Serena POV
I woke up at five-thirty in the morning to the solid, metallic click of Julian strapping on his shoulder holster. The sound cut sharply through the stillness of the master bedroom. He made no effort to be quiet.
I kept my eyes closed. I heard the rhythmic tread of his heavy boots retreating from the room. A beat of silence passed, and then the front door clicked shut.
I got out of bed and walked into the kitchen. The great, sprawling space was empty. There was no note on the marble counter, no coffee brewing, and no sign of breakfast. By the codes of our station, it was a blatant violation of the respect owed to a wife of my standing in the Famiglia.
I walked into my home office and woke up my monitors. My fingers moved across the keyboard, and I logged into the encrypted server to contact Elena.
"Did he come?" I typed.
Elena sent a photo a moment later. It was a lavish breakfast spread—fresh pastries, imported fruits, and a gleaming silver pot of coffee. The food had been delivered by his armed guards. In the center of the table was a handwritten note.
"Eat while it's hot," the note read.
I traced the sharp, aggressive script on my screen. It was Julian's unmistakable hand. I remembered when he used to leave me similar notes during our early years, back when the turf wars were bloody and he was just a Soldier fighting to survive. Back when he actually cared if I ate.
I picked up my personal phone and opened the message thread with my husband. There was a single text from him, sent ten minutes ago.
"Morning."
That was it. A hollow ache settled in my chest, a physical weight so heavy I had to consciously draw my next breath.
I walked back to the kitchen. I stared at the pot of leftover soup still on the stove. Then I picked it up, carried it to the sink, and poured every last drop down the drain. The thick liquid gurgled as it disappeared. I turned on the disposal. The grinding sound was loud in the silence. I leaned over the sink, my forehead resting on the cool marble, and for thirty seconds—no more than that—I let the tears fall. Then I wiped my face, turned off the water, and walked back to my office. I was done crying.
The familiar motions of routine were a needed distraction. I left the penthouse and drove to the Family's legitimate casino front. I needed to audit the weekly cash flow.
I sat in the back office, reviewing the ledgers with a detached precision. The door was slightly ajar. I overheard a young female Associate crying to her friend in the hallway.
"He says he loves me, but he spends all his time with that bartender," the girl sobbed. "He tells me it is just business."
I stopped writing. I listened to the girl's naive tears. A laugh caught in my throat, but it was too tight to escape. Instead, I mocked my own blindness. I had been making the exact same meager excuses for Julian.
My phone vibrated on the wood of the desk. Elena had sent another message on our secure channel. It was a screenshot of Julian's private, burner Instagram account—a thing I had not known to exist. The post was a picture of two coffee cups on a sun-drenched balcony.
The caption read: "Smoothed things over."
I opened my own chat application. My messages to Julian from last night about the casino audits remained unread.
"He promised me," Elena typed in the chat. "He said, 'I will never leave you unprotected again.'"
I read those words and felt a physical blow to my stomach. The memory was a sudden impact—the nights I was left completely alone in our old apartment during the rival syndicate attacks. I remembered holding a loaded gun in the dark, waiting for men to break down my door, while Julian was out protecting his territory.
"Test him," I typed to Elena. My fingers struck the keys with hard, precise taps. "Tell him you need him to wait for you. See how long a Made Man will wait."
An hour passed. The silence in the office was agonizing before Elena forwarded a screenshot of Julian's reply.
"As long as you want me to wait, I'll wait."
I closed my eyes. A wave of nausea washed over me, and I fought it down. I remembered the time Julian had locked me out of his office during a crisis, telling me I was a distraction and that a Capo did not wait for anyone.
My computer chimed once more. Elena forwarded a barrage of frantic, pleading messages from Julian.
"Please open the door. I brought your food. I brought your medicine. Just let me see you."
Attached to the messages was a surveillance video from the camera outside Elena's apartment building.
I clicked play.
There was Julian Moretti. The ruthless, bloodthirsty Capo of the New York Famiglia. He was standing in the pouring rain outside a cheap apartment door. In his arms, he clutched a paper bag of food and a pharmacy bag to his chest. He looked desperate. He looked like a beggar.
I picked up my phone and looked at the text I had sent him an hour ago.
"Are you coming home for the Family dinner tonight?"
It was still unread. I placed my phone down on the desk, right next to the video of my husband groveling in the rain for another woman, playing on a silent loop.
I placed my hands on the keyboard. In that fractured moment, I was no longer the fixer. I was Serena Romano.
"I cannot help you anymore," I typed to Elena. My face felt like a mask of stone. "This is Family business now. I must handle it myself."
I closed the chat and opened the server's backend. I meticulously exported all the encrypted chat logs. I saved the surveillance screenshots and downloaded the offshore transfer receipts. I moved everything onto a secure, encrypted flash drive.
I pulled the drive from the port and slipped it into my pocket. I stood up. I slowly untied the designer silk scarf from my neck.
As I walked out of the casino, I passed the crying girl in the hallway. She looked up at me with red-rimmed eyes. "It gets better," I told her, my voice flat. She didn't know I was lying. It didn't get better. You just got stronger.
I drove back to the silent penthouse.
I walked into the kitchen. I stared at the cold, untouched bowl of soup still sitting on the dining table, and at the heavy pot resting on the stove from last night—now empty, scrubbed clean. I looked at the pale, sickly layer of grease congealing on the surface of his abandoned meal. In that airless quiet, I felt the very last thread of my loyalty to Julian part. It made no sound, but it left a void inside me, vast and empty.
I ran my finger along the rim of his bowl. Then I picked it up and placed it in the sink, next to the pot. I would not wash his dishes anymore. I would not wash anything of his ever again.
