LOGIN## ELARA'S POVThe silence that followed Sophia's screaming was heavy, dense, and absolute.I sat frozen on the floor, Dante’s heavy boots still resting against my collarbone, my arms shaking so hard from the strain and the terror that my muscles burned. The heat of his blood was already starting to turn cold against my skin, tacky and drying. He wasn't breathing. There was no subtle rise and fall of his chest, no small twitch of his fingers. Nothing."Dante, please," Sophia whispered, her voice completely breaking. She didn't sound like a hardened lieutenant or a protector anymore. She just sounded small. She pressed two fingers against the side of his neck, her hand trembling so badly she could barely keep them in place. "There's no pulse. I can't find a pulse.""Check the carotid properly, girl," Kovac ordered, his voice thin, losing its strength as he leaned as far forward in his wheelchair as his harness would allow. "Do not panic. If the heart has stopped, you have less than fou
## ELARA'S POVThe sound of Dante hitting the floor wasn't a clean, cinematic thud. It was a horrible, heavy crash that rattled the metal legs of the table. His head struck the concrete with a sickening crack, and then there was just this awful, dead silence.For a second, nobody breathed. The dark pool of blood beneath him didn't stop. It just rushed faster out of his side, spreading across the gray concrete like spilled ink."Dante?" Sophia’s voice didn't sound like her at all. It was high, thin, and completely stripped of its usual iron. She dropped to her knees so hard I heard her kneecaps hit the floor. "Dante! Hey, look at me. Look at me!"She grabbed his shoulders, shaking him, but he was completely dead weight. His head rolled limply to the side, his eyes half open but rolled back, showing only the whites.Panic didn't hit me all at once. It came in a wave of freezing cold that started in my chest and rushed into my limbs, turning my hands completely numb. I couldn't move. My
ELARA'S POV "Who are you?" I whispered, my voice cracking as I backed away until the back of my knees hit the metal cot. "Who are you?"The old man didn't blink. He just stared at me with an intense, clinical focus that made my skin crawl."I am Dr. Kovac," he said, his voice raspy and dry. "I was the one who conducted the chemical ablation on your brain fourteen years ago.""What?" The word slipped out of me like a gasp, my mind completely spinning. I looked at Dante, then back at the old man. "What are you talking about?"Dr. Kovac leaned forward, his thin fingers gripping the armrests of his wheelchair as his gaze locked onto mine with a terrifying intensity."She is telling you the truth about the warehouse, Elara," Dr. Kovac said, his voice sounding like dry autumn leaves scraping across the pavement. "But she only knows what the files say. She doesn't know what happened after."I swallowed hard, my throat feeling completely tight, the absolute panic making it hard to breathe. "
ELARA'S POV The car smelled like old dust and burnt rubber, a heavy, suffocating mix that made my stomach pitch every time Sophia took a corner too fast.I kept my forehead pressed against the cold glass of the passenger window, staring out at the blurred streetlights. My hands were shoved deep into my jacket pockets so Sophia wouldn't see them shaking. The adrenaline from the stairwell was totally gone, leaving behind this heavy, hollow exhaustion that made my entire body ache. I felt physically sick, a deep, oily kind of nausea that crawled up my throat every time I remembered the way Dante had looked at me right before I went down the chute.I hated him. I wanted him to pay for what he did. But there was this tiny, disgusting part of me that felt terrified he wouldn't make it out of that building, and that terrified me more than anything else. It made me feel like a traitor to my own blood.Sophia didn't say a word. She just kept her eyes locked on the road, her knuckles white on
ELARA'S POV The slide down was loud and violent, a dark, suffocating rush of cold metal that scraped my skin before throwing me out onto a heap of heavy laundry bags. I rolled off them onto the hard concrete floor, the air entirely knocked out of my lungs.For a long time, I just lay there in the dark. I couldn't move. My knees were bleeding, my chest felt like it was caving in, and my throat was raw from screaming at him. The air down here smelled like damp earth and stale detergent, this incredibly normal, boring smell that felt completely wrong after all the gunfire and smoke upstairs.I pulled my knees into my chest and just started shaking. It wasn't a normal cry; it was this dry, ugly sobbing that made my whole body ache.*He knew.* He knew the whole time. Every single time he looked at me, every time he acted like he cared or tried to make me feel safe in his house, he knew he was the one who made me an orphan. And the worst, most disgusting part was that I had actually starte
(ELARA'S POV)The static from the radio died out, leaving a high-pitched ring in its place. The urgent warning hung in the air, a countdown clock we couldn't see, but Dante didn't move. He stayed frozen on his knees, his eyes locked onto mine, a storm of unsaid words crashing behind his dark irises.For a second, I thought he was going to ignore the radio entirely. I thought he was going to give me the answer that was currently choking him.Then, a distant explosion rattled the foundation of the concrete room. Dust rained down from the ceiling, dusting his dark hair with white ash.The spell broke.Dante lunged to his feet, the vulnerability that had just cracked his features vanishing behind a mask of cold, lethal efficiency. He grabbed my arm, his grip firm but careful not to hurt me."We have to move," he said, his voice dropping an octave, slipping back into the tone of the man who commanded empires."No!" I yanked my arm back, the revulsion sharp and electric. "Don't touch me! I’
The Night Everything BurnedELARA’S POVI wake to silence.Not the calm kind.The wrong kind.For a few seconds, I lie still, staring at the ceiling, trying to understand what pulled me out of sleep. My body feels heavy, my mind slow, but something deep inside me is alert.Listening.Waiting.Then
ELARA’S POVI cannot sleep.Even when the penthouse quiets down. Even when the footsteps fade and the doors close, my mind refuses to rest.I keep seeing him.The man who ran in.The way he dropped to his knees.The way his voice broke when he talked about his daughter.And Dante.The way he listen
DANTE’S POVThe door bursts open before my guard can announce it.My hand moves to my gun instantly. No hesitation. No thought.Every man in the room reacts the same way, weapons drawn, bodies shifting into formation. Control is everything, and control has just been interrupted.The man who stumble
DANTE'S POVI watched her struggle with the decision. I watched the tears stream down her face. I watched her look at her pathetic brother on the floor and back at me.She would sign. They always did when you gave them no other choice.But something about her face kept pulling at my memory. Somethi







