Chapter 3

After that, Dante started buying flowers from Nora all the time.

Roses. Camellias. Lilies. Orchids.

Every few days, new arrangements would be delivered to the estate.

Little by little, our home stopped looking like a mafia mansion and started looking like some rich madman’s private greenhouse.

And slowly, Nora herself became part of the house too.

At first, she was just the flower girl.

Then she became the girl who helped in the garden.

Then she became the girl Dante casually mentioned at dinner.

Then she became the girl who always seemed to have a reason to stay a little longer.

One day, Dante suddenly told me he wanted to sponsor her education.

“She’s smart,” he said. “Too smart to waste her life selling flowers on the street.”

Nora stood in front of me, fingers twisting together nervously, the rough skin on her hands impossible to miss.

She looked young. Fragile. Pitiful in exactly the way people like her knew how to look when they wanted mercy.

“Elena,” she said softly, “I’ll study hard. I promise.”

“I used to get good grades. I only dropped out because my mother got into an accident and I had to work.”

“If you and Mr. Caruso are willing to give me a chance, I won’t let you down.”

Her eyes were bright, wet enough to stir sympathy, but not enough to look calculated.

And looking at her, I remembered Dante as a child.

Cold. Abandoned. Desperate.

So I softened again.

That was my mistake.

For a long time, I treated Nora like a younger sister.

I bought her clothes.

I took her to get her hair and skin done.

I taught her how to behave in rooms full of predators dressed like gentlemen.

I taught her what to say, how to smile, how not to look scared even when she was.

She clung to me and called me sister over and over again.

She told me I was the best person she had ever met.

She said that if she ever got the chance, she would repay my kindness.

And in her own way, she did.

She got into the same private university Dante controlled with money and influence.

And on the night she got her acceptance letter, she climbed into my husband’s bed.

That day, I went home early on purpose.

I had even bought a cake.

I wanted to celebrate for her.

I thought I was helping save a girl’s future.

Instead, I walked into my bedroom and found them half naked together.

His shirt was open.

Her skirt was pushed up.

His hand was still on her waist.

She was wrapped around him like she had always belonged there.

For one second, the whole room went white.

Then everything turned red.

I threw the cake at them.

Cream splattered all over the sheets, the wall, his face.

Then I started smashing everything I could get my hands on.

The lamp.

The mirror.

The vase.

The glass table decor.

And all those damn flowers.

Every flower Dante loved, every flower he had brought home, every flower that had quietly turned into a witness to my humiliation—I destroyed all of them.

Nora screamed.

Dante pulled her behind him and looked at me with the same cold expression he used when deciding whether a man lived or died.

“Elena,” he said, voice flat, “if you’re done making a scene, close the door.”

I stared at him.

He didn’t look guilty.

Didn’t look ashamed.

Didn’t even look shaken.

Just annoyed.

Then he glanced at Nora and said the words that ripped something open inside me for good.

“Have some dignity.”

“Nora still has hers.”

Between me and his mistress, he chose her without even blinking.

I demanded an explanation.

My whole body was shaking so hard I could barely stand.

Dante frowned like I was the one being unreasonable.

“Elena, you’re still my wife.”

“As long as you don’t make trouble, Nora won’t threaten your place.”

Nora burst into tears and dropped to her knees in front of me.

“I’m sorry, Elena. I know I’ve wronged you.”

“But Dante and I really love each other.”

“We understand each other in ways no one else does.”

“You were so kind to me. I’ll never forget that.”

“I don’t want your place. I don’t want your title. I won’t fight you for anything.”

“I just want to stay by his side.”

I was still young then.

Too proud.

Too angry.

Too stupid to understand that men like Dante always rewrote the rules in their own favor.

So I did the one thing I thought still mattered.

I reported them.

I sent evidence to the university board.

I exposed the affair, the power abuse, the favoritism, the dirty strings pulled behind Nora’s admission.

I thought truth would matter.

I thought rules would matter.

I thought someone would care.

Reality slapped me hard.

No one was going to come after Dante Caruso.

Not for me.

Not for morality.

Not when he funded half the institution and had enough people in his pocket to bury any scandal he wanted.

The university didn’t punish him.

They punished me.

I got written up for emotional instability and for damaging the school’s reputation.

And Dante?

Dante made a public statement.

He told the professors and department heads to take good care of Nora.

He called her hardworking. Brave. Promising.

He said she had clawed her way up from nothing and deserved support.

He even made it clear that her admission had happened because of him.

He didn’t care how corrupt it looked.

He didn’t care what people whispered.

He only cared that Nora had a future.

So what was I?

What was I supposed to be?

The wife who stayed quiet?

The wife who smiled and swallowed humiliation while her husband built another woman right in front of her?

I locked myself in the house and cried until my throat felt raw.

Meanwhile, Dante kept tending to his irises like nothing had happened.

One evening, while trimming dead leaves off a pot by the window, he said in that calm, maddening voice—

“Elena, do you still not get it?”

“Your work. Your name. Your status. Everything you have came from me.”

“If you leave me, you become nothing.”

“I already told you. Nora won’t take your place.”

“So why can’t you just be sensible and let us live in peace?”

In peace?

The word almost made me laugh.

There was no peace in sleeping beside a man who wanted someone else.

No peace in watching your life get split apart in front of you.

No peace in being told your humiliation was a fair price for staying married.

So I fought back.

Loudly.

Messily.

I ruined every image he tried to protect.

When Dante gave public speeches, I replaced his presentation files with photos of him and Nora together.

When reporters came to interview him, I rushed in and shouted the truth into their microphones.

I wrote complaints.

I posted videos.

I made sure people heard me, even if they called me crazy for it.

And in the end, that was exactly what he wanted.

Because Dante was smarter than me.

Smarter, richer, colder—and cruel enough to use my pain as a weapon.

He knew exactly how to push me.

Exactly how to provoke me.

Exactly how to make me break in public.

And then he kept the proof.

Every scream.

Every breakdown.

Every moment that made me look unstable enough to destroy my own credibility.

His name. His power. His money. His understanding of me.

All of it became a blade.

By the time it was over, I had lost everything.

I was forced out of my position.

My degree was revoked under the excuse of procedural review.

My reputation was ruined.

And Dante Caruso—

the man who once swore he would never leave me—

personally had me committed to a private psychiatric facility.

I said all of that in a steady voice.

Flat. Almost detached.

But Mia was already crying.

“What happened after that?” she asked.

I looked down at my hands.

“After that,” I said, “I found out I was almost five months pregnant.”

“And Dante brought me home.”