Chapter 6

After Alejandro left, there was tension lingering in the balcony.

There was no going back to pretending as Elena stood frozen and her pulse hammering in her ears.

Dino stared at his hands, fingers curled into a fist, as if he could still feel the weight of that moment. The same hands that gripped Alejandro a while ago.

He exhaled finally. “We aren't doing anything reckless tonight.”

Elena flinched. “You think I don’t know that?”

“I think you’re angry. And anger makes people careless.” As his dark eyes met hers.

Elena let out a bitter laugh. “Maybe I want to be careless.”

Dino, lowering his voice, stepped closer. “No. I Want to be free. And those aren’t the same thing.”

Elena caught her breath.

She should have argued.

But he was right.

Her fury at Alejandro, at Sanchez, at her father—the thoughts burned in her chest like a wildfire. But wildfires aren't planned. They just destroy, with no strategies.

Dino wasn’t going to let her self-destruct as he saw it in her.

He glanced back toward the door. “Go back inside.”

Elena blinked. “What?”

“Go back inside,” he repeated, with a firmer tone. “. If Alejandro suspects anything, act like nothing happened, and he’ll keep you even closer.”

She hated this. Hated smiling at monsters who already decided her fate, hated walking into that gilded prison.

But she nodded.

Dino was right.

She had to play the role they expected.

Just a little longer.

Elena turns, straightens her shoulders, and goes back in through the doors.

---

Dino, still outside a moment longer, braced his hands against the railing. He needed to think.

Elena was smart but also desperate. And desperate people are prone to making mistakes.

Dino had survived Sanchez’s world by hiding in plain sight over the years. He had mastered how to play their game, reading their movements before they even made them.

He was an actor, and he had played his role well. He wasn't just a soldier in this empire.

Everything has shifted tonight.

Alejandro saw the cracks in his mask for the first time.

And that was dangerous.

Dino, thinking ahead, forced a hand down on his head.

They had to be patient. Calculated. If they had to get Elena out—and if they must do this.

Alejandro would be watching her now.

Sanchez would be watching him.

Dino would have to pretend also that nothing had changed.

---

There was still music and conversation in the grand hall, as if nothing had happened.

Elena's heart was pounding beneath her ribs as she walked back into the gathering.

She found Capello first.

Her father's shoulders slumped beneath the weight of his choices, looking exhausted. Bearing the choices that had destroyed her life.

But when he looked at her, he felt something else.

Guilt.

“Elena,” he murmured.

“Did you know?” She stopped in front of him.

Capello swallows hard. “Know what?”

She gave him a sharp look. “That Dino wasn't Sanchez’s son.”

Capello stiffened. He pulled her toward the edge of the room, hurriedly glancing around. “You mustn’t speak of that,” he whispered.

Elena clenched her jaw. “So you did.”

Capello with a slow, heavy breath. “I suspected.”

The confession stung.

“You watched them treat him like a dog, and you said nothing?” She hissed. “You watched him spend his whole life serving them.”

Capello spoke with trembling hands. “There is nothing I could have done?”

Elena stared at him. Her father had spent his life bowing to men like Sanchez.

Tonight. She assured herself she would never be like him.

“You ought to have fought for him,” she said quietly. “But you didn’t.”

Capello’s face crumpled.

A hand wrapped around Elena’s wrist before he could say a word.

Alejandro.

His breath laced with whiskey as he leaned closer. “Dance with me.”

Elena bluntly responds, “No.”

Alejandro tightened his grip. “It wasn’t a request.”

Remembering Dino’s warning. She forced a smile as her stomach churned.

Play the role.

She allowed herself to be pulled to the dance floor as she exhaled.

It was elegant and suffocating as the music swelled around them.

Holding her in place, Alejandro's hand pressed tightly against her waist. “You’re upset.”

Elena stared over his shoulder. “I wonder why.”

“Because of Dino, I assume.” Alejandro chuckled.

Her blood ran cold. “What?”

“You think I didn’t notice? You two have always had... something.” He snuggled with a smirk on his face.

Elena’s pulse pounded in her throat.

Alejandro leaned closer. “Princesa. At the end of the day, you’re mine, so it doesn't matter.”

Elena dug her nails into his shoulder. Even if I have anything to say about it.

Her gaze met Dino’s across the room.

Always watching. He was standing near the bar, watching.

And in a blink of a moment, Elena knew—

They had to act soon.

Because Alejandro wouldn't just cage her if they don't.

He would destroy her.

But Dino wasn’t going to let that happen.

Her anger was still burning when she spoke. “Why didn't you fight for him?” she said quietly. “Because you could have.”

Deep lines of regret etched into Capello’s tired features as his face crumbled. He couldn't say anything for a long moment. He murmured with a bare whisper, “I couldn’t even fight for my own family.”

Elena stiffened.

Capello's gaze drifted past her, lost in the past. His voice faltered. “Your mother would have never let this happen.”

Her mother. Elena's throat tightened.

Their home was haunted by a ghost long before she was gone.

Capello continued, his voice thick. ”She fought for you, for us.” He ran his trembling hands as he ran them down his face. “But in the end, she couldn’t fight fate.”

Elena’s pulse pounded in her ears. “It wasn't just an accident, was it?”

Capello looked at her then.

There was heaviness and suffocation in the air between them.

Alejandro’s hand was already clamped around her wrist as his lips parted before he could speak.

Elena couldn't register her father’s flinch before she was pulled onto the dance floor.

Though Alejandro has her in that forced waltz, with his grip possessive and suffocating, her mind was still back there.

With the man who had lost everything.

And her mother, whose absence appeared as not just an accident.