Chapter 3

Countdown: 3 days.

The project of Grand Sovereign mansion was progressing with surprising efficiency.

Yet Dante continued to pressure the execution team to speed up. He emphasized to my team more than once that this was Nadia's new start in New York, and he would not allow any mistakes.

I stood to the side, watching the scene coldly like an outsider.

That day, after a long and suffocating negotiation, Dante followed me back to our villa.

He lingered near the glass bar for a long time before speaking with difficulty, his tone terribly heavy.

"Elena, the underworld is still in turmoil right now."

"Currently... it is not the right time to hold a public wedding."

"The top priority is to handle the Grand Sovereign project. Once Nadia settles down completely and the territory stabilizes, I’ll give you a perfect wedding."

I nodded politely, without any emotion.

I didn't bother to remind him that the real top priority seemed to be the cathedral wedding he had promised me, which was a wedding he had never prepared for since the day he agreed to it.

Nor did I remind him that on that exact day, the divorce agreement he signed unintentionally would officially take effect.

After all, by his standards, his grieving widowed childhood sweetheart always held the highest priority.

In the subsequent project review meetings, Dante deliberately avoided having Nadia and me in the same room. Lucy eventually noticed this strange protection and avoidance.

After a meeting, she leaned in with curiosity, whispering, "Ele, is there any secret relationship between you and Don Dante?"

I smiled faintly.

"How could that be? He is the Don and I am just an designer."

Lucy curled her lips, continue saying, "But every time you turn around, he looks at you with guilty and uneasy eyes. That is definitely not the look of a ruthless mafia boss! It looks more like... the eyes of a man who realizes he is about to lose his true love."

I froze, carefully recalling the past.

It was not that I hadn't caught Dante's heavy and painful gazes.

But after experiencing four postponed promises, I could no longer believe the meaning behind those looks.

That afternoon, Nadia called me into the lounge alone under the pretext of discussing room layouts.

Her intentional probes in her speech suggested she had likely guessed my hidden relationship with Dante.

I maintained a cold, flawless politeness and handled her with ease throughout.

When the meeting ended, Dante made an unprecedented move.

He didn’t let his bodyguards follow. Instead, he offered to drive me home in his vintage Maserati himself.

"Elena, your professional skill has indeed exceeded all my expectations," he spoke in a deep voice as we drove through the rainy streets.

In five years of marriage, this decisive Don complimented my work for the first time.

My hand packing up the blueprints paused. I turned to look at him in confusion.

Dante gripped the leather steering wheel tightly, his knuckles slightly white. He swallowed hard and finally asked:

"The wedding... is it still in time? I worry it might be too rushed—"

I lowered my head, guessing he wanted to cancel the wedding.

"Forget it, Dante," I turned to look at the streetlights receding outside the window and interrupted him softly.

"There are not many days left anyway. Please cancel it."

I didn’t expose his thoughts, because I didn't want to make us look miserable in our final moments together.

Dante slammed on the brakes.

The tires made a sharp screeching noise on the wet road and stopped before the red light.

He turned around, his deep green eyes filled with disbelief, shock, and faint panic.

"...You don't care?" he asked in a hoarse voice.

In the past, every time he postponed our plans for Nadia, I would lose control of my emotions and force him to give me an explanation.

All the fights and tears in our marriage essentially stemmed from my desperation to hold onto him.

But now, I didn't care anymore.

I shook my head slowly, "What’s there to care about? It's just a meaningless ceremony."

A suffocating silence spread through the car.

A moment later, Dante suddenly spoke hastily.

"How about next week, I take you out of New York to relax?"

"Go to our private villa on the Amalfi Coast? Or go to that seaside restaurant in Capri you've always wanted to visit?"

I looked down at the countdown app on my phone. It showed: 10 days left until the divorce takes effect.

"No need, Dante."

His lips trembled slightly.

My calm rejections, one after another, were pushing this boss, who was used to standing high above, into silent torment.

Watching the guilt on his face gradually turn into confusion and frustration, I spoke softly:

"If you really want to go somewhere, take me to see that old house in Brooklyn."

That old Italian-style house was where we lived when he first established his power.

At that time, his father had just passed away. He was struggling to gain the approval of the gang's elders. During that time, although we were always on edge, there was no childhood sweetheart standing between us. There were only two souls purely in love with each other.

I indeed missed that time.

Dante froze for a long time, as if trying to decipher my thoughts.

Until I got out of the car, he still sat stiffly in the driver's seat, watching me leave in dead silence.