"Drop the attitude and apologize. Now."
I stared at that cold line of text on the screen and felt nothing but bitter amusement. My fingertips pressed down hard, snapping the SIM card clean in half. I tossed the pieces into an airport trash can, along with five years of delusion and devotion.
Meanwhile, back at The Castle in Sicily, the private jewelry vault shimmered with the glow of gemstones and the rich aroma of wine. Samuel was helping Selene appraise a shipment of rare uncut stones, his fingers curled around a glass of red, about to pour for her, when his private phone erupted in a shrill, urgent ring.
"Godfather Rowe, your wife is gone! She left the private hospital before dawn. There was a document on the nightstand. You need to see it immediately." The subordinate's voice crackled through the receiver, barely holding together.
Samuel's hand froze mid-pour. Wine sloshed over the rim of the glass and dripped onto the expensive velvet tablecloth, blooming into a dark crimson stain. "What document?" His voice could have frosted glass, though something taut lurked beneath the surface.
"It's... an annulment agreement, Godfather."
Six words. They detonated like a thunderclap inside his skull. His grip on the phone tightened until his knuckles bleached white, and he shot to his feet, his expression darkening like a sky about to split open. He couldn't believe what he'd just heard. He knew he'd gone too far this time, yes. But never, not once, had he imagined that Lois Simmons would dare use an annulment to defy him. To defy him, the undisputed godfather of Sicily's jewelry empire.
A flash of mockery darted through Selene's eyes, gone before it could be caught, replaced instantly by a mask of tender concern. She reached out, her delicate fingers catching the cuff of his tailored suit jacket, her voice dripping with sweetness. "Did something happen to Lois? Let me come with you to the hospital. Maybe I can talk to her, help smooth things over."
Samuel's mind was a storm. He gave a heavy nod, and the two of them left for the private hospital at once. Inside the Rolls-Royce, the air was suffocating. Selene watched his grim profile and extended her slender hand toward his chest, trying to soothe him. "Don't worry. Lois is just throwing a tantrum. She'll be fine."
But the moment her fingers brushed his suit, Samuel flinched. He turned sharply away, offering only a flat "Mm," his irritation unconcealed. It was the first time he had instinctively recoiled from her touch. The gentleness and indulgence he'd always shown her seemed to have evaporated in a single breath.
Selene's hand hung in the air, then withdrew. Her nails dug deep into her palm, leaving angry red crescents in the flesh. She had never imagined Samuel would treat her this way. Jealousy and unease churned inside her, and the moment he turned to stare out the window, she fired off a quick message. The reply came almost instantly: "Relax. Everything's been cleaned up. She won't make waves."
Inside the VIP ward of the family's private hospital, the chief of medicine was already drenched in cold sweat, pacing like a caged animal. The godfather's wife had vanished right under their noses and left behind an annulment agreement. If the godfather decided to hold someone accountable, the entire hospital would pay.
"What happened?" Samuel pushed through the door, and the temperature in the room plummeted. His gaze swept across the empty bed, and the chill radiating from him deepened.
The chief of medicine held out the signed annulment agreement with trembling hands, his head bowed so low his chin nearly touched his chest, unable to meet those glacial eyes. Samuel took the paper. His thumb traced the familiar handwriting, and for the first time, something close to panic stirred in his chest.
He pressed his fingers against his throbbing temples without a word, turned, and drove back to The Castle.
Everything inside the castle was exactly as it had been. The crystal chandeliers still blazed. The tea set sat on the dining table, uncollected. My dresses still hung in the walk-in closet. My jewelry box still rested on the vanity. Every trace of me remained, as if I had never left, as if nothing had changed. But the vast castle was hollow. The emptiness was suffocating.
He collapsed onto the leather sofa in the living room, his gaze fixed on the wedding portrait on the wall. In the photograph, we stood before the stained-glass windows of a cathedral, exchanging vows and rings. He wore a crisp suit; I wore a white gown. We looked like the perfect couple. But anyone who looked closely would have noticed it: the faint, stubborn sadness hiding in both our eyes.
Only now did he finally understand what that sadness had meant. Back then, his heart had belonged to Selene. He had married me out of guilt and obligation. And I had still been drowning in the grief of losing my mother, believing I'd found salvation, not knowing I was already stepping into an abyss.
He closed his eyes, and five years of shared days and nights crashed over him like a tide. In the beginning, we were two strangers under the same roof, cautious and distant, playing the part of husband and wife for appearances. Until that night. He came home drunk from a business dinner, reeking of liquor, and pulled me into his arms, calling my name over and over. Not Selene's. Mine. Lois. That night, I peeled away his cold mask, and he touched the softness buried deep inside me. Two lonely hearts, pressed together, however briefly.
After that, he began caring about me without realizing it. Between tending to Selene, he remembered which jewelry designs I loved. He shielded me from rivals in the industry who tried to sabotage my work. When I stayed up late sketching designs, he would quietly set a glass of warm milk on my desk. He prepared little surprises for me. He had always told himself it was just a promise kept to my late father, just guilt, just duty.
But now. Now that I was gone, now that the annulment agreement lay where I used to sleep, the truth struck him like a blow he couldn't dodge. Somewhere in those five years of waking beside me and falling asleep near me, he had fallen in love with me without ever knowing it. That love had been buried beneath his obsessions and selfishness, shackled by his identity and his so-called responsibilities. It took losing me for him to see it.
Years in Sicily's cutthroat business world had taught him to bury every emotion, to armor himself in ice and calculation. Yet somehow, in the quiet, unremarkable moments with me, his heart had betrayed him. He had fallen for the daughter of the very woman he'd destroyed. He had fallen for the woman he himself had dragged into hell.
Samuel squeezed his eyes shut, and all he could see was my face. My delight when I received new design materials. My gentleness when I brewed him a hangover cure. The way I leaned into him when he was kind. And then, after I learned the truth, the devastation in my eyes, cold and absolute. He thought of me crumbling, tears streaming down my face. He thought of the bright, sickening stain of blood spreading beneath me when I hit the floor. His eyes flew open. He gasped for air. It felt as though an invisible fist had closed around his heart and was crushing it, slowly, mercilessly.
Then his subordinate placed a medical report on the table in front of him. The pregnancy test with the words "early pregnancy" sat next to the miscarriage diagnosis, the two documents forming a contrast so brutal it burned. His hands shook as he picked up the report. His thumb traced the clinical, sterile words, and his heart split open as if a blade had been driven through it again and again. Regret surged through him like a rising sea with no shore in sight.
His child. His and Lois's child. A tiny life that had only just arrived in this world, that had never seen its mother's face or its father's, was gone. It was his fault. His stubbornness. His willful blindness. He had killed his own child with his own hands and pushed away the woman he loved most.
"Godfather, please don't be too sad. You still have me. I'll always be by your side."
Selene's voice drifted from behind him, laced with practiced tenderness. But to Samuel's ears, in that moment, every syllable grated like nails down glass.
