Every year since Dominic Sloane had taken me into his world, I'd baked his birthday cake by hand. Seven years of flour-dusted countertops and buttercream under my nails, seven years of fondant smoothed with fingers that knew his preferences better than he did.

When I glanced at the screen of his phone, I knew right then who it was for again.

That little cartoon avatar. Penelope Vitale's profile picture, bright and girlish against the cold glass of a phone that rarely lit up for me.

I didn't say a thing, and the silence that settled over the living room was the kind that precedes a verdict. The kind of quiet that fills a room when someone has already made their decision but hasn't announced it yet.

But Dominic was completely unaware of how unreasonable his request had been. He looked at me, waiting for a yes. The Don of the Sloane family, a man whose word rearranged lives, standing in his own kitchen asking the woman he'd neglected for seven years to bake a cake for the girl he couldn't stop protecting.

Eventually, I just nodded, keeping my expression neutral. "Send me the picture," I said, standing up. "I'll head out now to buy the ingredients."

I thought back to that dinner seven years ago. The one where a client with wandering hands and too much grappa had cornered me during my first week handling accounts for a family-adjacent operation. If Dominic hadn't been there, if he hadn't materialized at my side with that cold authority that made grown men excuse themselves to the restroom, I wouldn't have made it out of my first job unscathed.

I glanced at him one last time, thinking, Once I finish this cake, I'll finally be done with him.

I headed for the door, feeling the heaviness in my steps. The marble floors of the penthouse stretched out before me like a sentence I'd been serving.

Before I could reach the doorway, Dominic's voice, surprised, cut through the silence behind me.

"Olivia…" he started, his voice unsure.

I didn't bother turning around. "Anything else?" I asked, my tone flat.

There was a pause. The kind of pause that in any other household might mean nothing. In the home of a Don, a pause was a calculation. I could almost hear the gears turning, the brief war between the man who never explained himself and whatever unnamed thing had flickered across his face.

"...I'll send you money for the ingredients."

I continued on my tracks without a word.

When I stepped into the elevator, the doors closing me into that polished steel box, I pulled out my phone. Opening up our chat history, I stared at the numbers.

5,363. That's how many messages I'd sent him.

He'd replied to only 25.

It was draining to care, so I could only smirk. The expression felt foreign on my face, like wearing someone else's coat. Five thousand messages into the void. Five thousand small surrenders disguised as persistence. I'd been the most loyal woman in the Sloane household, and I had the receipts to prove that loyalty had been a monologue.

Upstairs, in the living room, Dominic's phone would buzz with the notification of the transfer being rejected. I could imagine his hand clenched around the phone as he read the alert. The silver lighter would be in his other hand, rolling between thumb and forefinger, and for once I hoped the rolling stopped. I hoped the stillness hit him. I hoped he felt even a fraction of the nothing I'd been swallowing for years.

Later that night, around eight, my phone rang. Dominic's name flashed on the screen.

I was sitting in a booth at a diner near my place, a quiet establishment on the border of neutral territory where nobody knew my face or cared whose woman I was. I picked at my food, moving a piece of grilled chicken from one side of the plate to the other.

"Hey, where are you?" he asked, sounding almost… concerned.

"What's up?" I asked, sidestepping his question.

"Nothing much," Dominic replied, his voice softer now. Softer than I'd heard it in months. The Don's voice, stripped of its authority, was just a man's voice. Just a voice. "I just wanted to say… the cake you made was delicious. As always."

There was a brief silence on the line. I pressed my thumb against the inside of my ring finger, feeling the bare skin where nothing had ever been placed.

Then he added in a lower voice, "Thanks. I know it was a lot of effort."

Before I could respond, I heard Penelope's sugary voice in the background, and the softness in his tone made sudden, sickening sense. He wasn't calling because he was grateful. He was calling because she was watching, and even a Don needs to perform generosity when his audience expects it.

"Olivia!" she called out, her tone light and overly sweet, pitched to carry. "I heard from Dominic that you made my birthday cake today. Wow, you're so talented! I wish I could do that… but I'm so clumsy, Dominic's always calling me his little dummy."

I could picture her pouting as she spoke. Could picture her tucking that strand of hair behind her left ear with that slow, deliberate motion, the one that looked like shyness to anyone who hadn't learned to flinch at it.

Before I could even process her words, she invited me to the party.

But I didn't get a chance to respond before Dominic's voice returned to the line. "Well, you don't need to come," he said, a bit firmer this time, before hanging up.

The line went dead. I set the phone face-down on the table and stared at my plate.

But just a few minutes later, my phone buzzed again. A message from him, with his location pinned and a note attached: If you do stop by, grab a bag of tomato-flavored chips for Penelope from the convenience store.

