Sienna POV
The phone sank to the bottom of the glass pitcher, a thin stream of silver bubbles rising to the surface.
Kieran stared at the water, his expression one of blank, uncomprehending shock, the arrogant smirk having vanished from his face.
"Loving someone makes you terrified of them getting hurt," I said, my voice eerily steady.
"That is why I never used ultimatums to force your hand for eight years. I was too afraid of cornering you."
I slid out of the booth and gathered the cardboard box, its bottom groaning under the weight of the files, the twine biting a sharp, red line into my fingers.
"But you never feared hurting me, Kieran," I said.
I turned and walked toward the exit.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Kieran abruptly stand up.
His jaw clenched tightly, and a hesitation crossed his dark eyes.
He took half a step forward. But he did not follow.
Over the next half-month, I meticulously handed over the Syndicate's illicit operations to the other Capos.
I made sure every smuggling route, every political bribe, and every hidden weapon stash was accounted for.
I owed the Famiglia that much.
Once my duties were fulfilled, I started packing my personal belongings out of the fortress-like penthouse I had shared with Kieran.
On the fourth day of moving, my new phone rang. It was him.
"Where are the quarterly reports?" Kieran barked into the receiver, his voice tight with fury.
"You are abandoning your post. You are throwing a fit over nothing. Get back to the office right now."
He had completely erased the fact that I had officially resigned.
His arrogant brain simply refused to process that I was actually leaving him.
A weariness that felt like it was woven into my marrow settled over me.
Without a word, I pressed the end call button.
I taped up the final cardboard box in the center of the living room just as the moving crew was hauling my furniture out the front door.
A sharp *ding* echoed from the private elevator. Kieran and Elena strolled into the penthouse.
Kieran was casually carrying two bags of expensive groceries, and they were laughing softly about something.
They looked like a normal, happy couple coming home to cook dinner, acting as if the hulking shapes of the moving vans parked at the curb did not exist.
Elena stopped in her tracks and looked at the stacked boxes.
"What is all this?" she asked, her voice a carefully constructed instrument of bewilderment.
Kieran briefly glanced at the boxes, pointedly refusing to look at me.
"Sienna is just clearing out the old for the new," Kieran said with a dismissive wave of his hand.
"She is preparing to be married out of this estate."
Elena sighed wistfully. She drifted over to the floor-to-ceiling windows and gazed out at the glittering city skyline.
"I always dreamed of being married from this very penthouse," Elena murmured softly.
"I wanted the white roses on the balcony."
Kieran set the groceries down on the marble island.
He walked up behind her and smiled, his reflection catching in the glass.
His typically cold eyes softened with a warm, genuine affection I hadn't seen in years.
My mind went completely blank.
*White roses on the balcony.*
That was the exact floral setup Kieran had ordered for our wedding.
I had always known, in some locked corner of my mind, that Kieran had never cared about the details of our Mafia wedding. The realization simply landed at last, in that sickening, heart-stopping moment.
He hadn't bothered to ask me what I wanted.
He had simply remembered Elena’s fantasies from five years ago and lazily applied them to me.
A pain so sharp it felt structural, as if a rib had snapped and pierced a lung, stole the breath from my body.
I grabbed my heavy wool coat and walked past them in silence. I just needed to get out of this room, now airless and hostile.
"Watch out!" one of the movers suddenly yelled.
I snapped my head up.
One of the movers had lost his grip on a massive, solid marble bust from Kieran's office.
It was plummeting straight toward us.
He moved with the brutal economy of a trained killer. One arm hooked around Elena’s waist, using her own momentum to swing her clear of the statue’s descending path. He never once looked back at me. The marble crashed down where I stood, and I raised my hands too late—a useless, instinctive gesture. The impact was a dead, pulverizing weight that drove the air from my lungs. The marble burst on impact, its heavy, sharp fragments tearing through flesh and sinew.
Blood immediately poured down my trembling fingers, spattering in thick drops against the pristine hardwood floor.
The sight of my own torn skin was gruesome, terrifying, and a final, bloody testament to who Kieran truly loved.
