I stood up as the door to the morning room swung open. Dante stood there, framed by the dark oak, looking like a king who had come to claim a conquered province.
"Elena," he said.
The sound of my name in his voice felt like a cold blade sliding between my vertebrae. He walked toward me, his eyes locked on mine, ignoring Bianca completely. She was standing right there, her face flushed with a desperate hope for a glance, a nod, anything. He didn't even blink in her direction.
"Mr. Rossi," I whispered, stepping back until I hit the window seat.
"Dante," he corrected, his voice dropping an octave. He reached out, his large hand cupping my cheek. His skin was warm, his thumb tracing the line of my jaw with a possessive, terrifying tenderness. "You need to learn the sound of my name again, Elena. It's the only one that matters."
"I... I'm trying," I lied, my eyes filling with fake, fragile tears. "Everything is so loud. Everything is so strange."
"I'll make it quiet for you," he whispered, leaning in so close I could smell the sandalwood and the faint, metallic scent of his soul. "I'll protect you from the noise. From everyone."
He looked over at Bianca then, and the coldness in his eyes made even her flinch. "Leave us, Bianca. I wish to speak with my fiancée in private."
Bianca's mouth opened, a protest dying on her lips. She looked at me, then at Dante, her eyes burning with a humiliated rage. She turned on her heel and fled the room, the scent of her envy lingering like a foul perfume.
Once the door clicked shut, the air in the room changed. The "protective fiancé" mask didn't slip—it tightened into something far more dangerous.
Dante didn't let go of my face. He stepped closer, forcing me to tilt my head back. His obsidian eyes searched mine, looking for a crack, looking for the girl he had spent years molding into a perfect, submissive wife.
"They tell me you don't remember the night we spent in Como," he rasped, his other hand sliding down my arm to grip my waist. He pulled me flush against the hard, tailored lines of his suit.
"I don't," I gasped, my heart racing so fast I thought it would burst. The proximity was a violation. Every cell in my body was screaming *murderer, murderer, murderer*.
"Then let me remind you," he said.
He didn't ask. He didn't wait. He crushed his mouth against mine.
It wasn't a kiss of love. It was a kiss of reclamation. It was raw, brutal, and filled with a dark, desperate need to force a reaction out of me. He tasted of expensive scotch and the end of the world. His tongue was a marauder, demanding entry, demanding that I remember the way he had once claimed me.
I didn't fight him. I knew that if I fought, he would know I was faking. A girl with amnesia is confused, not defiant. I let my body go limp in his arms, my hands hovering uncertainly at his chest.
Dante groaned into the kiss, a sound of pure, unadulterated frustration. He broke away, his breath hot against my lips, his hands tightening on my waist until it bruised.
"Nothing?" he hissed, his eyes searching mine for a spark of the old Elena. "No memory of the way you used to scream my name when I touched you like this?"
His hand slid up, fingers tangling in my hair, pulling my head back until my neck arched. He began to kiss the hollow of my throat, his teeth grazing the sensitive skin. In my first life, I had loved this. I had been a slave to his touch.
But tonight, as his hands wandered over my body, searching for the curves he had once owned, I felt nothing but a cold, clinical detachment. I watched him from behind the veil of my mind. I saw the way his fingers trembled with an obsession he couldn't control.
He moved his hand to the silk of my blouse, his fingers fumbling with the small, pearl buttons. "I'm going to make you remember, Elena. I'm going to write my name on your skin until you can't see anything else."
He pushed the silk aside, exposing the pale curve of my shoulder. He leaned down, his mouth marking me, his hands roaming with a feverish, dark hunger. This was the "Adult" Dante—the man who saw a woman as a territory to be colonized.
I let out a soft, staged moan, leaning my head back against the window. "I... I feel something," I whispered, my voice a masterpiece of deception. "It's like... a dream. But it's dark."
Dante froze. He looked up at me, his face flushed, his obsidian eyes blown wide with a sick, ecstatic hope. "What do you see, Elena?"
"I see... a shadow," I lied, my eyes staring past him at the wall. "A shadow with a gun. And a woman laughing."
The color drained from Dante's face. He let go of me as if I were made of ice. He stepped back, his chest heaving, his hands clenching into fists.
"It's just a nightmare," he said, his voice cracking for the first time in his life. "The doctors said your brain is trying to fill the gaps with nonsense. Don't listen to the shadows, Elena. Listen to me."
He turned and walked out of the room, his stride hurried, his confidence shattered for a single, beautiful moment.
I stood there, pulling my silk blouse back over my shoulder, my skin crawling where he had touched me. I walked to the door, intending to lock it, but as I opened it, I saw a shadow at the end of the hallway.
Julian Thorne.
He was leaning against the marble pillar, his silver eyes cold and penetrating. He had seen Dante leave. He had heard the frantic, desperate tone of the man he hated.
He didn't say a word. He just walked toward me, his heavy boots silent on the carpet. He stopped inches from me, his presence a calm, steady heat compared to Dante's radioactive obsession.
"He touched you," Julian said. It wasn't a question. He looked at the red mark on my shoulder, his silver eyes flashing with a raw, protective fury.
"He's my fiancé, Julian," I said, the mask of the amnesiac sliding back into place. "He's trying to... help me remember."
Julian reached out, his hand hovering near the mark on my skin. He didn't touch me. He was the only man in this world who understood the meaning of the word "consent"
"He isn't helping you, Elena," Julian whispered, his voice a low, rough growl. "He's trying to bury you again. He thinks if he can make you love him, he can hide the truth."
"What truth?" I asked, looking up at him.
Julian leaned in, his face inches from mine. "The truth that you're the only person in this house who isn't a monster. And the truth that if you don't get out now... I'm going to have to burn this manor down to save you."
He turned and walked away, leaving me alone in the hallway, caught between the man who wanted to own my soul and the man who was willing to set the world on fire to set me free.
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