“DROP YOUR FUCKING WEAPONS OR I’LL BLOW HER FUCKING BRAINS OUT!”

The world froze.

“My sun…” Dante whispered.

There she was.

Amid smoke and rubble.

Her wedding dress torn, stained with mud and blood.

Her hair undone, disheveled.

She was trembling, eyes wide open—filled with fear... with tears.

And the gun.

Black. Cold. Pressed hard against her head.

Nikolai’s hand shook—with rage.

“No…” Dante felt the ground vanish beneath him.

Behind Nikolai, several men had their weapons aimed at his people. His mother. His little brother...

“DROP YOUR GUNS!” Nikolai roared. “NOW!”

“Drop them!” Dante echoed, his voice breaking.

Everyone obeyed, and silence fell—more brutal than any bullet.

Nikolai smirked, lips curling.

“Look at me, Bellandi. Checkmate, Italian mutt.”

Dante couldn’t breathe.

Her. His sun. His everything. She had a gun to her head.

He couldn’t move. Not while that bastard held her like that.

She looked at him—silent—but her eyes screamed for help.

Tears carved paths of ash down her face.

“Is this what you wanted, my love?” Nikolai murmured, brushing the barrel against her skin. “White flowers? A dream wedding? I would’ve given you that and more.”

She shut her eyes, and a thick tear slipped down her jaw.

“Let her go!” Dante roared. “Take me, you son of a bitch! Kill me instead!”

“Kill you?” Nikolai let out a dry, unhinged laugh. “No, Bellandi. I told you—that was never on the table.”

She gasped, cracking, her legs trembling.

Dante stepped forward.

The Russians raised their guns—one of them aiming straight at his little brother’s chest.

“NO!” his terrified mother screamed, clutching the child. “Please, don’t shoot him!”

“One more fucking move,” Nikolai snarled, pressing the gun harder against her temple, “and I’ll kill every single one of you. One by one.”

Dante froze, fists clenched, fury choking him.

“She’ll never be yours,” he spat.

“She wasn’t yours either. And still, you kidnapped her,” Nikolai shot back. “We’re not so different, you and I.”

The air turned heavy, as if the world itself were holding its breath.

One wrong move—and everything would explode.

She looked at him. Only him.

And in that gaze, everything else vanished.

“Don’t let him take me,” she whispered. “I’d rather die here… with you.”

Something shattered inside Dante.

His heart. His soul.

His whole goddamn life.

He was shaking.

With rage. With love. With fear.

“Let her go!” he roared, moving forward. “Take me! My life, my empire, whatever you want! Just let her go!”

Nikolai tilted his head, that crooked smile curdling blood.

“Your life? I already have it. Your empire? We reduced it to ashes today. The only thing left was to rip away what you loved most.”

Dante stepped closer, chest heaving, as if his heart were trying to leap out to shield her.

“Take me! Tear me apart if you want! But not her!”

Nikolai looked at him with delight. Not mockery. Not scorn.

Sick pleasure.

“You?” He let out a dry laugh.

“What joy would I get from doing to you what I want to do to her?”

He licked her face.

Dante’s fists cracked. Bone grinding against bone.

He took another step.

Nikolai moved the gun—more pressure.

“Not another inch,” he growled.

“Damn you!” Dante bellowed—but stopped.

The helicopter roared overhead, shattering the smoke-choked sky, scattering dead petals, dust, and ash.

The flames at the pergola blazed like an omen.

Dante walked through corpses and ruins, eyes locked on her. On his sun.

Two men grabbed her roughly.

Nikolai opened the helicopter door, grinning like a fucking demon.

Dante wasn’t thinking anymore.

He just roared.

“Let my wife go, you bastard!”

His voice cracked—feral, broken, agonizing.

Then he saw it.

A pistol.

Tossed among the dead roses. Half-buried.

Like a sign. A final chance.

Dante dove. Rolled. Grabbed the gun.

And just as he pulled the trigger—

BANG!

A shot hit him.

The pistol dropped from his hand.

Blood bloomed across his chest, soaking his shirt in red.

“NOOOOOOO!” she screamed, ripping the air apart.

She tried to run to him, but Nikolai shoved her into the helicopter like a sack of meat.

Dante collapsed to the ground, teeth clenched from the searing pain.

He was drenched in blood, life slipping away.

But his eyes—his eyes stayed on her.

Only her.

He saw her banging on the door of the chopper, sobbing, screaming—

“Dante! DANTE!”

The helicopter lifted into the air, swallowed by screams, wind, and dust.

And on the ground, beneath a sky turning gray as if mourning with them,

Dante Bellandi bled.

“My sun…” he whispered—before losing consciousness.