"If you want a divorce so badly, then hurry up and sign! Stop clinging on and refusing to leave!"
I bent down in silence and picked the papers off the floor.
Dante walked out of the ICU, his eyes bloodshot. "The baby pulled through."
He looked at me with eyes so distant they belonged to a stranger. "Rowan, you really crossed the line this time."
My hands were shaking as I held out the separation papers. "Let's… end this."
His pupils contracted. "You're sure?"
"I'm tired." I fought back tears. "I don't know what else I'll end up doing if…"
"Fine! Great!" He snatched the papers and scrawled his name across them, then hurled the pen to the floor. "There. You got what you wanted!"
The silver lighter was in his fist. I hadn't seen him draw it. He stood there with the pen rolling across the tile and the lighter sealed in his closed hand, and something behind his eyes looked like it was dying, but his jaw was set and his mouth said nothing else.
When I returned to the bedroom that had once been ours, Elena Conti rushed toward me in a panic. "Ma'am! What happened to—" She saw my swollen face and my rain-soaked clothes, and her voice broke.
I looked around the room. My piano was gone. Our wedding portrait had vanished. Even the little keepsakes I had treasured were nowhere to be found.
Elena wrung her hands, stammering. She rubbed the stitched seam of her apron between her fingers. "Miss Conti kept bumping into things during her pregnancy, so Mr. Vitale had them…"
The door opened.
Dante walked in with Serafina.
Serafina blinked in surprise. "Mrs. Vitale, what are you doing here?" Her tone made it sound like she was the one who belonged. Like this room inside the Vitale compound had always been hers, and I was the one trespassing.
"Where are my things?" My voice shook as I turned to Dante.
Dante let out a cold laugh and pulled Serafina closer to him. "You're the one filing for dissolution. Why do you care?"
Serafina reached for my hand with a look of practiced concern. "Mrs. Vitale, Mr. Vitale was just worried I'd bump into things while I was pregnant…"
"Don't touch me!" I yanked my hand away.
She let out a small cry and stumbled backward.
Dante caught her in an instant, his voice tight with worry. "Are you okay?"
I watched the two of them pressed together and turned on my heel.
Even when I heard Dante calling after me, I didn't look back.
I refused to let them see the tears streaming down my face.
Outside, rain came down in sheets. The compound gates stood open behind me and the soldier at the guardhouse didn't move to stop me, didn't offer a car, didn't even look up from his phone. I was already no one.
I didn't know how long I walked before a group of street soldiers cornered me in a dark alley. The neighborhood was border territory, the kind of block where the Vitale name carried no weight after dark and nobody asked questions in the morning.
"Mrs. Vitale, right? Somebody paid us to teach you a lesson." The one with the scar across his face leered as he closed in. "The Don's Sinclair-in-law really is a looker. Little flat up top, but that face more than makes up for it."
Instinct took over and I dialed Dante's number. On the other end, I heard his voice, soft and gentle. "Serafina, if your head hurts, just go to sleep."
"Dante! Help—"
"I don't want to talk to you right now." The line went dead. When I called back, the phone was off.
Cold rain mixed with tears ran into the corners of my mouth, salty and bitter. My thumb pressed hard into the inside of my wrist. The pulse beneath it was the only thing still answering.
"Nobody's coming for you, sweetheart. So be a good girl and have a little fun with us."
A filthy hand gripped my collar. Rough fingers scraped across my collarbone.
I squeezed my eyes shut and dug my nails deep into my palms.
