Eight Years Wasted on an Unopened Message

The day the last of my things were carried out of the safehouse, I sat in the small place I'd rented under a name the Family didn't track and sent word to Lorenzo Marchetti through our private channel.

"Let's break the pact."

Less than a second after it sent, his answer surfaced.

【Okay.】

I stared at that one word for a long time, and then I laughed.

Across the table, Gianna Romano caught a glimpse of the screen and nearly knocked over her espresso.

"You're kidding. Two bloodlines, an alliance the elders sealed, and the heir lets it go that easy?"

"Every man I ever cut loose, we fought it out over hundreds of rounds. This is ridiculous."

I lifted my cup and took a sip, the bitterness spreading across my tongue.

"Because he never actually listened to a word I sent."

Gianna blinked.

I slid my phone across to her.

She scrolled up through the channel, the whole screen filled with my green bubbles.

All the things I'd sent over the years, the small updates, the complaints, the hurt, the hoping, like a one-woman show played out to an empty room.

And Lorenzo's replies were always pathetically short.

【Okay.】

【Mm.】

【Got it.】

A few extra words, on the rare occasion, counted as remarkable warmth.

The truth was, I never used to mind.

I always told myself he was just cold by nature, an heir raised to give nothing away.

Until the day I happened to see his phone.

In one of his channels, a full sixty seconds of recorded words had been played all the way through, the bar resting quietly at the end.

Someone else had sent it to him.

The words I sent him almost never got opened at all.

In that moment, it suddenly made sense.

It wasn't that he disliked recorded words.

It wasn't that he couldn't answer.

He just couldn't be bothered to waste his time or his patience on me.

And so the scale inside my heart finally tipped all the way over.

……

The night I saw that fully played sixty-second message on Lorenzo's phone, he was sound asleep.

His even breathing filled the air beside me, and the faint glow of the screen lit my face, stinging my eyes until they ached.

Almost without thinking, I opened our channel.

In an instant, something clamped down hard on my heart.

There they sat, one after another, all the words I'd sent, lined up neatly, each with a bright red dot in the corner, like wounds that had never healed.

He had never opened a single one.

The tears came without warning.

I'd always known, really. Lorenzo found things like that a hassle, didn't like sending word, didn't like listening to what came through.

Over the years, I'd even learned to make his excuses for him.

Burdened by Family business, cold by blood, raised to keep everything behind his teeth……

But the moment I saw those sixty seconds listened to from start to finish, every excuse I'd told myself turned pale and laughable.

That message was from Sabrina Lombardo.

An associate's daughter, and his companion of years, the woman who'd circled him since they were young.

They spoke every day.

The neighborhood gossip, the small things, the long nights. Everything.

Their history took up twice the room that mine and Lorenzo's did.

So it turned out it wasn't that he disliked talking.

And it wasn't that he disliked listening.

It was just that the person was never me.

In that moment, something became clear to me.

Love is never something you prove by comparison.

But the difference makes it effortless to see whether a person actually cares about you.

I'd thought Lorenzo was simply cold by nature.

But it turned out he could patiently listen to sixty seconds of someone else's rambling too.

Just not when that someone was me.

It felt like a wound being cut open across my chest, the pain leaving me numb.

"Babe……"

"Come here."

Maybe my smothered crying woke him.

Still half asleep, Lorenzo mumbled the words, stretched out one long arm, and pulled me into his chest the way he always did.

I fell against the warmth of him before I could brace myself.

His familiar scent closed around me.

And in that moment, the tears broke loose completely.

Because he did love me.

He'd pull me into his arms in his sleep without thinking, remember that I got cold easily, leave a lamp burning when I worked late over the dead the Family sent me.

And yet it was also him, again and again, who made me feel like I didn't matter.

In that instant, I really did want to wake him.

To demand why.

To demand why he could patiently listen to someone else's sixty seconds, but would never once open mine.

But the words rose to my lips and then I couldn't say a single one.

Because I was tired.

So tired.

I lay quietly in his arms, my body pressed close to his, and still felt a gulf between us that I could never cross.

It was a bed for two.

And it felt wide enough to hold two separate worlds.

That night, I barely closed my eyes.

The tears soaked silently into my pillow.

By the time it was light, I finally admitted one thing.

Lorenzo and I really did seem to have reached the end.

The next day, I started looking for a place of my own.

Close to the routes I knew, far enough from Marchetti reach, which way the light came in, what kind of people kept the building……

After half a month, I finally settled on a two-bedroom under a quiet arrangement.

Signing for it, calling the men who'd move my things, packing in silence.

Everything moved along in good order.

And Lorenzo knew nothing about any of it.

Even this morning, on my way out, the movers called to confirm the time. He was standing right there, and didn't ask a single question.

After dinner with Gianna, I went back to the safehouse Lorenzo and I had shared for three years.

The place was the wedding home the Don and his wife had provided when the alliance was sealed.

The ceremony binding the two bloodlines hadn't happened yet, but to keep things simple we'd moved in together long ago.

There was really no reason for me to come back.

Almost everything that was mine had already been carried out.

But for some reason, I still wanted to come and look.

To see when a woman who read the truth off what the dead left behind would finally notice that his promised bride was already preparing to leave.

I'd just sat down on the couch when I heard the lock turning.

The next second, Lorenzo pushed the door open and came in.

"Off early today?"

He bent to change his shoes, his tone as easy as ever.

My heart sank, bit by bit.

Of course.

He hadn't listened to that message at all.

Just like the countless times before, he hadn't even looked at what it said, and out of habit had simply answered with an "Okay."

I opened my mouth, but all I tasted was bitterness.

"How come you didn't bring food home?"

Lorenzo glanced at the empty table, and finally showed a flicker of surprise.

After all, for years, unless something came up, I'd carried back packed meals every single day.

But today there was nothing.

I didn't answer.

Lorenzo didn't seem to notice anything off about me either. He just set his bag down and turned to walk into the bathroom.

From start to finish, he never noticed.

How many things had already gone missing from this home.