The cellar smelled like copper and rot. Cold walls. Dim lights. Shadows that didn't move unless told to. And in the center, the man from the gallery—his face bloodied, breathing labored, wrists tied to the chair with leather straps that cut into his skin.
I stood inches away.
Barefoot. Bare-souled.
The knife in my hand felt heavier than it should have. As if it already knew what it would cost me.
Dante didn't say a word. He just waited.
Watching.
Like a storm watching a girl decide whether to open her umbrella—or dance in the rain.
---
"I won't do it," I whispered.
My voice broke.
But my spine didn't.
Dante tilted his head. "Yes, you will."
"I'm not like you."
He stepped closer. "No, you're worse. Because unlike me, you still pretend you have a choice."
He turned to his men. "Hold her hand."
"No!" I jerked back, but two of them grabbed my arms. Held me firm. Pressed the knife back into my shaking fingers.
Dante stood behind me now. His breath against my neck.
"Cut him. Not deep. Just enough to remember."
The man groaned in the chair. His eyes cracked open. Focused on me.
"Don't," he rasped. "You're still clean. Stay clean."
Clean?
What a stupid word for someone like me.
---
I could've dropped the knife.
Could've screamed.
Could've begged.
But I did something worse.
I listened to Dante.
I stepped forward. My hand trembling so hard it barely held the blade steady. My stomach twisted so violently I thought I'd collapse.
And I made the shallowest cut I could.
Right across the man's shoulder.
Not out of cruelty.
But to end it.
Just one cut.
Just to stop this.
His blood welled up. Dark red. Warm. Real.
And something inside me… split.
---
Dante pulled me back before I crumpled to the floor.
His hands caught my waist.
His voice was soft. "Now you know what it takes."
Tears streaked down my face.
"I'm not like you," I choked.
"No," he whispered. "But you will be."
---
I spent the rest of the night in the shower.
Hot water. Scrubbing my skin raw. Watching the blood swirl down the drain even though it wasn't mine.
It might as well have been.
I was alone. Numb.
But I didn't cry again.
Crying was for girls who hadn't yet crossed the line.
---
Morning came with no sunlight. Just gray skies and a cold knock on my door.
It was Inez. Her expression tighter than usual.
"Pack a bag."
I blinked. "What?"
"You're leaving."
My heart stopped.
"Where?"
"Dante didn't say. But it's urgent."
I tried to ask more, but she cut me off with a look that said not now. So I threw a few things in a duffel bag and followed her downstairs, where Dante waited in the foyer, dressed in all black.
"We're taking a trip," he said.
"To where?"
He didn't answer.
---
Three black cars. A convoy. No explanation.
I sat beside Dante in the middle vehicle, the road humming beneath us. Trees blurred past the window. I clutched my bag like it held my soul.
"Why are we leaving?" I asked finally.
He didn't look at me. "There was a breach."
"A what?"
"Someone got close to you. Too close. The envelope. The gallery. The cellar. They were all warnings."
"From who?"
"That's what I'm going to find out."
"And you need me for that?"
His eyes met mine. "I need to know who's using you to get to me."
---
After four hours, we pulled up to a sprawling estate outside the city. Gated. Guarded. Gothic.
A second Virelli property.
"Welcome to the winter house," Dante muttered.
It was colder here. Physically. Emotionally. Like the whole building had been carved from old money and colder sins.
Inside, rooms stretched endlessly. Portraits watched. Floors whispered.
"This is where you'll stay until I say otherwise," Dante told me. "No going out. No phones. No contact."
"You're locking me in a castle now?"
He smirked. "Would you prefer a cage?"
"I'd prefer to be left alone."
"You lost that right the moment you wore my name."
---
The staff here was different. Stricter. Distant.
They called him "sir." They called me "ma'am." But their eyes said prisoner.
I was shown to a massive guest suite with tall windows and no locks on the inside.
Dante left me with a final warning.
"Don't go wandering after dark."
"Why?"
"Because the people who built this place believed in ghosts."
That night, I wandered anyway.
---
The halls creaked. Every step echoed. Every shadow seemed to move just a second too late.
But the truth is—I wasn't looking for ghosts.
I was looking for answers.
Who was that man in the cellar?
Who sent the red envelopes?
Why did I look like her?
And why did Dante flinch every time I said I wasn't her?
I found the answers in the most unexpected place.
A painting.
---
It hung in one of the locked rooms Inez forgot to lock.
A small library filled with old books, wine cabinets, and a single canvas over the fireplace.
The woman in the painting looked exactly like me.
Not similar.
Not close.
Exactly.
My throat dried.
Her eyes.
Her hair.
Her shape.
Same.
Only she smiled.
And her name was written beneath the frame: Liliana Virelli.
Dante's wife.
Dead.
---
I stumbled back.
Everything made sense and nothing did.
He hadn't married me.
He'd replaced her.
I was a body double in a twisted performance.
That's why the gallery guests stared. Why the blonde woman at the party sneered. Why the man in the cellar told me to run.
I wasn't me.
I was her.
A dead woman with my face.
---
Behind the painting was a safe.
I found it by accident—my hand brushing the frame, the panel clicking open with a mechanical sigh.
Inside: a stack of letters.
Dozens.
All written by Liliana.
All dated six months before her "accidental" death.
I read the first one by the light of the fireplace.
> "If you're reading this, it means I'm gone. Or worse—forgotten. Dante says he loves me, but I see it in his eyes. The fear. The rage. He's slipping, and I can't stop it. I don't know who he is anymore. Or maybe I do. And I've just been pretending. Like all of them do."
I read three more before the door creaked.
I froze.
But it wasn't Dante.
It was a man I hadn't seen before.
Tall. Pale. With a scar down his jaw.
He stepped into the firelight.
"I told you to disappear," he said.
It was him. The man from the cellar.
Alive.
---
My heart nearly stopped.
"You're—how—?"
He raised a hand. "Quiet. I only have a minute."
"But I saw you. You were—"
"Tortured? Yes. But not killed. Not yet. Because he still thinks I'm useful."
"Who are you?"
"A mistake he didn't clean up fast enough. But that doesn't matter."
He looked at the letter in my hands.
"You found her words."
"Liliana's."
"She wasn't the only one. There have been others."
My blood ran cold.
"Others?"
He nodded. "Girls. All who looked like her. All who were brought here. All who—" He swallowed. "Didn't leave."
I dropped the letter.
"Why me?" I asked.
He didn't answer. He just looked behind him.
Footsteps were coming.
Fast.
He pressed something into my hand.
A key.
"Behind the stables," he whispered. "At midnight. If you want out of this, come alone. If you bring him, you die too."
Then he disappeared down the servant passage just as the library door burst open—
And Dante stood there.
Face like thunder.
—