Elara Moretti POV:

The line picked up on the third ring. I opened my mouth to speak, but my words were swallowed by a wave of sound from the other end. It wasn't the quiet hum of an office. It was the clink of silverware against porcelain, the delicate chime of crystal glasses, and the low thrum of a jazz piano.

“Dante?” I asked, my voice small. A cold stone settled in the pit of my stomach.

A woman’s voice, husky and playful, purred in the background. “Oh, Dante, forget about work for a minute. You have to try this…”

I knew that voice. Seraphina Gallo. A model whose entire Instagram feed was a curated shrine to the gifts Dante bought her. His “business partner.”

Dante’s voice finally came through the line, sharp with impatience. “What is it? I’m in a meeting.”

His tone was cold, impersonal. Like I was a telemarketer who had gotten a wrong number. *A meeting.* It was his go-to excuse, the one he used whenever he didn’t want to be bothered. For three years, I had chosen to believe it. A wave of humiliation washed over me, hot and bitter, but I shoved it down. There was no time.

“Dante, it’s Luca.” My voice trembled, the words tumbling out in a rush. “He’s dying. The doctor said he needs ECMO, he needs your team. Now!”

I fell silent, clutching the phone so tightly my knuckles were white. I waited, listening to the blood roar in my ears.

The silence on his end was broken only by Seraphina’s soft giggle. I heard a rustling sound, as if he’d moved the phone away from his mouth. I could just make out his muffled words to her. “It’s nothing. A small issue.”

He came back on the line, his voice even colder than before. “I told you not to bother me with these things.”

“This isn’t a ‘thing’!” My voice cracked, rising in pitch. “He is dying! Dante, you promised me! You promised!”

My plea echoed in the sterile hallway. A passing nurse shot me a concerned look.

A humorless huff of air came through the phone. “The hospital will handle it. Don’t call me again.”

I could picture him perfectly. The slight furrow of his brow, the dismissive wave of his hand. Annoyed that his evening was being interrupted.

“No! They can’t handle it!” I was crying now, hot tears streaming down my face. “Only you can. Please, Dante. I’m begging you.”

It was the first time in my life I had ever begged anyone for anything.

In the background, Seraphina’s voice floated through, clearer this time. “Darling, who is being so dramatic?”

Dante didn’t answer her. He gave me his final verdict. “I said, I’m busy.”

I tried to say his name again, to plead one last time, but the only sound was the flat, final tone of a disconnected line.

He hung up on me.

While I was on my knees, begging for my brother’s life, he just… hung up.

I stood frozen, the phone still pressed to my ear, my mind a complete blank. The tiny flame of hope that had flickered to life was gone, extinguished by a tidal wave of ice-cold water. All that was left was the dead tone buzzing in my ear.

And then, from inside the ICU, the monitor screamed a single, piercing, continuous note, a blade of sound that severed the silence left by the disconnected call.

Elara Moretti POV:

The ICU door flew open with such force it slammed against the wall. Dr. Evans and two nurses rushed past me, their faces grim masks of concentration. The force of their passage made me stumble, but my eyes were glued to the scene inside.

I saw them swarm around Luca’s bed, a flurry of blue scrubs and urgent, unheard commands. The world went silent. The frantic beeping, the doctor’s shouts, my own ragged breathing—it all disappeared, replaced by a low, dull roar in my head.

The phone, still warm, was plastered to my ear. Dante’s words echoed in the void. *I’m busy.*

In that terrible, suspended moment before the end, a memory surfaced, unbidden. It was three years ago, in this same hospital. Luca was recovering from another surgery, one that had almost taken him.

Dante, not yet my husband but well on his way, had come to visit for the first time. He wasn't wearing one of his thousand-dollar suits. He was in jeans and a soft gray sweater, carrying a boxed set of Luca’s favorite science fiction novels. He had done his research, a predator studying his prey.

He sat by Luca’s bed for over an hour, listening with genuine-looking interest as my brother, weak but excited, explained the complex plotlines. There was a gentle smile on Dante’s face, a warmth in his eyes that I had mistaken for love.

I had watched them from the doorway, my heart swelling with a painful, unfamiliar hope.

Later, he pulled me into the hallway and wrapped his arms around me from behind, his chin resting on my head.

“Don’t worry anymore, Elara,” he’d whispered into my hair, his voice a low, hypnotic rumble. “I’ll take care of you both. I’ll find the best doctors in the world for him.”

He had turned me to face him, his hands cupping my jaw. “I love all of you. That includes your family. They’re my family now.”

He was so sincere, so utterly convincing. And I, exhausted from years of fighting alone, had believed him. I thought I’d finally found someone I could lean on.

“Family,” I breathed the word now, and it tasted like poison.

The memory wasn’t a comfort. It was a dagger, twisting in my heart. Every sweet promise, every tender look, was just more proof of what a fool I had been. He hadn’t seen a woman to love; he’d seen a weakness to exploit.

I had put my faith in a monster.

The regret was a physical thing, a crushing weight that made it hard to breathe. I hated him for his cruelty, but I hated myself more for my blindness. If I hadn’t trusted him, if I hadn’t put all my eggs in his gilded basket, maybe I would have found another way. Maybe I would have fought harder.

My stupidity had cost Luca his life. The thought was so cold, so absolute, it froze me from the inside out.

A gentle hand touched my shoulder. I flinched, spinning around to see a young nurse with wide, worried eyes.

“Mrs. Volkov?” she asked softly. “Dr. Evans sent me. It’s… it’s critical. He said you need to make a decision.”

Make a decision? What decision?

I stared at her, my mind unable to process the words.

The nurse urged again, her voice laced with pity, “Mrs. Volkov, we can’t wait any longer. You have to decide if you want us to… continue resuscitation.”