Danna:
"You look pretty," my mother whispered, pressing a kiss to my forehead.
She smiled softly, and just like that—walked away to God knows where, leaving me in this room filled with flowers, silence, and the crushing weight of finality.
I stood before the mirror in white silk and crimson embroidery, the phoenix patterns threaded in gold, symbolizing joy, luck, and everlasting love. But it felt wrong. Heavy. Like armor for a war I never agreed to fight.
How badly I wanted to cry—but no tears came.How badly I wanted to scream—I love Dante—but the words stayed stuck behind my ribs like shards of glass.
He wasn't coming.I knew that.
But still, I sat there in the wedding qípáo, bouquet trembling in my hands, and pulled a tiny flower free. It was an old habit. A silly one. But today, I couldn't stop myself.
"He will come…"I plucked a petal.
"He won't…"Another.
"He will…"My voice grew softer.
"He won't…"Each petal was a hope and a heartbreak falling to the floor.
Until the final one.
"He will…"
My fingers stopped, the petal resting on my palm like it knew a truth I couldn't.My eyes widened just slightly, trembling at the cruel sliver of belief it planted in my chest.
No. I shook my head quickly.Don't be stupid.Dante wasn't coming. Not here. Not now. Not when everything was already too late.
"Miss Zhao Xinyi, please come. The ceremony has started," an assistant called from the door, her voice sweet but firm.
I blinked out of the trance. My mother came back into the room, smiling again—too bright, too proud.
"Lái, lái, lái," she said gently. "Come, come."She pulled the veil over my face, the soft silk fabric falling like fog over my eyes.
I swallowed the lump in my throat, and followed.
Outside, my father stood waiting, dressed in his best traditional suit, a red silk sash wrapped diagonally across his chest. He offered his arm, and I took it like the obedient daughter I had always been.
Music began. Slow, melodic, echoing with tradition.The guests stood. Phones raised. Smiles everywhere.
Every step down that red-carpeted aisle felt like betrayal.To him.To me.
This wasn't supposed to be my ending.
"Danna… don't forget about me."His voice echoed through my mind like a ghost I couldn't exorcise.
I reached Kai.He smiled—handsome, warm, and nothing like the man I had loved.The ceremony began.
In a traditional Chinese wedding, everything symbolized fortune and harmony.The phoenix and dragon, the red candles lit at the altar, the tea ceremony where the couple shows respect to elders… but today, it felt like theater. A ceremony for someone else.
And when the priest finally spoke—
"Now the groom may kiss the bride."
My heart thudded.
Kai reached forward gently, both hands cupping my face like I was something precious.
He leaned in, slowly, closer—
But before our lips met—
CRACK.A gunshot.
Then another.
Then chaos.
Screams erupted like an earthquake. Someone cried, "Attack! It's an attack!"
Kai snapped his head up, eyes wide, scanning the room. Guests ducked. Tables overturned. A woman tripped over her heels trying to escape.
I couldn't move. Couldn't think.
Glass shattered somewhere behind me.
I grabbed my veil and ripped it back just in time to see masked men swarming the courtyard, guns drawn, men screaming in Cantonese and Italian.
The sky had fallen.
And in that chaos—My soul whispered only one name.
Dante.
I stood frozen.
Everyone else was running—screaming, ducking, fleeing—but not me.
I couldn't move. Couldn't think.
And then, someone grabbed me.
Strong arms yanked me back, out of the path of another bullet. For a moment, I thought it was Kai—but the second I looked up, I knew I was wrong.
So wrong.
And so right.
Because I didn't need proof.Not a single word. Not an explanation. Not even a name.
It was him.
Dante.
My breath left me like I'd been punched. My knees nearly gave out.I wanted to believe it was a dream, some twisted illusion my brain had crafted under pressure—but it wasn't.
He was real.He was here.
His face—God, his face.
He had a deep cut running along the edge of his cheekbone, fresh, blood trailing along his jawline like war paint. His once-warm eyes were ice now, colder than I remembered, calculating, deadly. And yet—still his. That impossible shade of blue, like the moment right before the sky turns to storm.
He wore a long black coat, moving like a shadow between fire and glass, one hand holding a gun he fired without hesitation, the other pressing me close to his chest like I was the only thing in this world that wasn't expendable.
I stared at him.
I couldn't stop.
Even as he pulled me along through the smoke and gunshots, even as we ducked past overturned chairs and broken lanterns, I couldn't look away. He was so different now. A man carved from violence and vengeance, not the soft boy I used to know.
And yet, when he held my hand—my heart knew it was him.
