Chapter 3

Chapter Three

Elena’s POV

*Tar tar tar*

I didn’t feel the floor at first.

Only the sting. The hot, sharp sting clawing across my cheek.

My hand flew up and covered it. My skin throbbed under my palm. A thin taste of metal sat on my tongue.

I looked at him.

At the man who once promised me safety.

At the man I had trusted with my whole heart.

“Luka,” I whispered, voice shaking. “How could you do that to me?”

He didn’t even blink.

“Simple,” he said.

“You’re a useless nobody. Your father is a criminal. Sofia’s family is disgustingly rich. They can help me. They fit my future. You do not.”

The words hit harder than the slap.

Sofia slid closer to him, lazy and smug, like a cat that had found cream. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and smiled at me with a kind of sweet evil.

“At least he’s good in bed,” she said lightly. “And handsome. You always felt yourself back in nursing school because your fiancé was tall with pretty hair. Remember? Look at you now.”

I stared at them.

For a breath, I could not speak. Pain met silence and froze me from the inside out.

Then air rushed back into my lungs.

I swallowed hard. I stood straighter. I pushed down the shame, the heat, the burn.

“Insult me if you want,” I said quietly.

“Spit on my name if it makes you feel big. But my father is in jail. They burned our restaurant. We need help.”

Luka arched his brow, bored.

“How much?” he asked, as if we were talking about a parking ticket.

I unfolded the torn paper with shaking hands. The number glared at me like a curse.

“Seven million,” I said. “Seven million, six hundred and fifty-four thousand, two hundred and seventy-four dollars and sixty-eight cents. I will pay you back. I swear on my mother’s memory. I will work. I will do anything.”

He laughed. A slow, cruel sound.

“Anything?” He tipped his head, studying me like I was something under a glass jar. “Kneel.”

My throat tightened. “What?”

“Kneel on the floor,” he said.

“Right there. On your knees. Bark like a dog. Loud. Beg. Maybe I’ll give you five million. Not seven. Five.”

Sofia’s mouth curved. “Oh, do it,” she purred. “Let’s see how far a ‘criminal’s daughter’ will go.”

I looked at the door. Freedom was three steps away. Pride was a fist in my chest, pounding, begging me to run.

But then I saw my father’s face in my mind bruise, cuffs, the tired eyes that still loved me. I saw Mama’s photo that had hung above the counter. I smelled the garlic bread I used to help bake on Sundays. I heard Papi humming as he cleaned the tables. I felt the fire again.

My knees bent.

The marble was cold. It cut through my skirt. My palms pressed to the floor to steady me. I lifted my chin. Tears blurred my sight, but my voice did not tremble this time.

“W-woof,” I said. Barely a sound.

“Louder,” Luka said.

I shut my eyes.

“Woof.”

“Louder.”

The last of my pride cracked.

“WOOF!” I barked, voice echoing off glass and stone. “Woof, woof!”

Sofia giggled and lifted her phone. The red light blinked. “Smile,” she sang. “Poor Elena.”

“Good girl,” Luka said softly, like he was praising a pet. Then his mouth twisted. “Payment time.”

He reached into a crystal bowl on the side console. I had never noticed coins there before. He dipped a hand in and came up with a fist full of them small, dull, cheap.

Five-cent coins.

Before I understood, the first handful hit. Hard. A scatter of metal against my face, my shoulder, my forehead. Sharp edges kissed skin. One coin clipped my brow.

A tear opened. Warm liquid slipped down the side of my face and dotted my cheek. I wiped it with the back of my hand and looked down at the wet red line on my skin.

I did not cry.

Not this time.

“Get lost, bitch,” Luka hissed.

“Or we throw you out.”

Sofia leaned into him and pressed her mouth to his, right there in front of me, slow and flaunting, a show. The kind of kiss meant to crush a heart.

I picked up one of the coins from the floor. I turned it in my fingers. It was nothing to the man I had loved. It was a wound to me.

My voice came out low and hoarse.

“Thank you… for the lesson.”

I stood. My knees ached. My cheek burned. My eyes were dry.

“Security!” Luka snapped.

Two guards appeared from the hallway. Tall. Broad. Blank faces.

“It’s fine,” I said before they touched me. “I know the way out.”

I walked. Past the couch. Past the white rug I would never forget. Past the glass that held my reflection blood on my brow, soot on my dress, a ring on my finger that had turned to ice.

I slid the ring off. I set it on the console beside the crystal bowl of coins.

Sofia clapped slowly. “Bravo.”

I didn’t look back.

The sun outside was loud and cruel. Birds sang. A gardener watered a row of white roses, the spray catching the light like glitter. The world was too bright for the way I felt.

The gate opened. I stepped through it like a ghost.

The cab driver was still there, engine rumbling, eyes wide. He had heard my scream. He had seen me go in. He saw me now.

“You okay?” he asked softly.

I touched my cheek. I tasted iron again. “Drive me anywhere,” I said.

“Just… not here.”

He nodded and pulled away from the silver mansion. The city swallowed us. Buildings slid by like tall strangers. People moved. Life did not stop.

I pressed my forehead against the cool window. For a moment, I was empty. No tears left. No voice. Just a blank sky and the faint throb of blood at my temple.

“Miss?” the driver asked after a while.

“Hospital?”

I shook my head. “Not yet.”

He passed me a small packet of tissues. I pressed one to my brow. The bleeding slowed.

I closed my eyes and saw the restaurant again, the black doorframe, the number on the paper. I heard my father’s voice.

Be strong. Do what you must.

The car rolled over a rough patch of road. Something in me shifted with it.

“Sir,” I said, sitting up. “Can you take me by the cathedral? The old one near the market.”

He glanced at me in the mirror. “Yes, miss.”

We turned, and the streets I knew unfolded. I paid him and stepped out by the stone steps of the cathedral. Candles flickered inside. The air was cool and gray.

I went to the small side chapel where Mama’s name was carved into a brass plate donated by the restaurant the year she died. My fingers traced the letters. The metal was smooth and warm from other hands.

I knelt. Not in shame now. In prayer.

“God,” I whispered. “I don’t know what to do. But I know one thing. I will not die like this. Give me a path. Give me a door. I will walk through it…”

*Boom Boom Boom*

I didn’t finish praying to my mothers grave years when I heard gunshots.