I begged Dominic Mancini a hundred times, and he finally agreed to come with me and my mother on a pilgrimage to the shrine of Our Lady in the mountains.
But my mother left this world with that wish unfulfilled. He never showed.
His personal courier, though, posted photos of the two of them on horseback at a resort not far from the monastery.
"Anywhere I want to go, no matter how far, he'll be right there with me."
Their location pin was less than two miles from mine. I called him to demand an explanation, and he couldn't have cared less.
"This is who I am. If you can't deal with it, let's dissolve the union."
That was the 101st time he'd thrown that word at me.
This time, I didn't beg him to stay. And for the first time, he was the one with regrets.
——
I handled my mother's funeral alone. The old priest from the parish came. Two soldiers Dominic had assigned as my security detail stood at a respectful distance, hands folded, saying nothing. They were there for the Don's wife, not for me.
In just a few hours, Dominic's little courier Valentina Ferro had posted video after video. The two of them horseback riding together, doing a couples' photoshoot, lighting candles at a mountain chapel. Dominic, who never allowed himself to be photographed at public events, shared Valentina's post for the first time.
As good as a public announcement.
The comments were full of congratulations from associates and their wives. What a perfect match. Made for each other.
I tried to scroll past, but every image cut deeper than the last.
They were the perfect match. So what did that make me, the actual wife? The woman who'd signed the blood-union, whose family's money had built the Mancini empire from nothing?
Nothing.
Dominic was willing to fly halfway across the country for Valentina Ferro, but he wouldn't walk two miles for me. A hundred times I'd begged, and none of it weighed as much as a single word from her.
I sent Dominic one word: "Okay."
A few hours later, he called. His voice was cold, distant.
"Every single time with this. Don't you ever get tired of it?"
I almost couldn't speak. He was the one who brought up dissolution every time we fought. He knew I loved him. He knew I couldn't bear to leave. So every time he did something wrong and felt guilty about it, he'd throw it in my face, ice-cold: "If you can't deal with it, let's dissolve the union."
For six years, I'd backed down a hundred times.
This was the hundred and first. I was done backing down.
I chose to give him what he'd always asked for.
I took a deep breath. "My mother is dead. We don't have to keep up the act anymore for her sake."
Silence. When he spoke again, his voice had softened.
"I didn't know. Wait for me. I'm coming to you right now."
I waited an hour. While I was waiting, the sky split open and rain came down in sheets. I ran for cover, and the world lurched sideways around me. I couldn't breathe. My legs buckled and I tumbled down a slope, my head cracking against a rock, and then there was nothing.
When I woke, I was in a hospital bed with thick bandages wrapped around my head. No one beside me.
The nurse said my altitude sickness was severe, that I had a mild concussion, and that I'd need to stay under observation for two days.
Two days. Dominic never came. All I saw were Valentina's posts, updating one after another.
"Got caught in a little rain, came down with a cold. Lucky I have him taking such good care of me."
"He made me chicken soup from scratch today. I could cry."
"These two days I've been sick, he hasn't left my side for a second. Meeting him is the greatest blessing of my life."
I thought of how, not long ago, I'd had a fever and asked Dominic to make me a bowl of broth.
The look of pure irritation on his face.
"Serafina, my hands run a empire. They're not for cooking and doing your laundry. If that's not good enough for you, then dissolve this marriage and find someone else!"
It wasn't that he couldn't do those things. He just wouldn't do them for me.
A strange numbness washed over me.
Valentina Ferro was a girl from the disgraced Ferro family, a nobody whose education I'd personally sponsored. After graduation, she came to work as an errand girl in our operation. Back then, Dominic couldn't stand her. He complained to me constantly about how slow and clueless she was.
But somewhere along the way, her name started coming up more and more. While he had less and less to say to me. Until we were strangers sharing the same compound.
Meeting Dominic Mancini was the greatest blessing of Valentina's life.
Meeting Dominic Mancini was the greatest regret of mine.
I wasn't going to carry that regret any further. I messaged him: when we get back, we sit before the Commission. I want the dissolution papers signed.
This time, his reply came fast.
"Something urgent came up. Can't get away."
"Stop making a scene. Wait for me at the airport tomorrow, I'll fly back with you."
I didn't wait around for Dominic Mancini like a fool. Not this time.
I bought my own ticket and boarded the plane.
Somewhere over the clouds, I drifted off into a long, long dream.
In the dream, Dominic and I were still in love, and Valentina Ferro didn't exist yet. He wanted to build an operation of his own. I gave him every cent from the Caruso accounts, every route my father had left me. He needed someone holding things together at the estate. I stepped back from the family business to take care of him.
Step by step, we moved from a rented apartment above a social club to a fortified estate on the hill, traded a beat-up sedan for a Rolls-Royce with bulletproof glass. He made it. And through all of it, he loved me the same as the first day. Families across the territory used to call us the perfect union.
Everything changed the day I lost our baby.
