THE WIFE HE BURNED

The first thing I felt was smoke in my lungs, and the second was a ring pressing into my finger. I jolted upright, coughing, clawing at my throat. My hands were small and unbruised. No blood. No glass. No twisted metal pinning my legs. Just soft cotton sheets and the pale gray light of early morning sliding through lace curtains. I stared at my left hand. A diamond sat on my ring finger, heavy and cold, the band cut from white gold. I had worn that ring for nearly five years. I had stopped noticing its weight a long time ago, the way you stop noticing a chain you've worn since childhood. Now it felt like a shackle. "No," I whispered. My voice came out hoarse. "No, no, no." I swung my legs off the bed and stood too fast. The room tilted. I grabbed the nightstand and waited for the dizziness to pass, and my eyes landed on the calendar hanging beside the closet door. It was the seventh of July, and someone had circled the twenty-second in red marker. Beneath the circle, in neat black letters, someone had written: Dress fitting, 10 a.m. Don't be late, Lena. I knew that handwriting. I had spent five years reading it on grocery lists, birthday cards, and the rare, careful notes left on the kitchen counter when Dante had to leave before dawn. The wedding was on the twenty-second of October. It was three months away. I looked down at my hands again, and the memory came back in ragged pieces, like shards of glass I was afraid to pick up. Orange light. Heat that felt alive. The clubhouse roof groaning as it caved in. My own voice screaming his name from the back hallway, where the smoke had already swallowed the exit. Then a crash of boots somewhere ahead of me, and a woman's voice calling out, sharp and frightened, from the direction of the east office. And Dante. Dante running past me. Not stopping. Not even looking back. I had died in that hallway, coughing my lungs out, while the man I had given my whole life to ran toward someone else. I pressed my palm against my mouth and held my breath until the tears receded. Downstairs, a door slammed. Heavy footsteps crossed the foyer, followed by the low, familiar rumble of Dante's voice. He was on the phone, and he sounded like he was trying very hard to keep his temper. "I don't care what the prospect says. Pull the footage from the east lot. Every frame." A pause. "Then find out who let her out of the garage. Tonight, Cole." Cole. Cole Briggs, his second-in-command, the man who had carried me across the threshold on my wedding night and toasted our marriage with a glass of bourbon so smooth it burned. Cole, who had kissed my cheek at the club's Christmas party and told me I was too good for all of them. My stomach turned over. The footsteps started up the stairs. I moved on instinct, dropping onto the bed and pulling the covers up to my chest, arranging my face into the calm, sleepy expression I had perfected over five years of marriage. The bedroom door opened. Dante stood in the doorway, filling the frame the way he always did. Black T-shirt, dark jeans, leather cut hanging open over his shoulders with the Iron Serpents patch stitched across the back. He was taller than I remembered, though I knew that was impossible. His jaw was tight, and there were shadows under his gray eyes, as if he hadn't slept in days. For one dizzying second, I wanted to run to him. Five years of habit pulled at my chest, urging me to rise and smooth his collar and ask him what was wrong. Then I remembered the hallway, and the woman's voice, and the way he hadn't looked back. "You're awake," he said. He sounded almost relieved. "Good. The fitter's coming at ten. Your mother called twice already." "Okay," I said quietly. He studied me for a long moment, his gaze moving over my face the way it did when he was checking a new threat. Then he turned away. "Get dressed," he said over his shoulder. "And Lena, don't wander off this time. We're still dealing with the Black Tide." The door closed behind him. I sat very still, listening to his boots descend the stairs. When the front door finally shut, I let out a breath I hadn't realized I was holding. My phone buzzed on the nightstand. I almost didn't look. But the screen lit up with a message, and my heart stopped in my chest. The sender's name was one I hadn't seen in two years. Not since the funeral. Grandma Rose. The preview text was short, and it was written in the same careful cursive that had once filled the margins of her recipe cards. Wake up, girl. Don't marry that man. He's going to let them burn you. My hand trembled so badly that the phone nearly slipped from my fingers. I stared at the screen until the words blurred, then forced myself to read them again. The message was time-stamped 6:02 a.m. Two years after the grave. And beneath the words, a tiny attachment icon blinked, waiting for me to open a single photo.