Right before I lost consciousness, I had seen everything clearly.
The car.
Salvatore in the passenger seat.
And the girl he had just kissed. She was the one behind the wheel.
He hadn't given me a chance to question him. Not even a single second. He had simply brushed it off, thrown out an excuse about the Family being too busy, and left as if I had imagined the entire thing.
At the time, I thought he was avoiding me because he didn't know how to face me after hitting me with the car.
But the truth was even more pathetic than that.
I didn't matter enough to him.
Not even enough for him to feel guilty.
Still a little dizzy, I forced a polite smile onto my face, as if everything was perfectly normal.
"Guess I was still a bit foggy when I woke up," I said lightly. "Didn't recognize you, boss."
The word slipped out naturally, but it carried none of the warmth it used to.
He barely reacted. The lighter kept moving over his knuckles, steady as a heartbeat.
And I kept going along with it, as if this distance between us had always existed. As if there had never been anything more.
He finally looked at me again, his brows drawing together slightly, confusion flickering in his eyes.
The girl who used to cling to him over the smallest things, who would demand hugs and kisses over something as trivial as a paper cut, was gone.
In her place was someone quiet.
Still.
Unreachable.
Salvatore glanced around the room, making sure no one else was there. Even in a clinic that answered only to his Family, old habits held. Only then did his expression soften a fraction, his voice dropping lower.
"Elena," he said, almost gently, "these places are full of people. And whispers travel." He paused, choosing his words carefully. "We can't risk anyone seeing us like this."
Like this.
What we were had to stay hidden. Even now. Omertà didn't just govern secrets about blood and money. It governed me.
"Just rest," he continued. "Focus on recovering. Once you're home, I'll make it up to you."
I looked at him, then gave a small, composed smile.
"Thank you… boss."
I used to call him that as a joke, a teasing nickname when we were alone. Back then, it had been playful, intimate, filled with something unspoken between us.
Now, it felt completely different.
Cold.
Distant.
Like a wall had been built between us, brick by brick, until there was nothing left to cross.
He frowned slightly. He noticed it.
Of course he did.
Just as he was about to say something else, the door opened again and the doctor walked in for a routine check.
In an instant, Salvatore changed.
The softness disappeared as if it had never existed. His posture straightened, his expression cooled, and the distance returned. He was once again the Don, untouchable and controlled. The silver lighter went still in his hand for one beat, then slipped into his jacket pocket.
After exchanging a few brief words with the doctor, he turned to leave.
At the door, he paused.
Then he looked back at me one last time.
"Get some rest," he said.
There was a slight pause before he added, his tone firm, almost like a warning.
"And don't think your… special arrangement gives you any privileges inside my Family."
His eyes held mine, steady and unreadable.
"Everyone is treated equally. Everything follows the code."
With that, he walked out, the door closing softly behind him, leaving the room colder than before.
The doctor glanced at the smile I was forcing onto my face and let out a light, teasing chuckle, like he could see straight through it.
"Your boss already left," he said casually. "No need to push yourself to keep smiling like that anymore."
I didn't respond.
"But I'll give him this," he added with a grin, flipping through my chart. "Stubborn mouth, soft heart. He already took care of all your medical bills."
My smile didn't disappear, but it shifted—subtly, almost imperceptibly—into something bitter.
Salvatore really did deserve an award for his performance.
To everyone else, he was just a responsible boss at the front office, someone who took care of his people out of basic decency. A man with principles. No one knew the truth. No one knew that behind the locked door of his private study at the compound, I had been in a relationship with him for five years. Five entire years of secrecy, of compromise, of waiting.
No one except a handful of his closest men. His inner circle. The ones bound by the same silence that bound me.
I had asked him more times than I could count, always carefully, always hoping for a different answer.
"When can we stop hiding?"
Every single time, he brushed it off with the same vague excuse.
"The timing's not right."
I used to believe him.
I used to tell myself that there was a reason, that the Family's politics demanded patience, that one day things would be different.
But today, I finally understood.
When he thought I had lost my memory, the first thing he did was draw a line between us.
I'm your boss.
That was the truth.
That was all I had ever been to him.
