"On your left shoulder blade," I replied.

The page remained blank for a long moment.

I continued writing, "Dante, I'm begging you, stay out of my life."

An eternity seemed to pass before new words appeared.

The black ink seemed to bleed into the paper, pressed hard with emotion.

"Elara, I live for you. Don't you know that? Why must you be so cruel to me?"

I looked at the line, feeling nothing but disgust.

The tear tracks on my face hadn't even dried yet.

I wrote:

"Live for me? I'm the cruel one?"

"You're the reason Isabella was so jealous, the reason she pushed me into the line of fire!"

"And you! Twelve years later, you've gotten her pregnant with your heir!"

"Dante, you have no right to say that to me."

For countless nights, I would wake with a start, the phantom pain of that ugly scar on my back sending me into a spiral of tears.

Twelve years ago, that street firefight.

Isabella had tearfully begged Dante to take her with him, but he had coldly refused.

In a fit of rage, when the gunshots rang out, she shoved me directly into the line of fire.

By the time Dante arrived, I had already collapsed in a pool of blood.

Seeing me on the verge of death, he let out a guttural, broken roar.

He carried me in a frenzy, rushed me to the family's private hospital, and knelt outside the operating room, praying.

My life was saved, but I was left with a permanent scar on my back and the possibility that I could never conceive.

That day, Dante held my hand tightly, his shoulders trembling as he cried.

"Elara, as long as you're okay... that's all that matters. We don't need children. You are my whole world."

"Elara, I swear in the name of the Falcone family, I will protect you with my life."

And yet this man who loved me so much would, years later, cheat on me with Isabella and even have a child with her.

I closed my eyes in despair.

Now, this diary was the only chance heaven had given me to make Dante disappear from my life forever.

But this time, I received no reply.

Utterly exhausted, I hugged the diary and fell into a deep sleep.

I dreamed I was eighteen again. Dante was kneeling beside me, sobbing and begging me to open my eyes.

A sudden chill woke me. There was no one beside me.

The thirty-year-old Dante had chosen the woman who hurt me most. He wasn't coming back.

I opened the diary. There were two new lines on it.

My dream shifted, plunging me back to that dark street from twelve years ago. Gunshots echoed everywhere, the sky lit with flashes of fire.

I was shoved forward by Isabella, exposed to the line of fire.

I closed my eyes, but the searing pain I remembered never came.

When I fearfully opened my eyes, I saw Dante standing in front of me.

He gritted his teeth and shielded me with his body, taking every bullet meant for me.

Blood blossomed across his white shirt, but he was still using his last ounce of strength to smile at me.

In the dim light, the eighteen-year-old boy slowly knelt on one knee in a pool of his own blood.

Our eyes met. His were bright, burning with a triumphant pride.

A slow, determined smile spread across his lips. "Elara, I love you. I will never let you get hurt."

"I... did it..."

He closed his eyes and collapsed in front of me.

I screamed his name and shot up from the sofa, drenched in a cold sweat and gasping for air.

I wrapped my hands tightly around my trembling body, trying to convince myself it was just a dream.

But when I subconsciously touched my back, I found that the ugly, uneven scar was gone.

In disbelief, I opened the diary.

Two new lines had appeared.

"Elara. I'm hurt. Gods, it hurts."

"But for you, it was worth it."

The knot of tension in my chest began to loosen.

The clock chimed the hour, marking the end of our wedding anniversary.

I wrote expressionlessly, "It wasn't for me. You owed me."

If it weren't for you, I would never have been the target of Isabella's jealousy, much less been pushed out to die.

And I certainly wouldn't have had to see you with her and your heir twelve years later, repeatedly tortured by your happiness!

On the diary page, shaky, crooked characters continued to appear, as if written with the last of his strength.

"Elara, is there anything else you need me to do?"

asked the boy who was once so deeply in love with me.

But I felt no mercy.

"Leave my life, and never appear again."

Once, when family members mocked me for being "barren," he was my shield.

I once believed that as long as I had him, I could overcome any hardship.

But later, he was also the one who let go of my hand, stood with those who ridiculed me, and pushed me into the abyss.

The one who loved me most also knew best where to stab to cause the most pain.

Countless times I had broken down in despair, questioning why fate was so unfair.

I’d even thought about ending it all.

Now, if there was even the slightest chance, I would not let it all happen again.

The eighteen-year-old Dante clearly couldn't accept my rejection, filling the page with a torrent of words, desperate proof of his love:

"Why, Elara, why won't you believe me? Do you know how much I love you?"

"Every time you had an art exhibition, I’d ditch my bodyguards and slip into the crowd, just to catch a glimpse of you."

"When I heard you were skipping meals for your art, I immediately skipped a family meeting, crossed the city to buy your favorite food, and had it anonymously delivered to your studio door."

"And..."

"That's enough! I know all of that!" I interrupted him, my eyes red, as if I was seeing the girl I used to be, the one who fell for all of this.

"I know that once, when my painting was maliciously destroyed by a rival, you took on a whole block of thugs by yourself. You were beaten until you were covered in bruises, your head bleeding, all to get justice for me."

After a long pause, a line slowly appeared in the diary.

"Elara, how do you know about these things?"

He didn't know yet what his future self would say to me.

I took a deep breath and slowly wrote:

"The future you told me."

The reply came quickly: "If you know that, why do you still want me to leave?"

I gave a bitter smile. "Because the thirty-year-old you deeply regrets doing those things for me."

"You said you mistook youthful possessiveness for love, and that marrying me was the biggest mistake of your life."

"No, Elara. Why won't you believe me? I don't want anyone but you," the crooked words scrambled across the page.

"It's all lies! Not only will you regret marrying me, you'll have a child with that woman!"

Tears fell silently, smudging the ink, and I accidentally tore the paper.

In an instant, the world spun. When I came to, I found myself in a hospital room.

In front of me, the eighteen-year-old Dante lay weakly on a hospital bed, his abdomen wrapped in thick gauze, his face pale.

One hand was pressed against his wound, while the other painstakingly wrote every word, muttering to himself.

"Elara, I'm begging you, give me a chance. You have to believe me, I..."

He looked up, and his gaze met mine.

We stared at each other in silence.

After a long moment, he spoke with difficulty, "Elara, these words..."

The next second, a piercing ringtone shattered the vision, and I was back in my ransacked home.

I answered the phone, and a sharp, commanding voice pierced my ear:

"Elara, come to the restaurant downstairs from the office now. Isabella and I have something to tell you."