The entire Chicago underworld is abuzz: Valerie, wife of Don Perez Moretti, is having an affair with a rival family.
Perez himself is in New Orleans, living it up with his mistress, Sandy.
Everyone is waiting to see me fall.
Then a video leaked. In it, he spoke with casual cruelty.
"Ten years ago, I got distracted by that woman and lost a leg in a shootout. She told me I deserved it."
"Ten years later, I've made her my little toy, trapped her in the gilded cage of a marriage she despises, and turned her life into a living hell."
"I stopped loving her long ago. I don't care whose plaything she becomes."
The footage of his speech was sent to me. In its wake, the major families placed bets totaling thirty million dollars, all gambling that I’d be sleeping with the fishes at the bottom of Lake Michigan within a day.
Instead, I calmly called the hospice doctor.
Perez doesn't know that on the day he proposed to me ten years ago, I chose to disappear because I had been diagnosed with a rare blood disease.
The doctors declared me terminal countless times, but I pulled through again and again, fueled by my love for him.
Now, that love is gone.
And not even a gilded cage can hold a soul that has decided to leave.
————————
1
A month after Perez left for New Orleans with his mistress, I signed the body donation agreement.
I methodically packed my few belongings and called Mr. Abernathy at the funeral home.
"Mr. Abernathy, please purchase that cemetery plot for me."
"That's right. There won't be a body, just some personal effects."
"Please send someone to the Moretti Estate to pick up the items I've packed."
After settling my affairs, I emptied my bank account.
The moment the balance hit zero, I felt no fear, no confusion—only a profound peace, the quiet liberation of a final surrender.
A year ago, I thought my illness had been cured.
My heart pounding with a desperate hope, I returned to Chicago to win Perez back.
But everything had changed.
Perez hated me.
He wished I would drop dead.
He trapped me in the marriage I despised.
He made me relive, over and over, every ounce of pain he had suffered because of me.
For a year, I endured it all in silence, trying to dissolve the hatred between us with love.
But I failed.
The price of my failure was a relapse.
This time, Perez would get his wish.
The words he’d spat at me, hurled like weapons as we lay in bed—*Why don’t you just die?*—were about to come true.
I forced myself to ship the boxes, then swallowed a handful of painkillers.
Just as the ache began to dull, my phone lit up.
Perez's social media had been updated again.
He had posted a cascade of photos from his trip with Sandy.
They danced intimately in a dimly lit jazz club.
They shared a candlelit dinner at one of the most exclusive restaurants in New Orleans.
On a private yacht, he was bare-chested, Sandy nestled in his arms, kissing his chest…
All the dreams I had once confided to my diary.
All the promises Perez had once made to me.
He was fulfilling them, one by one, with Sandy.
A sharp, needle-like pain lanced through my heart, but the rest of me was numb.
Just as I was about to turn off my phone, it rang.
It was Perez.
"Valerie, bring a box of Montecristo cigars to the Peninsula Hotel for me."
"Sandy can't stand the smell of Cohibas. If you mess this up again, I'll have someone get rid of that precious white wolfdog of yours!"
Perez's voice was heavy and breathless. Beneath it, I could just make out the soft moans of a woman.
I clutched the phone, and it took a long moment before I could find my voice.
"Perez, Ghost is already dead," I managed to say. "You had your men put a bullet through his head in the backyard last month."
