Chapter 3

Elena POV

I clicked it open and saw that the transfer request I submitted last month to return to the New York headquarters had been rejected yet again.

I sat frozen, staring at the glaring red text flashing on my laptop screen.

For the third time this year, my request to transfer back to New York had been inexplicably denied.

If this had happened in the past, I probably would have been depressed over this for days.

But now that I had officially ended things with Dante, my heart was surprisingly numb.

But to say I wasn't disappointed would be a complete lie.

Forcing down my frustration, I gathered the heavy casino ledgers into my arms and walked toward the Consigliere's office to get his mandatory signature.

When I arrived, the heavy oak door wasn't fully closed, leaving a slight crack.

I just raised my hand to knock, but the clear voices drifting from within stopped me dead in my tracks.

It was the Consigliere speaking to Dante.

"Don Dante, the headquarters has completely followed your instructions and rejected Elena's transfer request once again."

"She has worked relentlessly for this transfer. Are you truly not considering bringing her back to New York?"

The room fell into a brief, suffocating silence.

Then, Dante's deep, flat voice, entirely devoid of emotion, drifted out through the crack in the door.

"Let her wait."

"Her temper is too suffocating. She is far too needy."

"Exiling her to Las Vegas in the first place was to grind down her pathetic dependency."

"If I let her come back to New York now, she will just go right back to revolving her entire life around me like a burden."

I stood outside the door, instantly freezing up.

It felt as if all the blood in my body had completely frozen into ice at this very moment.

No wonder I was suddenly exiled to this desert city a year ago.

No wonder all my desperate, bleeding attempts to transfer back were rejected every single time without any valid reason.

I had always foolishly believed this was a routine corporate reassignment.

I worked myself to the bone day and night, pulling countless unpaid all-nighters, desperately trying to prove my worth to the Famiglia.

But I never imagined...

From the very beginning, this was entirely Dante's personal game.

Simply because he found me too clingy.

So he callously banished me thousands of miles away without a single word of explanation.

That night, after leaving the casino, the emotions I had suppressed for so long violently erupted.

I squatted by the neon-lit curb, covered my face, and couldn't help but sob out loud.

My entire year of grueling loyalty was nothing but a sick joke in his eyes.

Meeting Dante was an absolute accident in my life.

Years ago, I was just a naive, overworked waitress at a mob-front nightclub.

During a night shift, some low-level thugs cornered me in an alley, violently shoving me and tearing my clothes.

Just as I was screaming in absolute despair, Dante appeared and saved me.

I later learned that he was the terrifying Don of New York, a man who controlled the life and death of the entire Eastern Seaboard.

That night, he personally drove me home.

He was aristocratic, mature, and radiating a lethal aura of power.

Before I got out of the car, he handed me a gold-embossed business card.

"If you ever want to quit, come try your luck in my empire."

Because of him, I rapidly transformed under his dark, protective wing.

Inevitably, as a naive young girl, I fell hopelessly in love with my dark protector.

I had naively thought he loved me.

And now, staring blankly at the flashing lights of Las Vegas, the cruel truth finally washed over me.

I was nothing more than a pet he was trying to tame.

A heavy, suffocating stone pressed down on my chest.

I took out my phone, stared at his name for one last agonizing second, and then permanently deleted his private number.