He set his phone on the edge of my desk as he left. Barely thirty seconds passed before the screen lit up.
I didn't reach for it. I didn't have to. The message was right there, bright against the dark surface of my desk.
Penelope Vitale: You silly! Who sends dozens of milkshakes all at once? You're not trying to turn me into a little piggy, are you?
Dozens.
He'd sent her dozens.
And he'd brought me one. One milkshake, three years too late, flavor unknown because he'd had to ask.
I pressed my thumb against the inside of my ring finger, held it there until the pressure became a point of focus, and then I shifted my eyes back to the computer screen. My expression didn't change. I organized the files on my desk with steady hands and waited for him to come back so we could leave.
We got home a little after eleven. The soldiers at the townhouse door stepped aside without a word. As soon as I was inside, I walked straight into the bedroom and started packing my things. Quietly. Methodically. The way you dismantle a life when you've already grieved it.
When Dominic walked in from the shower, towel around his neck, he paused near the vanity. His eyes moved across the surface. Emptier than usual. The small things missing. He frowned but didn't seem to mind it, or didn't want to examine what it meant.
"I've got business in Paris next month. Meeting with the Corsican outfit." He said it casually, the way he said everything that wasn't about Penelope. "If you want anything, make a list. I'll bring it back."
I didn't hesitate. "No. I don't want anything. Thanks anyway."
After all, I would be gone in a few days. What was the point of a gift from a city I'd never see with him?
Something shifted. He threw the towel onto the bed with a sharp flick of his wrist, and when I looked up, his eyes were cold. The Don's eyes. The ones that made soldiers lower their gaze and associates reconsider their words.
"So, what? You're upset because I bought you the wrong breakfast? Is that what this is about?"
I opened my mouth to explain that I wasn't angry. That anger would have required me to still believe this was something worth fighting for. But he let out a scoff before the first word left my lips.
"You know I can't stand women being dramatic. Olivia, you're being out of line." The disgust in his voice was real. The dismay, too. He genuinely believed I was the unreasonable one. Seven years, and he had never once considered that my silence might be something other than compliance.
He stormed into his study. The door slammed hard enough to rattle the frame, and the sound echoed through the empty hallway of a house that had never once felt like a home.
In our seven years together, he was always the first to give the silent treatment. Always. And every single time, I had humbled myself. Knocked on that study door. Apologized for sins I hadn't committed. Made it up to him with patience and softness and the quiet erosion of my own dignity, piece by piece, until there was almost nothing left to erode.
But this time, I just raised an eyebrow in the dark and turned off the bedside lamp.
He stayed in the study all night.
For the first time, he didn't hear a single knock on the door.
The next morning, I made breakfast for both of us, the way I always had. Eggs the way he liked them. Coffee strong enough to strip paint, the way every man in this world seemed to need it. I finished eating my portion and was reaching for my coat when he came out of the study.
He was on his phone. He didn't look up. His silver lighter sat motionless in his free hand, pinched between thumb and forefinger, not rolling. Just still.
"Take the day off," he said, in the voice he used to issue orders to his Capos. "By five o'clock, I need you to make me an identical fondant cake."