I sighed and couldn't help but let out a sarcastic faint smile. Seven years, and I'd been reduced to an errand runner for the girl who'd replaced me in everything but name.

The private room was in a Sloane-owned establishment on the east side, one of those places with no sign on the door and a man built like a refrigerator standing outside it. He recognized me and stepped aside without a word, though his eyes tracked me with the particular pity reserved for women who belong to powerful men who don't want them.

When I pushed the door open, I spotted Dominic immediately. He was feeding Penelope a slice of cake, her eyes wide and doe-like as she looked up at him. The scene was lit by low amber light that made everything look warmer than it was. A few associates lingered at the edges of the room, drinks in hand, their laughter dying the moment I appeared.

The moment he saw me, his expression shifted into one of irritation. His gaze darkened, and I knew what he was thinking.

Why did I show up?

I knew already that Penelope had been the one to send the message, not him.

But I'd come anyway. One last time. For my own reasons.

"Olivia!" Penelope greeted me with a wide smile, her voice as sugary as ever.

Dominic's eyes narrowed at me, and I could feel the tension rise in the room. The associates went still. Glasses paused halfway to mouths. The particular silence that descends when the Don's displeasure becomes visible.

"Didn't I tell you not to come?" Dominic snapped, his irritation breaking through.

I opened my mouth to respond, but Penelope quickly jumped in, pouting dramatically. "I'm sorry, Dominic. I just wanted some chips, so I tricked her into coming," she said, her voice dripping with superficial innocence.

Dominic's hard expression softened as he reached out, ruffling Penelope's hair affectionately. "You little munchkin," he muttered with a fond smile.

The fondness in his voice. The ease of the gesture. I catalogued it the way I'd catalogued a thousand moments like it over seven years, each one a small cut I'd trained myself not to bleed from. But tonight was different. Tonight I was already packed. Tonight I was already gone in every way that mattered.

Watching him, I knew this was my moment. I reached into my bag and pulled out the document I'd been carrying since morning. My formal severance of allegiance, typed on plain paper, stripped of any sentimentality.

"Dominic," I said, stepping forward, "one of my associates has a family emergency and needs to leave. I'll need you to sign off on this."

Technically, the family's internal operations handler should've processed it. But since it was me, the paperwork had been sent back to me directly. Even in bureaucracy, the Sloane household knew whose problems belonged to whom.

The lighting in the room was dim, casting shadows across Dominic's face. He didn't even glance at the letter as he scribbled his signature, his attention focused entirely on the birthday celebrant. The pen moved with the careless authority of a man who signed things that ended careers and began wars with the same flick of his wrist.

He didn't read it. He didn't read it because it came from me, and nothing that came from me had warranted his full attention in years.

Just as I was about to take the letter back, Dominic's hand shot out, grabbing mine. His expression shifted, his brow furrowing as he stared at my hand.

"You… You came here just for this?" he asked, his tone low and unreadable.

I nodded.

His face darkened again, and for a second, I thought he was going to say something. The silver lighter was nowhere in sight, both his hands occupied, one holding my wrist and the other frozen at his side. But then he flinched, pulling his hand back like he'd been burned.

I realized his fingers had brushed the burn marks on my palm, the ones from making the cake. The fondant had required a sugar syrup heated to the point of blistering, and my hands had paid the price for his gesture toward another woman.

He must've been disgusted.

From the corner of my eye, I saw Penelope's eyes light up with sudden interest. She leaned forward, and I caught the motion before the words came. The strand of hair, tucked behind her left ear, slow and deliberate.

"Oh! Olivia! That red bracelet you're wearing… It looks quite familiar," she said, leaning in. Her smile widened. "I just remembered, a few days ago, I saw something just like that in Dominic's trash can."

The room temperature dropped. Not literally, but I felt it in the way two associates near the door exchanged a glance and found somewhere else to look. Penelope had just announced, in a room full of people who understood the significance of symbols, that whatever token bound me to the Don had been discarded like garbage.

I watched Dominic subtly move his hand to cover his wrist, but I pretended not to notice. Keeping my voice calm, I replied, "These bracelets are pretty common. If you like it, I can give this one to you."

Penelope didn't respond.

When I walked out of the room, the man at the door stepped aside again. This time he didn't look at me at all.

I headed straight for the nearest trash can and threw away the bracelet. I'd worn it for the past seven years, but it no longer meant anything. Just trash. The red thread hit the bottom of the bin with no sound at all, which seemed right. Seven years should make a louder noise when they end, but they don't. They just stop.

I turned to the elevator, and while waiting, my phone buzzed. It was my mother calling. "Did you buy your ticket home yet?" she asked.

"Not yet," I replied, my voice steady. "I'll book it in a few days."

Before I could hang up, I heard Dominic's voice behind me. He'd followed me out. The Don, leaving his own party to stand in a hallway.