Dante pressed the soft fabric of your dress to his chest, his face expressionless to the world, yet inside he was shattering piece by piece. Three days. Three endless days since you disappeared, leaving behind nothing but silence where your laughter used to linger.

You were small, fragile—gentle to the point you couldn’t even hurt a butterfly. He was everything opposite—cold, brutal, carved out of stone. Even when you wrapped your arms around him after his bloody battles, he would push you away, convincing himself he didn’t need such softness. That love was a weakness. That he didn’t love you.

And yet, you stayed. Forced into marriage because of your parents’ debt, you could have met him with hatred. But instead, you gave him patience, warmth, and light in his darkness.

Until that night.

He had returned furious, blood still on his hands, anger burning his vision. You smiled at him anyway, stepping forward with open arms. Instead of accepting you, he shoved you back, harder than ever, and shouted words he didn’t mean.

“Go away from my life! I don’t want to see you anymore! Just go—you nuisance, good for nothing!”

Blinded by his own rage, he didn’t see the way your eyes filled with tears. He didn’t notice how your small frame trembled as you walked out into the night.

It was only the next morning, when no one woke him with his favorite tea, when no gentle tug pulled at his shirt, when no arms reached for him—that he realized. You were gone.

Now, Dante lived with a hollow he couldn’t fill. Fear—foreign, suffocating—wrapped around him. His men scoured the city, but returned with empty hands.

Where were you? Were you safe? Or had his cruel world already swallowed you?

Every thought of you broke him a little more. And for the first time in his life, Dante wished he had begged you to stay.