Chapter 4

An engine roared in the background.

“Why didn’t you get back in the car? I thought you were asleep in the back seat.”

“I told you I was going inside to buy painkillers for you.”

Silence fell on the other end of the line.

“I didn’t hear you,” he admitted, guilt creeping into his voice. “I was too worried about Bianca.”

Before I could answer, Bianca’s voice came through the phone.

“I thought she was asleep in the back seat.”

“Dante, we’ve already been driving for twenty minutes. If we turn back now, the cemetery will be closed by the time we get there.”

I stood alone at an unfamiliar gas station, surrounded by strangers coming and going.

A truck thundered past, its wake stinging my eyes.

“Dante,” I asked, “are you coming back for me?”

He was silent for a moment.

“I’m already twenty minutes away. The rest of the convoy is closer to you.”

Bianca cut in. “She’s not a child, Dante. The guards can pick her up.”

When I remained silent, irritation entered his voice.

“Don’t make a scene, Ariana. I’ve already sent someone to get you.”

“Just wait for the guards. This isn’t going to ruin our honeymoon.”

I stared blankly at the medicine I had bought for him. Suddenly, I felt like the biggest fool in the world.

A freezing wind swept in from the open road. Only then did I remember that my coat was still in Dante’s car.

I began to shake from the cold.

The box in my hand crumpled beneath my tightening fingers.

Tears spilled from my eyes without warning.

I had spent years giving way.

Bianca’s parents had died for the Moretti family, and I never wanted Dante to believe that I was too heartless to accept an orphan who had lost both her parents.

So every time he abandoned me to run to Bianca, I pretended it didn’t hurt.

But no matter how many times I stepped aside, I was always the one he left behind.

It was time for me to let him go.

I swallowed the sob rising in my throat.

“All right.”

Dante seemed to breathe a sigh of relief.

“Call me when the guards arrive. We’ll wait for you at the cemetery.”

I ended the call.

Then I canceled the hotels and restaurants I had booked for the next month, along with the rest of our plans at the coastal villa.

I had planned this trip.

I had no obligation to keep arranging a honeymoon that no longer included me.

I slipped off the wedding ring I had worn for less than three days and threw it into the wind.

Then I opened the contacts on my phone and scrolled through a list I hadn’t looked at in years.

At the very bottom was a number I hadn’t called in five years.

Five years ago, I had still been in college.

Dante and I had already been together for a year, and he had not yet become the Don of the Moretti family.

I had always used my mother’s surname.

I had never told him that I was the Bellini family’s heir.

When my father discovered our relationship, he ordered me home and arranged a marriage for me.

He wanted me to marry a man whose connections would benefit the Bellini family and cut Dante out of my life for good.

I refused.

During our worst argument, my father asked me, “Ariana, are you truly prepared to give up the Bellini family for that man?”

Back then, I had been certain Dante was the man I wanted to spend the rest of my life with.

So I walked away from my family and chose him.

For the next five years, I never contacted my father.

Dante had no idea what choosing him had cost me.

I had always believed he was the home I had chosen for myself.

Today, I finally realized how wrong I had been.

I drew a deep breath and pressed the call button.

My father answered almost immediately.

I heard the sharp, restrained sound of his breathing.

“Father.” My voice came out hoarse. “I want to come home.”

Several seconds passed before he answered, struggling to hold back tears.

“Ariana, the Bellini family will always welcome you home.”

He didn’t ask why.

He didn’t blame me for disappearing for five years.

“Where are you?”

I gave him my location.

My father lowered his voice and issued several orders to someone beside him.

“My men will be there in twenty minutes. They’ll bring you home.”

Not long after the call ended, a heavy rumble rolled across the sky.

Everyone inside the gas station looked up.

Two black helicopters emerged beneath the low clouds and circled over the highway.

The silver crest of the Bellini family gleamed against their sides in the fading light.

The wind whipped my hair around my face.

One of the helicopters slowly descended.

The door opened, and my father’s underboss strode toward me with eight heavily armed guards behind him.

He stopped in front of me and bowed deeply.

“Miss Bellini, we’re here to take you home.”