Someone touched my shoulder.
“Sir,” my guard said softly. “We’ve secured the scene. It’s time.”
“No.”
“The press is building at the south barricade—”
“I said no.”
I stood, took the watch barehanded. It burned through my skin. I didn’t loosen my grip.
“Scrub my schedule,” I ordered. “Tell Vexanna not to call. Not today. Not tonight. Not until I say.”
“And if she asks why?”
I looked at the wreckage, the fire, the unmade life.
“Tell her I finally learned what loyalty costs. And I’m not interested in her discount version.”
---
When I returned to the estate, the silence felt rehearsed. The staff bowed their heads and the guards looked anywhere but my face.
Vexanna appeared at the top of the stairs, silk robe tied soft, voice gentled like she thought she still mattered.
“Stef, love—why didn’t you answer? I was panicking, you know I can’t breathe right when I get anxious—”
I passed her without pause.
No word.
No glance.
Her perfume clung to the air like a plea.
“Stefano?” she said again, smaller. “Talk to me.”
I reached the door at the end of the corridor. Her room. Not Vexanna’s. The one that held soft florals instead of staged sweetness.
I opened it.
Quiet. Still. Nothing left of her but memoryand that was louder than any scream Vexanna could fake.
I stepped inside and shut the door.
The air still held her.
Jasmine. Soft. Quiet. The kind that lingered long after a door closed.
Her throw blanket was still draped over the armchair the way she left it—folded clean, but not stiff. Warm, like she could walk back into the room any second. Her vanity… spotless. Brushes lined like soldiers. Perfume bottles aligned by height. No lipstick caps left open. No chaos.
Just her.
I sat on the edge of the bed. My hand found her pillow without thinking and I pulled it to my chest like a lifeline. I pressed my face against it.
Her hair. Her warmth. Her softness.
Memories hit, vicious and uninvited.
Her laugh when she burned pancakes. The way she’d kiss me half-asleep. That low voice she used when she wanted to tell me she loved me without actually saying the words.
And then the one I tried hardest to forget:
“Feel that? He’s kicking. He knows his father.”
My hand on her belly. Her eyes were glowing and I destroyed it. I let her fall down the stairs. I let her bleed. I let her shatter. Because Vexanna cried louder and hated her.
---
The funeral felt like walking underwater.
Reporters flashed cameras like lightning. My security cleared a path. People whispered as I passed like grief was a scandal.
My tie was crooked. My suit wrinkled. I hadn’t slept, shaved, eaten. The world moved, but I stayed still.
The chapel was overflowing—politicians, business partners, old allies, snakes dressed as mourners.
And then she arrived.
Vexanna.
White lace. Soft curls. A veil like some holy widow.
She reached for me with trembling fingers.
“Stef… I can’t believe she’s gone.”
I didn’t even slow. I brushed past her like she was furniture.
I sat in the front pew alone.
The steel casket stood inches away... heavy, cold, closed. Her name was engraved in gold.
The priest tried to make his voice soft. Gentle. Comforting.
“She rests in peace now.”
Lies. She didn’t rest.
My hands pressed flat on my thighs, nails digging skin, forcing myself not to tremble. The whispers slithered through the pews, shameless, sharp.
“He’s grieving like a widower.”
“Floryn was his wife, not just some society ornament.”
“He loved her. Anyone with eyes knows that.”
“Vexanna looks like she belongs on a red carpet, not at a funeral.”
One voice behind me cut deeper than all the rest.
“Funny, isn’t it? He let the mistress stand while the wife burned.”
My jaw locked so hard I thought bone might crack. I deserved every word. Every poisoned glance. Every quiet accusation nobody needed to speak louder.
When they said my name, I rose. It didn’t feel like standing. It felt like dragging a corpse to its feet. The aisle stretched in front of me like punishment. The coffin gleamed at the end, steel and sealed, because there wasn’t enough left to display.
I reached the podium.
I looked at her.
“She was… Floryn was light.”
My voice came out harder than I meant it to, like it didn’t want to break.
“She could quiet a storm without lifting a hand. She could love without condition. She didn’t bend. She didn’t beg. Not even when I deserved begging from her.”
I swallowed. The words stuck like glass.
“She died believing she wasn’t enough. Believing she was second to a woman who will never be her equal. She died thinking I didn’t choose her.”
The chapel tightened around me, every breath turned heavy.
“And I will live with that.”
…
Weeks slid by like I wasn’t living inside them. I’d wake up, sit, breathe, exist. That was it. No appetite. No sleep. No rhythm. Just a body moving around a house too big and too quiet, pretending it wasn’t rotting from the inside.
Everyone learned to stop asking how I was. If they pushed, I grunted. If they talked, I nodded. Otherwise, I stayed silent, drifting from hallway to hallway like I’d died the same day she did.
At night, I always ended up in the study. The room nobody touched. The room she used most. Vexanna refused to enter it, which made it perfect. She couldn’t stand the dust, the chilled floor, the memories. She couldn’t stand anything that reminded her she was never the wife. Never the center.
I cleared that room myself. Took everything down. Wiped every surface. I spread a silk cloth across the table and started setting her world back piece by piece.
Photos first.
Floryn wearing my jacket, smirking like she owned the whole damn city.
Floryn on the beach, barefoot, gold in her hair, ocean behind her like a crown.
Floryn holding her stomach, one month pregnant, eyes bright, hopeful, stupidly happy to build a future with me.
I placed her hairbrush beside them. A strand of her hair still caught in the bristles. Soft. Familiar.
Then I opened the folder.
