I turned for the door. Mrs. Bellandi called after me, and Old Mr. Bellandi ordered someone to stop me, but no one dared touch me. Only Luca caught my wrist in a few long strides. His palm was ice-cold, his grip hard enough to bruise.

[Vivi, are you really angry? I was wrong. I shouldn't have let Ava sit there. Look at me, please. Don't leave me. If you leave, I won't know how to breathe.]

My heart trembled. For ten years, every time his heart cried out, I forgot I was bleeding too. Then his mouth dragged me back to reality.

"You want to leave?" Luca glanced at my heels and sneered. "Take off the shoes. I bought them."

I went still. The ivory heels on my feet were old now, the soles worn and the heels repaired twice. I still couldn't throw them away. On our wedding day, Luca never told me I looked beautiful. After the reception, he left those shoes outside our bedroom and acted as if he didn't care whether I noticed.

Back then, I heard him think, [Vivi, do you see them? I had them made in Italy. My bride should wear the prettiest shoes and walk wherever she wants. I hope you're loved well for the rest of your life. I hope I'm the one who gets to love you.]

Because of those words, I treasured them for six years. Now he wanted them back.

I crouched, unbuckled the straps, and set the shoes in front of him. The floor was cold under my bare feet. "Fine. They're yours."

Luca's face darkened, but his eyes slowly turned red.

Mrs. Bellandi hurried forward. "Vivian, don't take him seriously. He'd never make you leave barefoot. He just doesn't know how to ask you to stay."

Before she finished, Luca picked up the heels and threw them into the fireplace. Flames swallowed the pearl buckles.

"You wore them for six years and only returned them now," he said softly. "They're dirty."

Something heavy hit my chest. For six years, I had cleaned, repaired, and protected those shoes. To him, they were old things he could burn on a whim.

His thoughts panicked. [Vivi, you're crying. You still care, right? Say you didn't mean it. Tomorrow I'll fill your closet with every pair you want. Anything you want, I'll give you.]

I looked into the fire and suddenly felt tired. No matter how many beautiful shoes he bought, none of them would be that first pair. No matter how soft his thoughts were, they couldn't undo the fire he had lit.

I walked out of the Bellandi estate barefoot. Wet gravel cut into my feet, the guards lowered their eyes, and no one followed. Behind me, Ava's fake concern drifted out.

"Luca, are you really not going after her? She looks heartbroken."

Luca scoffed. "Why would I? Give her half an hour. She'll come crawling back for forgiveness."

I didn't look back.

He didn't know I was truly leaving. Aurelia Shipping had offered me a transfer to New York, and I had planned to tell him tonight, maybe ask if he wanted to start over with me somewhere else. Now there was nothing to discuss.

My flight was tomorrow. This time, I wouldn't come back begging.

By the time I returned to our lakeside apartment, my feet were full of tiny cuts. I sat on the bathroom tiles and washed them with alcohol. The sting burst under my skin, but after enough pain, a person learned not to flinch.

When I finished bandaging my feet, I looked around the home I had lived in for six years. There had once been my curtains, my white roses, and the floor lamp Luca and I found at a flea market. Now Ava's rabbit statue sat in the living room, her chosen ties hung in the closet, and the bedroom smelled like her cedar diffuser.

Every time I said it made me uncomfortable, Luca would lean back and say, "Vivian, don't be petty. She's just my assistant." Yet whenever I got jealous, satisfaction flickered in his eyes, as if my pain fed his fear.

As he wished, I finally stopped being petty. I was giving away the title of Mrs. Bellandi too.

I opened my suitcase and packed the few things that were truly mine: my passport, my documents, a few plain outfits, and my mother's emerald bracelet.

It was the only thing she had left me. After my family went bankrupt, my mother sold every last symbol of dignity to pay off our debts. The bracelet had come from my grandmother, and on her deathbed my mother still wanted it back. Later, Luca found the buyer and spent thirty million dollars at a private auction to bring it home.

He fastened it around my wrist himself and said, "Stop crying. You look awful." But what I heard was, [Vivi, I brought back what your mother left you. From now on, I'll protect you in her place.]

So even if I took nothing else from this marriage, I had to take that bracelet.

Just as I closed the suitcase, the door opened. Luca came in smelling of whiskey, his black shirt open at the throat, half his weight leaning on Ava's shoulder. Ava held him like a hostess bringing her husband home.

When he saw my suitcase, he let go of her at once. His pupils tightened.

[Vivi, you're packing? You're really leaving? I was wrong. I shouldn't have taken Ava to dinner. I only wanted you jealous. I only wanted to know you still loved me. Don't go. Please don't go.]

