The screen flickered.
Grainy black-and-white footage rolled without sound. Fire bloomed in real time, devouring the edges of the frame. Figures moved—blurry, frantic. Screams, once deafening, were now only broken static, silenced by the age-warped speakers.
The room she died in burned again.
Dante watched.
Then he rewound it.
Watched again.
The shadows didn't bother him. He sat hunched in the dark like a beast in its den, shoulders taut beneath a finely tailored shirt, cuffs undone, collar open at the throat.
Cigar smoke curled up around his jawline like an old lover that wouldn't let go—soft, clinging, relentless.
This had been her favorite room.
Rachael.
She used to dance barefoot on these floorboards, jazz spinning on warped vinyl that hissed just enough to sound alive. She'd swirl across the grain like it was all some grand stage, laughing without shame, hair wild, mouth red. She'd laugh with him. At him. Never for him.
She used to say he looked too dangerous to be trusted in the daylight.
He hadn't deserved her. And still—she'd loved him.
That was the cruelest part.
The footage ended.
Static bled across the screen, snowing gray across his silence.
He didn't blink.
Didn't move.
Instead, he reached for the crystal decanter and poured himself a glass of whiskey—slow, deliberate, until the glass overflowed. Amber liquid slid over the edge, spilling onto the floor. It bled between the cracks in the wood like it belonged there.
Right where her toes used to curl.
He lit the match.
Watched the flame catch.
Dropped it.
The fire hissed to life with a whoosh, low and steady. Controlled. Mourning. It danced across the spilled alcohol in a narrow trail, licking the shadows with orange tongues.
He watched it burn, crouched like a priest before an altar, unblinking.
No one had ever found her body.
He knew they never would.
The fire had taken it all—flesh, bone, blood, memory.
Not even a tooth. She had screamed once, loud enough to split him, and then—
Nothing.
Still, he watched the footage every week.
Same time. Same glass. Same silence.
The ritual never changed.
Later, in the marble gloom of his study, the air still carried the scent of scorched wood and smoldered oak.
A dull layer of smoke clung to the ceiling. Shadows stretched long against the bookshelves.
The consigliere waited.
The older man stood just past the door, coat draped over one arm, a rolled map in the other. His face was lined with war and loss—someone who had buried more bodies than secrets.
"Territory lines are shifting," he said, voice low and deliberate.
He placed the map down on the desk like a quiet challenge. "The Morettis are ripe. Her father's soft now. Sick, even."
Dante said nothing.
The consigliere hesitated before adding, "The girl—Sophia—could be leveraged."
Silence.
Just the slow burn of cigar smoke and the creak of leather as Dante leaned back in his chair.
He didn't look at the map. Didn't need to. He already knew what it would say. Who controlled what. Which blocks bled red.
"She's not Rachael," the consigliere ventured, voice almost careful.
Dante finally turned his head. Slowly. Not enough to threaten—just enough to make the man shut his mouth.
"I don't want her heart," he said, voice low and precise, like a knife sliding across glass. "Just her name. Her womb."
The words dropped like stones.
Final. Cold. Without apology.
He could see it clearly.
Marriage. Power. An heir.
A new dynasty built on ash and blood and signatures carved into trembling flesh.
Sophia Moretti would look good at his side. She was poised, well-bred, obedient enough.
She knew the game, even if she hadn't played yet. She'd do what was asked of her. Smile in photographs. Say the right things. Give him a child.
But she would never touch the part of him Rachael had claimed.
That part was gone—burned alive. Screaming.
Pixelated in grayscale.
Static where her voice used to be.
He moved through the halls later like a ghost, bare feet soundless on marble.
One hand trailed along the wall where Rachael's perfume had once clung—orange blossom and smoke and something sunlit.
Now it just smelled like polish and old money.
Her photos were gone. Not a single frame left in the house. But the air still knew her. Certain corners still hummed with her absence.
The kitchen drawer still held her lighter, half-full. A single earring rested in the crack behind the bedroom armoire—he'd seen it last month. Left it there.
On the second floor, he passed the nursery that had never been finished. The door was shut. Always was.
He stood in front of it, silent, breathing through his nose.
That room would belong to Sophia's child, eventually.
His child.
A boy, if he had anything to say about it.
One who wouldn't need lullabies. Just legacy.
Back in the study, the map waited.
He rolled his sleeves to his elbows, revealing forearms inked with scars, history etched into his skin.
Then he leaned forward and marked the corner of the city where the Morettis still held power.
He circled it once.
Twice.
Then drew a line straight through it.
Rachael had died without reason, without mercy. The fire had stolen her from this world, but not from him.
He wouldn't grieve again.
This time, the flames would be his.