Chapter 3: Can’t Run

Elena’s POV

How? How could he know about it all along? He already knew about the child I had been desperately trying to hide.

“How would you know about her?” I asked, panic creeping into my voice.

Dante didn’t answer immediately. He simply stared at me with that unreadable expression.

My heart pounded even harder.

“Dante…” I whispered his name. “How did you find out?”

He slowly picked up the photos from the table and looked at them before turning his gaze back to me.

“You really thought I wouldn’t find out?” he asked.

I still couldn’t recover from it. My breathing became uneven after everything he had said to me. After all this time, hiding my daughter still wasn’t enough to keep the truth from him.

As I slowly tried to compose myself, I thought of something crazy to say to him—something I knew I would probably regret.

“Yes, I have a daughter… but she’s not yours,” I said without breaking eye contact with him.

He just stared at me for a long moment before letting out a quiet laugh.

“Is that what you’re going with now, Elena?” he said.

I couldn’t help but feel my heart sink. I needed to do this to keep my daughter safe and far away from his Mafia world.

“Because, Elena…” He then placed a document on the table. “I already had a DNA test done.”

Those words shattered my world.

How could I get out of this place?! This situation was killing me.

“Dante, I wasn’t here to talk about my daughter… I’m here for you to sign the divorce papers,” I said desperately, placing the divorce documents on top of the DNA results.

Dante then looked down at the divorce papers, then at the DNA results underneath them.

For a few seconds, the whole room was completely silent. I could hear nothing except the sound of our breathing.

“You came all the way here just to ask me to sign these papers?” he finally asked.

“Yes,” I replied directly.

“After disappearing from my life for a year?” he asked again.

“Yes, Dante,” I said, clenching my fists.

He picked up the divorce papers and slowly flipped through each page. I watched every movement he made, desperately waiting for him to sign.

But then he stopped at the last page.

“Do you really think signing this will make everything disappear?”

I frowned.

“What does that mean?”

He placed the papers back on the table and looked towards me.

“Do you think I would let you go just like that? You know what kind of person I am, Elena,” he said.

His words made my whole body freeze.

I just looked at him, unable to find the right words.

Dante slowly leaned back, his eyes still fixed on mine.

“You left me once,” he said quietly. “You disappeared and took something from me that I didn’t even know existed.”

My heart dropped.

“Dante…”

“But you’re not going to disappear again,” he said, which made my entire body go cold.

He picked up the DNA results and held them between his fingers.

“Not this time, Elena.”

I swallowed hard.

“What are you going to do?” I asked him.

A faint smile appeared on his lips.

“I think you already know the answer to that question, Elena,” he said to me, a smirk forming on his lips that made my whole body shiver.

I don’t know what I am feeling right now, but everything we talk about makes me dizzy. In a few seconds, my eyes darkened, and I held onto the thing that was close to me.

My whole body weakened, and then the last thing I remember is his voice calling my name.

“Elena!” he said, his voice filled with panic.

I tried to hold what I was feeling right now, but my body betrayed me completely.

I woke up in a familiar room, my head was hurting a little, and so was my tummy. That’s right, I forgot to eat my breakfast. God, I’m so not an adult person.

I heard some voices nearby talking. At first, they sounded muffled, and then, after some time, they became clearer.

“How is she?”

That’s Dante’s voice asking a person outside. My heart slowly beats like there is a wild lion inside my heart.

“She’s still unconscious, Boss,” said the other voice of a man.

The door slowly opened, so I pretended that I was still unconscious. I heard soft footsteps coming towards my place, and then I heard his voice.

“You’re still as beautiful as the first time our family met you,” he said.

My heart couldn’t stop beating upon hearing those words, and then he softly touched my cheeks and my chin.

“You’re so stubborn, wife,” he said, laughing softly.

That endearment that only he can call me with… I want to be strong and be different from that lady he knew before. But hearing him say those words makes me soft.

For a moment, I wanted to open my eyes and look at him to see if the tenderness in his voice was real or if I was only imagining it before.

Then I heard him stand.

I thought he was going to leave.

But instead, he walked toward the door.

“Boss?”

I heard the same man from earlier speak.

“Yes?” Dante answered.

“Everything has been arranged.”

My heart suddenly started beating faster.

“Good,” Dante replied.

“What about the little girl?” his man asked him.

My entire body froze. Little girl? My daughter?

I wanted to open my eyes and stop them, but I forced myself to remain still.

Dante was silent for a few seconds.

Then his voice came, calm and dangerously low.

“She doesn’t know anything yet.”

My heart nearly stopped. What were they talking about? Is it my daughter?

“Should we bring her here now?” the same man asked Dante.

I was waiting for his answer. I hoped he wouldn’t touch my daughter. I want her to be free and fear no one.

“No,” he said.

That answer made my whole body feel relieved and made me breathe calmly.

“Not until my wife wakes up,” he said with authority.

A couple of seconds after I heard that the other guy was gone, I slowly woke up, and the first thing I saw was Dante calmly looking at me.

“Maybe it’s time I tell you, wife, how long I’ve known about our daughter, Jade,” he said.