Panic filled his eyes, but his voice came out cold. "Think carefully, Vivian. If you leave me, plenty of women would kill to be Mrs. Bellandi. But once you leave me, who the hell is going to want a woman like you?"

I looked at him and laughed softly. "Then go find one of those women."

Luca's fists tightened. The next second, as if I had shoved him past reason, he put an arm around Ava's waist.

"Fine. I'll marry Ava. She's smart, sweet, and useful. She can handle the South Harbor books. Most importantly, she won't be like you, six years as Mrs. Bellandi and still unable to give me a child."

My breath stopped.

Everyone knew children were the wound no one should touch. Six years ago, Luca had a trauma episode and ran into the rain. I went after him and fell into the freezing lake by the docks. I survived, but pregnancy became almost impossible. I drank endless medicine, went through five rounds of IVF, and cried through too many nights. Luca knew better than anyone.

Still, he aimed the sharpest knife at the place that hurt most.

My eyes burned. "Luca, you're a bastard."

Panic crossed his face, and he almost stepped toward me, but Ava slid her arm through his and sighed. "Vivian, Luca isn't exactly wrong. The Bellandi family needs an heir. Any other man would've given up on this marriage years ago, but Luca endured it for six years. Now you're asking for divorce and moving out? That's a little selfish, don't you think?"

Luca stopped. I watched the panic in his eyes sink under familiar coldness. He believed Ava again, or maybe in that moment, Ava simply mattered more. She could steady the South Harbor books and a room full of Capos. If she got scratched, he worried about the family. If my heart was ripped open, he called me difficult.

"Looks like I've spoiled you too much," Luca said.

He seized my suitcase and ripped the zipper apart. Clothes, documents, and medicine bottles spilled across the floor, and his gaze landed on the emerald bracelet at the bottom.

My face went cold. "Don't touch it."

Luca picked up the bracelet and looked down at me. "Need me to remind you? I paid thirty million dollars for this."

I remembered the night six years ago. Luca had placed the bracelet in my palm as if closing a business deal.

"The man who had it asked for a lot."

I cried so hard I couldn't speak. When I asked how I was supposed to repay him, he looked down at me with a cold mouth and impossibly soft eyes.

"Then pay me back with yourself."

[Vivi, marry me. I don't know how to give you a home, but I'll learn. I brought back what your mother left behind. From now on, I'll protect you too.]

He used that bracelet in place of a proposal ring. I once thought it was the clumsiest and truest confession of his life.

Now he held the same bracelet and said, "I gave it to you because you were my wife. If you want a divorce, you won't be Mrs. Bellandi anymore. What right do you have to take it? You can't seriously think you're still worth thirty million dollars, Vivian."

One sentence crushed my pride. I dug my nails into my palm and forced my voice steady. "I'll pay you back. I'll find a way to get thirty million."

"You think I need your money?" Luca snapped.

[I need you to stay. I just can't let you take it and leave. If you leave with it, you'll never come back. Vivi, I'm scared.]

But his hand had already closed around Ava's wrist. He clasped the emerald bracelet on her, the same way he had done for me six years ago.

Ava lifted her wrist and admired it. From an angle Luca couldn't see, she shaped the words with her lips.

"A dead woman's trinket. How unlucky."

Something exploded in my head. That was the only thing my mother had left me.

I rushed forward, trembling. "If it's so unlucky, give it back."

My fingers had barely touched Ava when she screamed and threw herself backward. Her wrist struck the edge of the coffee table, and the emerald bracelet cracked. Stones and broken metal scattered across the floor.

The world went silent.

Then Ava lifted her bleeding arm and sobbed beautifully. "Luca, it hurts."

Luca snapped out of it and shoved me away. My lower back hit the cabinet, and a sharp pain tore through my abdomen.

"Vivian, are you insane?" he shouted. "That was your mother's only keepsake. To hurt Ava, you didn't even care if you destroyed it?"

I collapsed to the floor, my face white. "I didn't push her. She fell on purpose. She broke it on purpose."

"Enough!" The veins in Luca's neck stood out. "You lose your mind and still blame her?"

His thoughts were a mess. [What do I do? The bracelet is broken. The thing Vivi loved most is broken. Now I don't even have the last thing that could keep her with me.]

He was panicking, but even his panic hurt me.

He dragged me down the hall to the wine storage room, the coldest and darkest room in the apartment. The pain in my abdomen sharpened, as if something inside me was being torn loose.

He pushed me inside. "You hurt Ava, and you're not thinking straight. Stay there tonight. When you calm down tomorrow, you can come out and apologize."

The lock clicked. Darkness swallowed me.

I clutched my stomach and felt warmth slowly seep between my legs. When I touched it, my fingers came away red.