04
The drive back to the Moretti mansion was conducted in a silence so heavy it felt like a physical weight pressing against my chest. Dante didn't scream. He didn't even look at me. He sat in the dark interior of the SUV, his profile illuminated occasionally by the passing streetlights of the city. He looked like a statue cold, immovable, and terrifyingly calm.
I clutched my bruised arm where he had gripped me on the pier, my mind racing. Razack's words kept echoing in my head: "He's lying to you, Elena. You were his captive."
When the gates of the estate finally hissed shut behind us, I felt a shiver of true despair. This wasn't a home. It was a fortress designed to keep the world out and me in.
"Get out," Dante said, his voice low and devoid of emotion.
I followed him inside, my legs trembling. He led me straight to the grand library, a room filled with thousands of books that felt more like silent witnesses to my misery. He turned to face me, his shadow stretching long across the polished mahogany floor.
"Hand it over," he commanded, holding out his hand.
"What?" I whispered, playing dumb.
"The note, Elena. Don't make me search you."
With trembling fingers, I pulled the crumpled piece of paper from my pocket and placed it in his palm. He didn't even read it.
He simply took a silver lighter from his desk and flicked a flame. I watched as the only proof of my past, the only link to Razack, turned into black ash and fluttered to the floor.
"From this moment on," Dante said, stepping closer until I could smell the expensive cedarwood of his cologne, "your world begins and ends within these walls. You have proven that you cannot be trusted with the freedom I gave you."
"You can't do this, Dante! I am a human being, not your property!" I cried out, my voice cracking.
"You are my wife," he corrected, his eyes flashing with a dark, possessive fire.
"And as your husband, it is my duty to protect you from people who would fill your head with dangerous fantasies. Razack is a criminal, Elena. A man who obsessed over you until he became a threat. Why do you think you had that 'accident'? He was the one chasing you that night."
My head began to throb again. Was he lying? Or was Razack the liar?
The lack of memory was a hole in my soul that Dante was filling with his own version of the truth.
"Give me your phone," he added.
"No"
"Now!"
I handed it over, feeling my last connection to the outside world vanish. He tucked it into his pocket and walked toward the door.
"The children will be awake soon. You will have breakfast with them, and you will act like the loving mother they deserve. If I see a single tear, or if you try to speak to the staff about your 'night walk,' there will be consequences. Do I make myself clear?"
I couldn't speak. I only nodded.
He locked the library door from the outside, leaving me alone in the dark.
I sank to the floor, burying my face in my hands.
But as the first rays of dawn began to peek through the windows, my eyes landed on a loose floorboard near the bottom of the bookshelves.
Something was peeking out.
I crawled toward it, my heart hammering. I pried the wood up with my fingernails and found a small, leather bound diary.
I opened the first page, and my breath hitched. The handwriting was mine hurried, panicked, and filled with a desperate energy.
The first entry read: October 12th. He thinks I've forgotten. He thinks the drugs are working. But I remember the basement. I remember what he did to the real mother of the twins.
A cold sweat broke out over my body. I looked at the door, terrified that Dante would walk back in. I wasn't just a journalist. I was a survivor. And the children I had been cuddling... they weren't mine.
I tucked the diary under my shirt, the paper feeling like a hot coal against my skin. The game had changed. I wasn't just looking for my past anymore; I was looking for a way to survive the monster who called himself my husband.
I tucked the diary under my shirt, the paper feeling like a hot coal against my skin. The game had changed. I wasn't just looking for my past anymore; I was looking for a way to survive the monster who called himself my husband.
The silence of the library was suddenly deafening. I stood there, frozen, listening for the sound of Dante's footsteps returning to the door. Every shadow cast by the moonlight seemed to morph into his tall, imposing figure. My breath came in short, jagged gasps as I realized the magnitude of what I had just discovered. If these children weren't mine, then whose were they? And where was the woman who had actually birthed them?
"I have to be smart," I whispered to the empty room, my voice trembling. "I have to be the woman he thinks I am the broken, forgotten wife."
I crawled back to the center of the room, carefully smoothing the rug over the loose floorboard. My fingernails were chipped and dirty from prying at the wood, a small detail Dante would surely notice with his eagle eyes. I rushed to a small basin in the corner of the room, scrubbing my hands until the skin was raw and red.
I sat on the edge of a velvet armchair, trying to force my racing heart to slow down. I closed my eyes and tried to visualize the face of the woman in the diary's description, but my mind remained a fractured mirror.
The only thing that was clear was the handwriting my handwriting. It was the only thing in this house that didn't feel like a lie.
As the sun climbed higher, painting the walls in hues of gold and orange, the lock on the library door clicked. It was time.
The door swung open, and the sunlight from the hallway spilled in, framing Dante like a dark god. He had changed into a fresh white shirt, the sleeves rolled up to reveal his muscular forearms. He looked refreshed, while I felt like I had aged a decade in a single night.
"Breakfast is served, Elena," he said, his voice smooth and controlled, as if the violence of the previous night had never happened.
"The children are waiting. Don't make them wonder why their mother is hiding in the dark."
I stood up, keeping my posture slumped and my eyes downcast. I let my bottom lip tremble just enough to look pathetic.
"I'm sorry, Dante. I... I was just so confused."
He walked over to me, his hand cupping my chin and forcing me to look up at him. His eyes searched mine, looking for any flicker of the rebellion he had crushed at the pier.
"Good. Confusion is natural. Disobedience, however, is not. Let's go."
As we walked down the grand hallway toward the dining room, I felt the weight of the diary pressed against my ribs.
It was a dangerous secret, a ticking time bomb in the heart of the Moretti estate.
But for the first time since I woke up in that hospital bed, I didn't feel like a victim. I felt like a spy in enemy territory.
I was going to find out what happened to the real mother of those twins. And then, I was going to make Dante Moretti regret the day he ever thought he could own me.