Eliana Carter POV
The urgent care doctor secured the beige bandage around my knee and gave me his professional opinion: stay off it for a week.
I let out a laugh. It was a dry, humorless sound that scraped against my throat.
I had a plane to catch in four hours.
I didn't go home to rest. There was nothing left for me there. Instead, I drove to the Little Estate one last time.
My parents were already en route to the airport. My father, a loyal soldier to the family for thirty years, had made the call. He had requested a transfer to the New York faction.
It was a dangerous move. A move that could have gotten him killed if Jax's father hadn't been feeling generous.
But the Underboss had granted it, likely viewing it as a convenient way to remove the "problem"-me-from his son's distraction.
I walked into the foyer of the Little Estate. I wasn't limping anymore. The brace held me upright, lending me a spine of steel where my own had started to fracture.
Karen was in the solarium, arranging lilies. Stargazer lilies. My favorite.
She looked up, her polite hostess smile faltering the moment she took in my muddy, ruined coat.
"Eliana? My God, what happened?"
"I'm leaving, Karen," I said, my voice steady.
She lowered the garden shears slowly. "Leaving? For the day?"
"For good. My family is moving to New York. Today."
Her face went pale, the blood draining away as the reality hit her. "But... the wedding. The alliance. Jax is just... he's going through a phase. You know how men are. You have to be patient."
"I don't have to be anything," I said.
"The engagement is void."
I slid the diamond off my finger and placed it on the glass table. It made a sharp, final clink.
"Eliana, please. Think about your father. Think about the Family."
"I am thinking about them," I said coldly. "That's why we're running."
Karen stared at the ring as if it were a grenade. She snatched up her phone, her manicured hands trembling.
"I'm calling Jax. He needs to stop this."
She dialed. She put it on speaker, desperate for a voice that would fix everything.
It rang. Once. Twice. Three times.
"This is Jax. Leave a message."
Karen looked at me, her eyes wide with rising panic. She dialed again.
"This is Jax. Leave a message."
"He's with her," I said softly. The truth didn't hurt anymore; it just was.
"He's always going to be with her."
Karen lowered the phone slowly to her side. She looked defeated. She was a Mafia wife; she knew exactly what that silence meant.
"Goodbye, Karen," I said.
I walked out before she could beg again.
The drive to O'Hare was a blur of gray highway and relentless rain. I pulled into the long-term parking lot and killed the engine.
I left the keys on the dashboard. The car was leased in Jax's name anyway. Let him deal with the repo men.
I met my parents at the gate. My mother was blotting her eyes with a tissue, weeping silently. My father stood rigid, his grim gaze scanning the crowd, his hand hovering near his hip out of habit-searching for the gun he was no longer allowed to carry.
"We're clear," he said, his voice low. "The paperwork went through."
I nodded.
We boarded the plane. I took the window seat, needing to see it one last time.
As the engines roared to life, pushing us back into the upholstery, I watched the Chicago skyline tilt and shrink beneath the clouds.
The Sears Tower. The Lake. The sprawling estates of the North Shore.
It was a kingdom of blood and money, and I had been its princess.
Now, I was a refugee.
I closed my eyes and leaned my head against the cool plastic of the window.
Jax was probably waking up right now, tangled in sheets that smelled of Catalina's cheap perfume. He probably thought I was at home, crying into my pillow, waiting for his text.
He had no idea that the ground had already shifted beneath his feet.
He thought he was the sun, and I was just a planet caught in his gravity.
He was about to find out that gravity doesn't work when the planet explodes.
