Nico moved on fast.

Once, during one of their early dates, he'd left me on a mountain road to deliver flowers to whatever woman had caught his eye that week. Just drove off and forgot I existed.

I walked miles of winding mountain road home alone that day. My feet were raw and bleeding by the end, and the scars on my calves never fully faded.

I should have understood then. This man was selfish and faithless. He would never rein himself in for anyone. That blood-bound marriage was nothing but an excuse he'd written himself for cheating.

With that thought, I left a comment under Gianna's latest video.

"Wishing you two a lifetime of happiness and a baby on the way."

She deleted the video within minutes.

Nico's call came right after, demanding answers. I didn't pick up. Instead, I did what he'd always done to me. Calmly blocked his number.

Then I remembered: today was the day Nonna Rosa was being cremated.

I explained the situation and checked out of the hospital early. Dr. Matteo Ferraro wasn't comfortable letting me go and couldn't talk me out of it, so he insisted on coming along.

When the attendant at the funeral parlor placed the urn in my hands, I didn't feel the crushing grief I'd expected. All I felt was the shackle that had bound me for seven years finally breaking apart. The weight of the urn was nothing compared to the weight lifting off my chest. Seven years inside the Valente compound, seven years of silence and submission and the slow grinding of Omertà against everything I was.

I let out a quiet breath, said goodbye to the doctor, and went back to the Valente estate alone to pack.

The moment I stepped into the living room, I saw Nico and Gianna on the couch. Gianna scrambled to zip up her dress when she spotted me. But the red marks covering her skin gave away exactly how intense things had just been.

I felt no heartbreak. No anger. As if I'd seen nothing at all, I walked into the bedroom without expression.

By the time I came back out, Gianna was gone. Nico sat alone, drinking. A bottle of something expensive and half-empty on the side table, the room carrying the faint sweetness of her perfume mixed with whiskey.

He raised his head slowly when he saw me. The dim light fell across his face, unreadable. The heir to the Valente empire, sitting in shadows with his shirt half-unbuttoned, looking at me the way he might look at a soldier who'd arrived late to a sit-down.

"Sera. Where were you today?"

"None of your business."

I had nothing more to say, but Nico hurled his glass against the floor. Crystal shattered across the marble, and the sound echoed through the too-large room like a gunshot.

He closed the distance in two strides.

"Drop the act. You think I don't know you were out with that pretty boy of yours?" His voice was low, controlled, the kind of quiet that preceded the worst things in this house. "Can't stand being lonely, is that it, Sera? You blaming me for ignoring you? Fine. I'll give you what you want."

He tore at my clothes and dragged me toward the bed.

I recoiled, stunned by what he was doing. "Nico, have you lost your mind? I just gave birth!"

He was past hearing. Past reason. His teeth sank into my shoulder.

I shoved him off with everything I had and slapped him across the face.

That only made him worse. He grabbed the glass from the table and hurled it straight at me.

The crack of impact.

A thin line of blood slid down from my forehead.

Nico froze for a second, then reached for me on instinct. "Why didn't you dodge…"

I staggered backward, trying to speak. My body gave out before the words could come.

I didn't know how long I was out. Nico and Aldo arguing woke me. Their voices carried from the far side of the room, the old Don's tone a register I had never heard from him before. Not raised. Worse. Flattened to something cold and final, the voice of a man who had passed judgment a thousand times and was now passing it on his own blood.

I was back in the hospital.

When he saw my eyes open, Nico seemed to let out a breath of relief. Then his expression soured, and he turned to Aldo.

"This is the wife you picked for me. Couldn't even wait till she recovered before running off to meet her boy toy."

Aldo was shaking with rage. His ring finger tapped twice against the arm of his chair, hard and deliberate, the sound cutting through the sterile room like a verdict.

"A date? Do you have any idea where Sera went yesterday…"

"Grandpa."

I cut Don Aldo off before he could say more.

"It's over now."

He understood what I meant and didn't press further. He just stared at Nico, disappointment hardening every line of his face.

Nico waved a hand like none of it mattered.

"She's awake, so there's nothing left for me to do here. Gianna's waiting for me. I'm heading out."

Aldo swung his cane and cracked it against him. "Animal."

"I don't care where you go tonight, but tomorrow you will bring Sera to the old house—"

He hadn't finished the sentence before Nico's silhouette vanished through the doorway. Two soldiers in the corridor stepped aside without a word. They didn't look at Aldo. No one in the room did.

Aldo let out a long breath, his back curving lower than I'd ever seen it. His ring finger tapped the arm of the hospital chair. Twice. Then nothing.

He held out the signed divorce papers to me.

"Sera, it's my fault. I failed to raise him right."

"But that child was still your own flesh and blood. I'm asking you to see him off one last time."

I looked at this old man whose hair had gone completely white, the Don who had built the Valente empire over fifty years of blood and discipline, and I couldn't bring myself to refuse.

The next morning, I dressed in black and went to the Valente family's old house. The estate chapel stood at the far end of the garden, its stone walls older than the empire itself. Candles had been lit along the aisle. The priest from the parish waited near the altar with his hands folded, saying nothing.

I had nearly died bringing that baby into the world.

And I never even got to hold him before he was gone.

I wiped the tears from the corners of my eyes.

Maybe it was better this way. If I'd had something to hold on to, I might never have been able to leave.

I had given everything I had to this marriage. Walking away now, I carried nothing but exhaustion. Not a single regret.

The baby was buried, and Nico never showed.

What I found instead was his face on social media, trending alongside Gianna as they tried on wedding dresses together. She sent me a message, gloating.

"So what if you had his baby? Nico still chose me in the end."

"Oh, and did you think Nico was by your bedside while you were unconscious? He was with me the whole time. In the bed right next to yours, actually. We tried all sorts of new positions."

In the video she'd attached, my face was chalk-white against the hospital pillow. Next to a shot of Gianna, glowing and radiant. The contrast was obscene.

I didn't reply. I forwarded every message and every video to Don Aldo.

Then I slid off my wedding ring. My thumb moved once across the bare skin where it had been, and then was still.

I picked up my grandmother's ashes, held the urn close, and whispered, "Let's go home, Nonna."

...

Night had already fallen by the time Nico stumbled back to the old house, reeking of liquor. The soldiers posted at the gate let him through without greeting him. The lights in the front hall were off.

He pushed open the door and froze. Funeral wreaths, everywhere.

"Who died? Is it Sera's grandmother?"

His face drained of color, eyes darting.

"Why didn't anyone tell me sooner? Where's Sera? She must be devastated. I should go be with her."

Aldo had reached his limit. He grabbed the divorce papers and hurled them straight into Nico's face. The pages scattered across the marble floor of the old house, settling among the wreaths like something already dead.

"Sera is gone. She took her grandmother's ashes and left."

"Today was your son's memorial."