The private flight to America was scheduled for four in the afternoon.
At noon, the courier arrived at my door with the court's dissolution papers—the formal severance of our blood-bound union, stamped and sealed by Giudice Enzo Moretti himself.
From this moment forward, I was no longer bound to the Volpe name.
I was free.
My phone vibrated against the marble countertop, the sound sharp in the silence of the empty safe house.
A message from Nico.
One o'clock. The café beneath the Social Club. We need to talk.
I stared at the screen for a long moment, the blue light casting shadows across my scarred right hand. Then I made my decision.
I would go.
I arrived early, my single piece of luggage rolling behind me, the dissolution papers folded precisely in my coat pocket. The café was one of those places that existed in the liminal space between the Family's legitimate fronts and their darker dealings—expensive espresso, hand-carved wooden chairs, and windows that faced the street so the soldiers upstairs could watch who came and went.
I chose a corner table. Ordered nothing. Waited.
One o'clock became one-thirty.
One-thirty stretched into two.
He had summoned me.
And yet he was the one who did not appear.
I sent several messages. Each one disappeared into the void, swallowed by whatever silence he deemed more important than our final meeting.
Finally, two words materialized on my screen.
Busy.
Then my phone rang—an unknown number with a Riverdale prefix.
"Signorina Mancini?"
The voice was familiar. Efficient. Loyal to a fault.
"This is Marco Ferrante. The Young Don asked me to inform you that an urgent matter arose. He cannot get away to meet you."
I said nothing.
This was hardly unexpected. Three years of marriage had taught me exactly where I ranked in Nico Volpe's hierarchy of priorities.
Marco continued, his tone carefully neutral—the voice of a soldier delivering orders he had not been asked to question.
"Don Nico wanted me to tell you that he's already arranged for you to see a specialist in England—a surgeon who works on hand bone and muscle repair. He'll have everything set up for your treatment and recovery."
A pause.
"Also, he's transferred another twenty million to your account. For living expenses. Medical costs. Whatever you need."
I held the phone in my left hand—my good hand—while my right gripped the handle of my luggage. The leather bit into the ridges of scar tissue that would never fully heal.
The refusal rose to my lips.
I don't want your money. I don't want your guilt offerings. I don't want anything that carries the weight of the Volpe name.
Then I looked up.
Across the street.
In an open-air café bathed in afternoon light.
Nico and Massima.
Sitting together.
Laughing.
She ducked her head, that practiced gesture of feminine softness she had perfected over years of manipulation. Her smile was demure, calculated—the expression of a woman who knew exactly how to make powerful men feel like protectors.
And Nico—
Nico reached across the small table and brushed a strand of dark hair from her forehead.
The gesture was tender.
Intimate.
The sunlight was beautiful. Golden light spilled over them both, turning the scene into something from a painting—two lovers reunited, the world soft and warm around them.
The smile on his face was relaxed. Content. Alive in a way I had never seen in three years of sharing his bed, his name, his blood oath.
I had given him everything.
My career. My hands. My future.
And he had never once looked at me the way he was looking at her now.
I forced myself to look away. The bile rose in my throat, but I swallowed it down. Mancini women did not break in public.
"Signorina Mancini? Are you still there?"
Marco was still talking. Something about flight arrangements. Security details. The Genovese territory protocols.
I hung up.
Paid the bill with cash—untraceable, the way I'd been taught. Grabbed my luggage. Walked out of the café with my spine straight and my face composed.
Then I crossed the street.
My heels clicked against the cobblestones with deliberate precision. Each step carried me closer to the table where my husband—my former husband—sat with the woman who had stolen my research, my reputation, and apparently, whatever remained of his capacity for human warmth.
I stopped directly in front of them.
The dissolution papers I had been clutching the entire way—I slammed them down on the table.
Hard.
The impact sent Massima's fresh-squeezed juice sloshing over the rim of its crystal glass. Nico's espresso followed, dark liquid spreading across the white linen like a bloodstain.
The coffee splashed onto Massima's cream-colored dress—a designer piece, no doubt purchased with Volpe money.
She gasped. Theatrical. Wounded.
The next second, Nico's hand shot out and seized my right wrist.
My damaged wrist.
The pain was immediate and blinding, radiating up through the network of poorly-healed bones and severed tendons. I bit the inside of my cheek hard enough to taste copper.
I would not give him the satisfaction of seeing me flinch.
His dark eyes met mine. Cold. Assessing. The same expression he wore when conducting Family business—when deciding whether a man would live or die based on his usefulness to the Volpe empire.
He didn't glance at the papers.
Didn't acknowledge what they represented.
Three years of marriage. A blood oath sworn before God and the Commission. An alliance between two Families that had cost my father political capital and my mother sleepless nights.
All of it reduced to a stack of legal documents soaking in spilled espresso.
A few seconds of silence stretched between us.
Then, as if deciding that confronting me wasn't worth the effort—as if I wasn't worth the effort—he released my wrist.
He walked around to Massima's side of the table.
Pulled napkins from the silver dispenser.
Carefully, gently, dabbed at the stains spreading across her skirt. His movements were solicitous. Protective. The movements of a man tending to something precious.
"Are you alright, Massima?" His voice was soft. Concerned. Human.
I stood there for a moment longer.
The afternoon sun was warm on my face, but I felt nothing but cold.
I didn't say another word.
I turned, hailed a black car from the line of Family-approved drivers waiting near the Social Club, and directed him to take me to the airport.
The announcement echoed through the private terminal, crackling through speakers that had seen better decades.
"Passengers traveling to America, please proceed to Gate T1 for check-in."
My phone buzzed one final time.
Another message from him.
Isabella. I think you owe Massima an apology.
I stared at the screen.
Three years.
Three years of silence. Of neglect. Of watching him pour every ounce of devotion he possessed into the memory of a woman who had abandoned him—while I stood beside him, invisible, bleeding out slowly from wounds he refused to acknowledge.
And now, at the end of everything, his final words to me were a demand that I apologize to her.
I didn't hesitate.
Blocked. Deleted.
I handed my identification documents to the security officer—passport, visa papers, the dissolution decree that marked the official end of my time as a Volpe.
The woman glanced at my information. Looked up. Her eyes flickered to the date on the decree.
"Dissolved today?"
I checked my luggage, straightened my coat, and met her gaze with a small, sharp smile.
"Yes. The blood oath is broken."
The air conditioning on the private plane was freezing—the kind of cold that seeped into bones and settled there like a permanent guest.
I asked the attendant for a cashmere blanket and wrapped myself in it tightly, cocooning myself against the chill and everything I was leaving behind.
I leaned back in the leather seat.
Sleep came fast and heavy, dragging me under before I could fight it. I didn't hear the takeoff announcement. Didn't feel the moment the wheels left the ground and carried me away from Volpe territory forever.
Only one thought remained, drifting through the darkness like smoke.
Goodbye, Nico.
May you and your Massima rot together in the empire you built on my bones.
