I should've cried. I should've screamed. But I was glad.
It meant he hadn't seen the envelope I'd left hidden in my coat pocket: Petition for Divorce and a letter relinquishing every claim to the Castellano name. Both stamped and signed. My final acts before disappearing from this bloodstained life.
I slipped into the tight black dress Dominic once bought me. Low-cut, elegant, dangerous. It hugged my bruises like silk bandages, turning me into the perfect illusion of a woman who wasn't quietly falling apart.
Downstairs, I caught him staring.
But the second Valentina walked in, all perfume and lipstick and smugness, I disappeared again.
On the drive to the event, I sat in the backseat, silent, staring out at the glittering city I was preparing to leave behind. Two soldiers followed in a black Escalade. Even a dinner required an escort. That was life inside the Castellano compound. Nothing was ever just dinner.
Valentina was all giggles and claws in the passenger seat, curled into Dominic's side like she belonged there.
"This is the car we first kissed in," she purred, trailing her fingers up his arm. "Do you remember how wild we got that night?"
Dominic shifted. "Yes, babe," he muttered, then glanced at me in the rearview.
But I didn't flinch. I was too busy confirming my flight on the phone held low against my knee, the screen dimmed to nothing. Tomorrow night. No more Family. No more betrayal. No more Dominic Castellano.
As I leaned back, something crinkled beneath me. I reached down and froze.
A wet, lacy thong lay on the seat beside me.
My stomach twisted.
Before I could speak, Valentina turned and laughed. "Oh nooo," she said with a mock-gasp. "Oops. That's mine! Dominic, I told you not to leave it in the car!"
She giggled, like it was a joke between lovers.
"I thought you hid my thong after last night."
Dominic didn't even look ashamed. He plucked the soaked scrap of fabric from the seat and raised it to his nose.
He sniffed.
"Hm. Peaches," he said, smirking. Then casually tucked it into his pocket.
I nearly vomited.
Not from disgust. From hatred. From how small he was, and how low I'd let myself fall to love a man like him. They laughed like teenagers in heat while I sat behind them, trapped in their filth.
But I smiled. Quiet. Calm.
Because by this time tomorrow, they'd wake up to a world without me and without my silence. And that silence? It was the last gift they'd ever get from me.
We arrived at the venue. A private club on the waterfront, owned by an allied Family. Crystal chandeliers, a string quartet, men in handmade suits whose tailors knew better than to ask about the bulge beneath the left arm. Valentina hung off his arm like a trophy while I followed behind like a servant. Every time someone called her Mrs. Castellano, I saw Dominic flinch. But he didn't correct them. Not once.
Near the end of the event, just when I thought I could finally breathe, chaos broke loose.
Gunshots.
Screams.
People hit the floor. The quartet scattered.
And the first thing Dominic did?
He threw himself over Valentina, shielding her like she was made of gold.
I stood there frozen, and before I could move, pain seared through my side. A bullet. I gasped, collapsing, blood soaking through my dress.
"D-Dominic…" I whimpered, reaching for him. "Help…"
He glanced back. For a moment, I saw something in his eyes. Panic, maybe. Love? No. Pity.
He ran to me, pressed his hand on the wound.
"Hold on, Sofia. Fuck! You'll be okay. Just hang in there."
But then—
"Dominic!" Valentina screamed. "The baby! I can't move!"
And just like that, he dropped me. Didn't hesitate. Didn't look back. He scooped Valentina into his arms like some hero in a romance movie.
"You're strong, Sofia," he said over his shoulder. "You'll survive. But I can't risk her. Or our baby."
Then they vanished through the exit while I lay bleeding on the floor.
Alone.
Left behind by a man who once promised to protect me.
And in Valentina's smug smirk as she looked back, I saw it. She'd won. For now.
Gunshots echoed outside the doors, and I stayed hidden, bleeding, shivering. No one came. Not Dominic. Not even his soldiers.
When I finally crawled out, half-conscious from blood loss, the bastards had already cleared out. Left me there in the middle of a deal gone sideways.
The hospital patched me up. Again. The nurse didn't even flinch this time. She knew me by name.
When I got back to the estate, I expected silence. Regret. Maybe someone had been looking for me.
Instead, I found them at the long table in the dining hall. Dominic. Valentina. Lucia. His mother. His right-hand man Tomasso. Laughing. Drinking wine. Eating steak.
Like I hadn't just taken a bullet meant for him.
Dominic's smile faltered when he saw me. Guilt flashed in his eyes, but it passed quick, like everything else with him.
"I had to take Valentina to the ER," he said, walking over. "She was in critical condition."
"Yeah?" I said, voice flat. "Guess I wasn't."
I didn't wait for a response. I just turned and climbed the stairs to our bedroom. Our prison cell, more like. I pulled out the old wooden box I kept under the bed. Love letters, pictures, our wedding ring, vows written on napkins from that chapel in Vegas where he'd sworn on his dead father's name that I'd never be alone again.
I carried the box outside and dumped it into the steel barrel in the courtyard behind the compound.
Lit a match. Tossed it in.
Watched it burn.
All of it. The good years. The fake ones. The lies.
Dominic stormed out when he smelled the smoke. "What the hell are you doing?!"
He grabbed the fire extinguisher, but it was too late. All he saved was a half-burnt photo of our wedding, his hand still on my waist, me smiling like a damn fool.
"You've lost it," he growled. "Are you insane?!"
I looked him dead in the eyes. "I want a divorce."
