I leaned against the kitchen counter and closed my eyes. The exhaustion wasn't physical anymore. It lived somewhere deeper, in the marrow.
"Giordano, how many times have you actually come for me? Do you even remember? It takes me ten minutes to get home on my own, but I've waited until ten at night because you said you were on your way, only for you to cancel at the last moment. Some emergency. Some crisis on the territory that couldn't wait. So is it really so strange that I forgot you offered this time?"
Silence on the other end. Not the silence of a man reflecting. The silence of a man deciding whether to escalate or retreat.
He hung up.
I set the phone down on the marble countertop and shrugged. This was who he was. Promises made with the same casual authority he used to issue orders to his crew, and broken with the same indifference.
I boiled water, made myself a plate of pasta with a simple sauce, and a small dish of roasted vegetables on the side. I ate slowly, savoring each bite, the warmth of the food settling into the hollow places inside me.
It struck me how long it had been since I'd eaten a hot meal right after preparing it. In the early days of our marriage, even after I'd gotten pregnant, I always came home early to cook. I'd set the long dining table in our brownstone as if it mattered, as if the act of preparing a meal for my husband carried the same sacred weight as the Sunday dinners his mother used to host. But Giordano rarely made it home. There was always another meeting, another problem on the turf, another late-night sit-down at the social club that couldn't be rescheduled.
I usually ended up reheating cold food and eating alone at that long table, the empty chair across from me a monument to his absence.
Whenever I'd tried to tell Giordano how it made me feel, he'd snap. "I'm running a territory, Carolina. I'm busy. If you don't like it, don't cook. But don't complain after you've gone through the trouble. I can't build my life around your schedule."
Back then, I'd felt sorry for him. I told myself the life was hard, that the pressure of keeping the Don's favor while managing soldiers and operations and rivals would break a lesser man. After he'd lash out, I stopped asking for anything. I just waited. Quietly. Patiently. Like a good wife in this world was supposed to.
But soon, I began to realize things weren't as simple as they seemed.
When Giordano came through the front door, I was finishing the last of my meal. The plates were nearly empty, the side dish scraped clean.
He stood in the kitchen doorway, his coat still on, his jaw tight. He looked at the empty plates and the irritation rolled off him like heat from a furnace.
"Carolina. Where's my dinner?"
"You can make something yourself. There are leftovers in the fridge," I said without looking up, scraping the remnants of my plate into the trash.
Something in him snapped. He crossed the kitchen in two strides, his hand closing around my arm, spinning me to face him. His grip was firm, not enough to bruise, but enough to remind me that Giordano Valente was a man who held power in his hands every single day.
"What has gotten into you these last few days?" His voice was low, controlled, but the anger simmered just beneath the surface like something alive. "I've been trying to make things right. What more do you want from me? Why do you insist on making everything difficult?"
I met his eyes. Dark, furious, searching for the woman who used to fold under his displeasure. She wasn't there anymore.
"Giordano, if I tell you I'm not making things difficult and you still don't believe me, then call it whatever you want. I've been working all day and I'm exhausted. I'm going to bed. Please try to keep it quiet."
I pulled my arm free and turned to walk away.
Then I stopped. Turned back. Let the words land with the same deliberate calm he used when issuing orders to his men.
"Oh, and since I'm pregnant and you keep disturbing my rest, we'll be sleeping in separate rooms. I've already moved your things to the guest room."
His face darkened. The stillness that came over him was the kind I'd seen before sit-downs turned violent, that terrible pause before a table gets flipped and someone reaches for a weapon. His hand found his car keys on the counter. He grabbed them, turned without a word, and stormed out of the brownstone, slamming the heavy oak door so hard the framed photographs on the hallway wall shuddered on their hooks.
