After the IV finished dripping its last clear drop into my vein, the dizziness was worse, not better. The fluorescent corridor of the hospital tilted when I stood, and I caught the edge of the plastic chair to keep from going down. A nurse glanced over but said nothing. In this neighborhood, the clinic operated under Valenti protection money, and the staff had learned long ago not to ask questions about women who arrived alone and left the same way.
Damien still hadn't returned. No call. No message. Not even a one-line text sent through one of his soldiers.
Reluctantly, I decided to call him first to avoid any misunderstandings. My thumb rubbed once over the inside of my wrist before I lifted my chin and pressed the phone to my ear. The line rang four times before he picked up, and in those four rings I heard the distant rhythm of a restaurant, silverware against porcelain, low voices, someone laughing softly.
When he heard I was still at the hospital, he paused for a moment.
"I'm sorry, Elena. I planned to come back for you right after taking Alessia home, but her stomach started acting up, so…"
Before he could finish, I overheard a waitress in the background. "Sir, your dishes are all served. Please enjoy your meal!"
Though Damien quickly covered the receiver, I'd already heard it all. The ambient warmth of a dining room, the careful deference in the waitress's voice, the kind of service reserved for a man whose family name kept the restaurant's lease cheap and its liquor license untouched. He wasn't at a hospital. He wasn't tending to anyone's stomach. He was eating dinner with her.
"It's fine. I'm on my own. I can manage."
I said it to reassure myself and to reassure him. The words tasted like nothing, the way words do when you've rehearsed them so many times they've lost all meaning.
Just as I was about to hang up, he suddenly called out my name. "Elena, just head home. I'll explain everything later."
Explain what, exactly? Just more lies to string me along.
I ended the call without a word and arranged for a driver to take me home. One of the Family's contracted car services, the kind that didn't log destinations and didn't talk. The sedan smelled of leather cleaner and faintly of cigar smoke from whoever had ridden in it last. I pressed my forehead to the cold window and watched the city slide past, every block a piece of Valenti territory I had learned to navigate in seven years of silence.
But that night, Damien didn't come back.
Kept awake by the fireworks outside, I pulled out my tablet and resumed sketching custom jewelry designs for a client. The work was steady, careful. I drew the curve of a setting, the angle of a stone, and let the small precision of the task hold the rest of me together. The explosions rattled the glass of the penthouse windows, bursts of gold and red over a skyline that belonged to men like Damien.
While working, I accidentally brushed the chat app in the lower right corner and a new post from an hour ago appeared.
It was from Alessia: a beautiful shot of fireworks bursting against the night sky, captioned with poetic words: After half a lifetime away, I return to you. And here, the fireworks bloom, a welcome in all its glory!
I stared at the post for a long time. The photo was taken from a rooftop I recognized, the terrace of the Valenti-owned hotel on the waterfront, the same terrace where Damien had once held my hand against the railing and told me no one would ever know about us but that it didn't mean I mattered less. I had believed him then. The fireworks in Alessia's photo looked the same as they had that night, bright and temporary and meant for someone else's celebration.
Only when I tried to log out did I realize the chat app was still logged into Damien's account on my tablet. His messages, his contacts, the careful digital architecture of a man who compartmentalized everything. I could have scrolled. I could have read every exchange between them.
I felt uninterested in prying into their flirtations. I simply logged out of the app, set the tablet down, and turned off the lamp.
