He Stole My Dance, I Took His Crown

Chapter 2

Love Confessions in Front of the Dead

Massimo grabbed Aiden into his arms.

“What do you mean, end this? I don’t agree!”

His voice was sharp with panic, as if he were terrified the person in his arms might vanish in the next second.

“Aiden, you can’t be this cruel to me. I told you I’d take care of you for the rest of your life, no matter what name I have to do it under.”

Aiden pushed him away, covering his face as he broke down.

“But I can’t hurt Elliott! Massimo, he’s my best friend. If it weren’t for him ten years ago, I would’ve died outside that clinic…”

I stood behind a row of gravestones, watching quietly.

Listening quietly.

It felt like a fine needle was piercing my heart.

The wound was small, but with every stab, it drilled deeper into bone.

Ten winters ago, someone dumped a seventeen-year-old boy outside Vance Clinic.

Two bullet holes in his chest. Body temperature down to ninety-three degrees. Not a single piece of identification in his pocket.

My mother operated that night.

I donated four hundred milliliters of blood and stood beside the operating table for seven hours.

Afterward, he lived in the guest room of my house for five years.

My mother paid four years of his college tuition.

I gave him half the wages from my part-time jobs and taught him how to survive in New York, how to make the name “Aiden Cross” stand on its own.

Even Luca—

I was the one who introduced him to Aiden at Thanksgiving dinner.

I never imagined that now, he would be standing here with the person I had loved most in this life.

Not far away, Aiden wiped away his tears, took a step back, and put distance between himself and Massimo.

“Massimo, I had Luca. You have Elliott. In this life, we’re not meant to be together. Forget me.”

Massimo shook his head, his eyes red.

I thought his heart must have ached terribly, seeing Aiden pretend to be strong.

“Aiden, you didn’t do anything wrong. We haven’t betrayed Elliott. Legally and morally, we haven’t crossed a single line. Do you understand? I can’t leave you alone. Not even if it kills me.”

I lowered my eyes and stared at the rain-soaked grass beneath my feet.

It had been an afternoon just like this.

Rain falling.

This same cemetery.

In front of my mother’s grave.

Twenty-three-year-old Massimo Falcone had knelt in the wet mud and sworn to the headstone:

“Dr. Vance, don’t worry. In this life, I will never make Elliott shed a single tear. If I fail, may I die a miserable death.”

Now, a vow of the same weight had been handed to someone else without a single change.

How cheap.

Aiden’s gaze grew dazed. In a tearful, uncertain voice, he asked, “Really? What we’re doing… it really doesn’t count as betraying him?”

Massimo pulled him back into his arms, his answer firm and absolute.

“No.”

My ruined right hand throbbed with a slow, dull pain as I clenched my fist.

And it was only then that I finally noticed where they were standing.

In front of Luca’s grave.

On the black marble headstone was engraved the Falcone family eagle crest and one line:

He died for the family.

How shameless.

“Am I interrupting?”

Both of them froze at the same time.

Aiden pushed Massimo away like he had been burned and looked at me in panic.

“Elliott…”

I walked through the rows of gravestones, step by step.

“Confessing your feelings to each other in front of Luca’s grave. That’s really something.”

My gaze was too cold. Aiden’s face flushed instantly, a flash of humiliation crossing it before he hurried to grab my sleeve.

“Elliott, please don’t say that about me, okay?”

His tears kept falling.

“I know what happened at the wedding hurt you. That was never what I wanted. Hit me, curse at me, whatever you want. Just don’t stop being my friend, okay? I’m begging you.”

“Aiden!”

Massimo could no longer stand it. He pulled Aiden behind him protectively and glared at me.

“Elliott, enough.”

The cemetery wind swept over me, the cold crawling up my spine and sinking into my chest.

“Enough?”

“Massimo Falcone, who are you to demand that from me? I can’t even make one sarcastic comment? Is he that precious to you?”

He choked on his words, took a deep breath, and forced his anger down. His tone softened.

“Fine. What happened at the wedding was my fault. I apologize. But Elliott, Aiden has already lost everything. You’re his best friend. Shouldn’t you try to understand him?”

He looked at me, his face full of disappointment.

“You’ve really changed.”

My spine went rigid.

For a moment, I almost thought I had misheard.

Then an absurdity I could not suppress surged up inside me.

“You’re the one who changed.”

The old Massimo had only ever had eyes for me.

After my hand was ruined, he learned how to do nerve massages with hot towels. Every night, one hour a night, for an entire year.

During the year we were long-distance, he flew more than a thousand kilometers every week just to hold me once, just to see me once, through storms and delays without fail.

He said the Vance family had saved his life, and he would spend the rest of his life repaying it.

But now, in his eyes, I was not even worth one dance.

“Massimo…”

Aiden suddenly groaned, clutching the left side of his chest. His face went deathly pale, cold sweat sliding down his jaw.

“My chest hurts…”

The man who had been facing me down instantly panicked.

Without another word, he bent down, scooped Aiden into his arms, and turned to leave.

As he brushed past me, he left one sentence behind.

Each word struck like a nail.

“You know damn well he still has shrapnel in his chest and can’t handle any stress. Elliott, you went too far.”

Then he walked away, leaving me with only his back.

I stood where I was and closed my eyes.

The rain grew heavier again.

In the next second, a bolt of electric pain shot through my right shoulder.

My entire arm went numb.

Ringing filled my ears, swallowing the world.

My vision darkened from the edges, narrowing fast.

I tried to brace myself against my mother’s headstone.

Not one of my five fingers would obey.

In the last flicker of consciousness, I heard my own heartbeat slowing down.

Then came the dark.