We didn't stop.Not until we reached the edge of the courtyard, where a sleek black SUV waited, the doors already unlocked like it had been planned.
He swung open the passenger side door without a word. I slid in, breathless, my wedding dress bunched awkwardly around me—but I didn't care.
He got in beside me, started the engine in one swift movement. The car roared to life like a beast being freed.
He pressed a finger to the comms in his ear."Jake. Get out of that place. I got her."His voice was sharp. Commanding. Like a man used to being obeyed.
I stared at him again—just stared.
He looked so different.Older.Colder.Beautiful in a way that broke me all over again.
"Dan—" I started softly, not even sure what I was trying to say.
But before the word could leave my lips, he took a sharp turn, tires screeching, body leaning into the wheel with brutal focus.
I gasped, my hand flying to the dashboard."Slow down!"
But he didn't.
His eyes flicked to me just once.Then back to the road.
Like nothing else mattered except getting me out alive.
The drive was fast, and though the world blurred outside my window like watercolor streaks bleeding into each other, my heart beat loud enough to drown out the engine, and the silence between us pressed down on my chest like weight I couldn't lift; I didn't know where we were going, didn't ask either, because wherever it was—wherever he was—I would follow without thinking, even if it was straight into hell, because the simple truth was, I had already lived in one without him.
He didn't speak.Neither did I.
His hands on the wheel, his jaw tight, his eyes burning the road ahead—he looked like a man who had destroyed cities just to get here, and maybe he had.
Eventually, the car came to a sharp stop in front of what I quickly recognized as the airport—private, empty, silent except for the distant hum of engines—and my heart skipped a full beat, then another, because suddenly it felt too real, like something irreversible was about to happen, like everything was changing too quickly for me to catch my breath.
He got out of the car before I could process anything, slamming the door with a strength that echoed in my spine, then came around to my side without hesitation and yanked open the passenger door, and though my body hesitated, my heart didn't.
"Come," he said, voice cold—so cold it cut.
I stepped out slowly, my dress catching on the edge of the seat, and I had to clutch it in my fists to move, the fabric dragging like chains around my legs."Dante," I tried to ask, my voice barely audible, "Where are we—"
But he didn't let me finish.
He was already walking, and like a shadow tied to his feet, I followed.
I didn't ask again.
Another car pulled over with a deep rumble, black as shadow and just as ominous, and from its doors stepped three men, all cloaked in the same darkness that seemed to follow Dante, like the air around them knew they were not the kind of men to be welcomed, but feared, respected, obeyed—and yet, among them, one figure pulled at something inside me like a memory refusing to fade.
Jake.
My eyes lit up before I could even stop them, surprise striking me hard in the chest, because I hadn't expected to see anyone familiar ever again—not after everything, not after the bullets and blood and betrayal—and certainly not Jake, not like this.
He stood tall, now as tall as Dante, shoulders squared, frame broader than I remembered, and though he wore a long dark coat like the others, blood crusted over the cuts scattered across his forehead and hands, there was still something painfully human about him—some lingering warmth that hadn't been completely drowned by the world they lived in, and even the faintest flicker of it in his eyes made my chest ache with nostalgia I couldn't afford.
"Danna?"
He said my name like he still remembered the way I used to laugh, like we were still in a place where the ground didn't shake beneath our feet.
"Jake," I whispered, eyes fixed on him like if I blinked, he'd vanish too.
"Long time no see."
He stepped forward, slow and cautious, and extended a hand toward me, fingers bruised and knuckles torn, like whatever softness had once lived in him had been scraped raw by the same war that had marked Dante.
I looked down at his hand—and for a moment, I just stared, at the blood, at the bones beneath the skin, at the quiet reminder that they were no longer normal boys, no longer just Dante and Jake from another lifetime, but something else entirely now, something sharp, something forged from violence and vengeance, something dangerous, and yet, even as that realization sent a chill across my spine, I reached out—
But before my fingers could touch his, Dante stepped in, like a wall made of shadow and thunder.
"They'll be here soon," he said, his voice like steel—flat, cold, efficient, "The private jets are ready. We go to a safe place first."
Jake's face didn't change much—he just nodded, slow and knowing, like he was used to orders, and pocketed his hand as if it didn't matter anymore, gesturing silently to the men behind him before walking off without another word.
And once they were gone, swallowed by the edge of the runway and the silence that followed, Dante finally turned to me—but not fully, not enough.
"We'll solve this later," he said, not looking at me, not even meeting my eyes, like facing me might make him feel something again, and he didn't want to.
His voice was colder than before.
Like every mile between us had turned into ice.