The echo of Dante’s words hung in the freezing air of the medical vault, heavy and irreversible. Elena’s fingers remained curled into the fabric of his shirt, her forehead pressed against his chest as the sheer weight of her reality settled in. She had chosen this. She had locked the door from the inside, just as Lorenzo had warned, and now the walls of the dark world she had tried so hard to escape were closing in around her.
Dante didn’t give her time to process the sudden panic rising in her throat.
Ignoring her previous warnings about his stitches, he gripped her waist tighter and swung his legs forward, forcing his towering frame off the edge of the steel operating table. Elena gasped, her hands instinctively moving to push against his hard, bare shoulders to hold him back, but he w
