"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.

"You're booking a ticket?" he asked, his voice sounding confused.

I quickly ended the call, turning around with a blank expression. "Yeah, there's a restaurant nearby that's impossible to get into," I lied smoothly. "You have to reserve days in advance if you want to try the menu."

Dominic didn't press the matter any further. Something in his posture shifted, though. Not suspicion exactly. Something closer to the instinct of a man who controls territory for a living sensing that ground was moving beneath him.

He just pulled me along to a nearby hotel, one of the Sloane-affiliated properties where the staff knew his face and his preferences and the particular discretion required when he arrived with a woman. He booked us a suite without asking if I wanted one.

He quickly got to work on his laptop, handling some urgent business. A shipment delayed at the port. Numbers that needed reconciling before a call with associates overseas. There was a wordless understanding between us as we worked side by side until the early morning. This was what we'd always been best at. Not love. Work. The machinery of the Sloane empire had always been our most fluent shared language, and even now, with my severance letter signed and folded in my bag, my fingers moved across the spreadsheets with the competence of a woman who'd kept these books for seven years.

Eventually, I couldn't fight off the exhaustion any longer and fell asleep.

The next morning, I woke up in bed, surprised to find myself tucked in. The sheets had been pulled to my chin with a precision that suggested hands more accustomed to violence than tenderness.

Dominic sat beside me, casually leaning against the headboard, flipping through the financial section of the newspaper. The silver lighter rested on the nightstand beside him, catching the morning light. He glanced at me as I stirred.

"Breakfast's on its way," he said, already picking up his phone to call room service.

Halfway through breakfast, Dominic suddenly asked, "Why'd you change your phone password?"

I didn't even look up from my plate. "Felt like changing it," I replied casually.

The truth was, the old password was a combination of our birthdays. Since I was planning to leave, it didn't make sense to keep it. Every trace of him needed to be excised, digit by digit, habit by habit.

I heard him set down his knife and fork, his tone shifting. "You were always asking me to go to the movies with you, weren't you? There's a theater nearby."

I knew there wasn't an option to say no, not with the Don skipping his obligations for the day. When Dominic Sloane decided to give you his time, refusing it was its own kind of insult, and I didn't need the complication. So I just nodded.

Sitting in the quiet, almost empty theater, the image I'd once dreamed of played out before me. The two of us, snuggled close, sharing popcorn while watching a rom-com. A normal couple doing a normal thing. The kind of afternoon that civilians took for granted and women like me spent years begging for.

It was a scene that had once felt so romantic to me.

But when it was already happening for real, I was struggling to stay awake, yawning every few minutes. The romance had arrived seven years too late, and my body knew it even if my mind was still processing the paperwork.

Dominic must've noticed. "This is the movie you picked," he said. "You don't like it?"

"It's fine. It's good," I said, not even bothering to fake enthusiasm.

He pressed his lips into a thin line, clearly not convinced. Just as he was about to say something, his phone buzzed.

Without a word to me, he stood up and walked out of the theater.

The movie ended, and Dominic still hadn't returned.

Annoyed, I was about to call him when I heard a familiar, sickly sweet voice from a distance.

"Oh, Dominic! You're so amazing!" Penelope squealed.

I turned and saw her practically bouncing up and down, clutching a massive stuffed toy as she leaped into Dominic's arms, planting a kiss on his cheek. He held her by the legs, laughing softly, and the sound of that laugh was something I hadn't heard directed at me in years. Maybe ever. But the moment his eyes landed on me, his smile vanished.

The laugh died like a switch had been thrown.

"Olivia! I didn't know you were here too," Penelope exclaimed, wide-eyed and pretending to be innocent. A few seconds later, she gasped dramatically, covering her mouth. "Oh no! Don't get the wrong idea! I just got a little excited, that's all…"

Dominic lightly tapped her on the nose, his tone playful. "What are you apologizing for?" he said, then turned to me, acting as if nothing was wrong. "The movie's already over?"

Before I could respond, the shrill sound of a fire alarm rang through the building.

In an instant, panic spread as people rushed toward the exits. The crowd surged, bodies pressing toward doors, the particular chaos of civilians who've never had to evacuate under real threat.