The Signature He Misread

Chapter 1 The Poisoned Pen

My palms rested on my father's cold oak desk. Between them lay a confession agreement and a ten-year sentence with my name on it.

Dante pushed it toward me. The signet ring my family had given him scraped across the wood.

"Sign it, Elara. It's the only way to protect the family. To protect *us*."

He pulled his brows together and made his eyes shine. I had fallen for that face once. This time, I caught the corner of his mouth twitching before he ducked his head.

Sienna dabbed dry eyes with a silk handkerchief. "He's trying to save you. We're all in this together."

*We.*

In my first life, Dante and Sienna locked me in a room soaked with gasoline. I smelled it before the flames reached the door.

I screamed until the smoke stripped my voice away, still believing he would come back for me.

I read the sentencing estimate again. Ten years for Dante's crimes. He and Sienna would take the Vance inheritance while I served the sentence, then pose as its grieving caretakers.

Dante covered my hand with his. "I know this is hard. I'll get the best lawyers, and I'll visit every week. We'll get through it."

A laugh almost escaped me. His weekly visits had never happened. Instead, he hired a prisoner with a shiv.

Even before that, he paid a doctor to make sure I could never carry the Vance heir he claimed to want.

Sienna poured me water, shaking her hand for my benefit as she set down the glass. Those fingers had turned the key while fire climbed the other side of the door.

I pulled away from Dante and picked up the Montblanc I'd given him on our first anniversary.

"You're doing the right thing, my love."

His shoulders loosened. He took my silence for surrender.

I uncapped the pen. A drop of black ink swelled at the nib while I held it above the signature line. Neither of them looked away. Sienna had even stopped pretending to cry.

Julian's face came back to me. The FBI agent had broken through part of the burning door and reached into the gap, straining for my hand until a falling beam took one of his fingers.

His was the last face I saw before the room went black.

Julian had lost a finger. My child was dead. I would not let Dante finish the job this time.

I signed *Elara Vance*. I left Moretti off the page.

As a child, my father had drilled every loop and stroke into me until my script matched his. I broke the final line on purpose.

The tiny gap looked accidental to everyone except Julian, who would recognize our distress signal.

I slid the papers back. "It's done."

Dante's shoulders dropped. He pulled me against him hard enough to crease the papers between us. "Thank you, Elara. Thank you."

His grip tightened. "You'll stay at the estate until the trial. No phone and no internet. It's safer."

The confinement had already begun.

I let my shoulders sag. "Whatever you think is best, Dante."

He kept an arm around my waist as he led me upstairs, steering me whenever I slowed. Sienna followed, still holding the unused handkerchief and watching to make sure I never left his reach.

The bedroom door locked behind me. I went to the window. Lawns, trees, and the stone walls of the estate stretched below, but the home where I had grown up already looked guarded.

Dante had the confession and the keys. On the last page, the broken stroke sat at the end of my name.

He hadn't noticed it.