Just A Placeholder: Dying For His Mistress

Elena POV

My hands were shaking so badly that I couldn't even guide the key into the ignition of the sedan.

It was the disease.

The nerves in my fingers were misfiring-a glitch in the system, a secret I guarded with my life. Because in Dante's world, weakness wasn't just a liability; it was a death sentence.

I had to leave the car there.

I had to call an Uber.

The humiliation tasted like ash in my mouth.

The Underboss's mistress. The woman who had kept his bed warm and his secrets safe. Reduced to waiting on a curb for a stranger in a beige Toyota Camry.

When the car finally arrived, I slumped into the backseat, the bundle of magnolias still clutched in my lap.

The petals were already bruising at the edges.

"Rough day?" the driver asked, glancing at me in the rearview mirror.

I didn't answer.

Taking the hint, he turned up the radio.

It was a local station, buzzing with the city's high-society gossip.

"...and in a shocking turn of events, the Cavallaro and Moretti families have announced a joint gala tonight," the host's voice boomed through the speakers. "Sources say Sofia Moretti has bought out every florist in the city. White magnolias are officially extinct in Chicago this weekend, folks. It's the scent of a royal union."

My stomach lurched.

White magnolias were mine.

Dante knew that.

He used to bring them to me when he felt guilty about the blood on his hands.

Sofia hadn't just bought flowers.

She had bought my symbol, commodified it, and used it to decorate the stage for her victory.

I looked down at the bouquet in my lap.

It wasn't a gift anymore.

It was a joke.

A cruel punchline.

I rolled down the window and threw them out onto the highway.

They scattered in the wind, crushed under the wheels of the traffic behind us in an instant.

When I got to the penthouse Dante paid for, the silence was deafening.

This place wasn't a home.

It was a gilded cage with a view of the city I wasn't allowed to touch.

I walked to the dining table.

There was a small cake sitting there.

I had bought it myself.

"Welcome Home," written in clumsy, shaky icing.

I sat down, the tremors in my legs making it hard to stand.

My mind drifted back to the night he claimed me.

He had cornered me in the back of my father's gambling den, his hand around my throat-not squeezing, just holding. Possessing.

"Be mine," he had said, his voice low and dangerous. "Let's see if you can survive my world."

I thought it was a proposal.

I thought it was love.

I sat in the dark, staring at the unlit candle on the cake.

I was surviving his world.

But I wasn't sure I could survive him.