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Leila had been pampered her entire life–people spoke to her in reverent tones, never raising their voices, let alone shouting at her.
Blind with rage, she lunged forward, perfectly manicured nails aimed at Luigi’s face like talons!
Luigi deflected her attack effortlessly, shoving her backward until she stumbled and collapsed to the floor in an undignified heap.
“Security,” he called, voice ice–cold,
Miss Brown from the premises. Immediately.”
“YOU BASTARD!” Leila’s shrieks ricocheted off the marble floors.
The massive oak doors slammed shut, silencing her hysteria mid–scream.
The day of Ariana’s funeral arrived beneath a weeping sky–gentle rain that seemed to mourn alongside the gathered crowd.
Luigi carried her urn with trembling hands, his movements painfully deliberate as he placed it into the marble crypt. Every moment felt surreal, as if he were trapped in some horrific dream he couldn’t escape. This couldn’t be happening–he couldn’t be burying the woman he had only just realized he loved.
As the final stone was placed, the collective sobs behind him crescendoed.
Ariana had been genuinely beloved. Her radiance had touched countless lives.
Her parents, shattered by unimaginable grief, had retreated abroad, unable to face the ceremony that would make their daughter’s absence permanent.
But everyone else who had known Ariana–from childhood friends to professors, even the barista who had served her daily coffee–had come to pay their respects.
Their grief mingled with the rain, creating a symphony of sorrow that seemed to emanate from the earth itself.
Luigi knelt before her tombstone, a broken man rendered statue–like in his grief. His fingers repeatedly traced the inscription he had insisted upon: “Ariana Collins Maggiore, Beloved Wife.”
Wife. The title she should have held in life, not just in death.
“Ariana…” Her name caught in his throat, tears falling before he could form another word. Every memory of her smile, her laugh, the way she’d dance around their kitchen on Sunday mornings–all of it crashed over him in waves of regret so powerful they physically hurt.
He remained kneeling long after everyone had gone, the rain soaking through his expensive suit, his body shivering violently though he felt nothing.
That night, having refused to leave her graveside until physically carried away by his security team, Luigi collapsed
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with a dangerous fever.
In his delirium, Ariana came to him.
The nightmare replayed that fateful night, but with one crucial difference–this time, he hadn’t left her behind. In this version, he had recognized the danger, had grabbed her hand and pulled the blindfold from her eyes.
“Run!” he shouted, gripping her fingers so tightly he feared he might hurt her, but unable to loosen his hold. “The whole place is going to blow!”
The heat was suffocating, smoke burning their lungs as they navigated through the labyrinthine hallways. Each step felt like salvation–he was saving her this time. He wouldn’t fail her again.
Just as the exit door appeared ahead, freedom visible through its glass panel, Ariana suddenly stopped.
No matter how he pulled, she remained rooted in place.
In the dream, the fire had already reached the gasoline containers, their metal sides bulging ominously.
“Please!” he begged, terror making his voice crack. “We have to go NOW!”
Instead of responding, Ariana looked at him with such profound sadness that his heart constricted. Slowly, deliberately, she peeled his fingers from her wrist, one by one.
“You can’t save me, Luigi,” she said softly. “You’re the one who killed me.”
With those words hanging between them, she turned and walked deliberately back into the heart of the inferno.
“ARIANA, NO!”
A blinding explosion engulfed her, erasing her from existence in a violent flash of light and heat.
“ARIANA!”
Luigi bolted upright in bed, gasping for air, his body drenched in cold sweat despite the fever ravaging his system. The dream had felt so real–for those few precious moments, she had been alive again, within his reach.
He fumbled for his phone on the nightstand–a pathetic ritual he couldn’t break, checking for messages from a number that would never text again.
Before he could unlock the screen, his bedroom door burst open, his butler’s face ashen with panic: “Sir! The ‘s an emergency at Mrs. Maggiore’s crypt!”
No one could have predicted Leila’s complete psychological break–sneaking into the cemetery with bribed groundskeepers, disinterring Ariana’s urn, and threatening to scatter her remains.
When Luigi arrived, the scene before him was something from a nightmare. Leila stood in the rain, mascara streaming down her face, clutching Ariana’s urn like a trophy.
Fighting through his fever–induced weakness, Luigi approached her slowly. “Put it down, Leila,” he commanded, his
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voice deadly quiet.
His controlled tone only seemed to further unravel her fragile sanity. She threw her head back in manic laughter.
“Fuck you!” she screeched, holding the urn tighter. “This worthless cunt stole everything from me! First my championship, now my future husband! Even in death, she gets to be Mrs. Maggiore while I’m left with NOTHING!”
Luigi froze at her next words.
“I should have killed her years ago instead of just framing her for cheating! Would have saved us all this trouble!”
The confession sliced through him–the original “crime” that had justified three years of torment had been fabricated. He had destroyed Ariana for nothing.
Pure rage gave him a surge of strength despite his illness. He lunged forward, desperate to protect the only physical reminder of Ariana he had left.
His fever–weakened body betrayed him–as his fingers nearly reached the urn, his legs buckled beneath him.
Time seemed to slow as he collapsed forward. Leila, startled by his sudden movement, stumbled backward, losing her grip on the urn.
The delicate ceramic container tumbled through the air in what felt like slow motion before shattering against the marble floor with a sound that seemed to echo through Luigi’s very soul.
The impact scattered Ariana’s ashes across the wet floor, the rain quickly dissolving them into nothingness, washing away the last physical trace of her existence.
Luigi stared in mute horror, a guttural sound escaping him before he violently coughed up blood.
“Ariana…”
Her name on his lips was both prayer and apology–too late for either to matter.
London.
The Boston elite buzzed with scandals and tragedies, their whispers reaching even as far as London, where Ariana quietly followed the news of her former life.
Whenever reports of Luigi’s breakdown reached her–his violent revenge against his former friends, his obsession with her “remains,” his collapse at her memorial–she simply offered an enigmatic smile and changed the sub
The past was the past. The girl who had loved Luigi Maggiore had died in that fire, exactly as planned.
Her mother entered the sitting room of their London townhouse, carrying a steaming cup of bitter Chinese herbal medicine. “Time for your treatment, darling.”
Ariana obediently accepted it, downing the dark liquid in one determined gulp.
Seeing her daughter’s face contort from the bitterness, her mother quickly offered a piece of candied ginger. “Just a
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Chapter 11
bit longer. Two more weeks of treatment and we’re done.”
“Then your legs will be fully healed, and you can audition for the Royal Ballet like you’ve always dreamed.”
Her mother’s eyes softened with pride as she gently brushed a strand of hair from Ariana’s face.
Ariana glanced down at her legs, considering the price of her freedom.
She had escaped the fire that night through careful planning, but hadn’t anticipated the additional gasoline containers that someone had stored in the abandoned building.
The unexpected explosions had caught her off guard as she fled, a falling beam pinning her legs, nearly costing her the dancing career she had sacrificed everything to protect.
But as her mother liked to say, freedom always comes at a price. Her legs were healing, her future bright with new possibilities. She had escaped the beautiful lie of her past life and stepped into a painful but honest new beginning.
For the first time in years, she was truly free.
