
Dante forced my crippled right hand onto the scanner. Believing Camilla's lies that I betrayed his father, he demanded my confession. To protect my sister, I swallowed the humiliation and admitted to the fabricated treason, watching my fiancé's eyes turn to ice. When Camilla tossed me a box containing Mia's severed finger, my hope shattered. I dragged myself to the server room, choosing to detonate the underground armory. The blast would permanently mutilate my shoulder and burn my past to ashes, a brutal price for my fake death. Through the roaring flames, I locked eyes with Dante as he desperately charged forward to reach me. I pressed the detonator without hesitation, leaving him unaware that our next reunion would feature my left hand shoving a gun barrel directly into his mouth.

Dante forced my crippled right hand onto the scanner. The cold glass was a slap of reality against the scarred, useless flesh. He believed Camilla’s lies—that I, Elara, the woman who designed his family’s impenetrable security, had betrayed his father. Now, he demanded my public confession. To protect my sister, Mia, I had to swallow the razor blades of this humiliation and admit to a treason I never committed. I had to watch as my fiancé’s eyes, once full of a fierce, possessive warmth, turned to black ice. "Scan it," Dante’s voice was low, each word a shard of obsidian. We were in the heart of the fortress, a sterile, white server room that hummed with the power I had once commanded. Now, it was my cage. My right hand, the one he had once held to his heart and claimed held the keys to
