I never thought packing could break a person. Every item I folded into the suitcase felt like tearing a piece of my life with Dominic free from the bone. The life I had imagined would last until they put me in the ground.

I bit back tears when I stared at the empty closet. The hangers swayed gently, catching the faint light from the window like skeletal fingers waving goodbye. I couldn't believe this was happening. We were supposed to be bound for life. A sacred betrothal, sealed in blood and witnessed by the Family. Instead, here I stood in a half-stripped room, shoving silk blouses into luggage like a woman fleeing a war zone. I pressed the heel of my palm against my eyes and wiped the tears away before they could fall. Now was not the moment to be weak. I was worth more than this.

My phone vibrated against the dresser. Ivo. He seemed unfinished with his lecture from earlier, as though the first round hadn't been enough.

"Neve, please don't make any rash decisions. I'm sure Dominic will fix this. He's just dealing with a lot right now. Give him time to make it up to you."

I scoffed and rolled my eyes hard enough to feel the pull in my temples.

"Fix this? How could he?" My voice came out low and venomous, barely above a whisper. "Where was he, Ivo? He canceled without thinking twice. He didn't even think of me. And I'm supposed to understand him." I hissed the last word like it was poison on my tongue and pulled the phone away from my ear, ignoring whatever he said next.

I shoved the last blouse into the suitcase, pressing it down with both hands, trying to crush the memory of the blood-bound union that was supposed to happen today. I had dreamt of it for months. Walking through the grand hall of the Valente compound with the entire Family watching. The candlelight. The oath. The ring of witnesses. Dominic's hand closing over mine as the Consigliere read the vows that would bind us before God and the Family both.

But today, when it was supposed to happen, Dominic's eyes had gone to Chiara. Sweet, fragile Chiara Mancuso, who had faked another injury during her training session. Collapsed in the gym like a porcelain doll with a cracked spine. I couldn't count how many times she had pulled this act, and I couldn't fathom how blind Dominic remained to the performance. Every time, the same script. The trembling lip, the wide doe eyes, the whispered "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to cause trouble." And every time, Dominic dropped everything. Dropped me.

"Damn them."

I zipped the suitcase with a vicious pull, grabbed the handle, and walked out. I told no one. Not even Nonna Lolita, who loved me more than anyone left in that house. She would have stopped me, and I couldn't afford to be stopped. Not tonight.

The car I had called was already idling at the curb outside the compound's service entrance, its headlights cutting pale lines through the October dark. I rushed down the gravel path, stuffed my luggage into the trunk, and slid into the back seat, instructing the driver to go. No hesitation. No looking back.

I looked back.

The compound shrank in the rear window, its iron gates and limestone walls dissolving into the amber blur of passing streetlights. My heart sat like a stone behind my ribs. Every block we passed carried a memory. The corner café where Dominic had bought me espresso the morning after our betrothal was announced. The park where he had walked with me in silence, his hand warm against the small of my back, saying nothing because nothing needed to be said. I had fought for so long to make this work, to earn my place beside him, to prove that I was more than just a name on an old arrangement between our fathers. But now I was done. I was taking back control, even if it carved me hollow.

When I arrived at my old apartment in the Village, I stood on the sidewalk and stared at the building before going in. A narrow brownstone with a fire escape that zigzagged up the facade like a scar. I had lived here less than a year before moving into the compound, and it had felt like home then. Comforting but painful now, the way a childhood bedroom feels after a funeral. I wished I could become the old Neve. The one full of hope. The one who still believed that Dominic Valente's love was something she could hold in her hands.

I dragged the suitcase up three flights of stairs. Its weight felt lighter than whatever sat crushing my chest. When I reached the bedroom, the small space felt foreign, the air stale and cold, the bed stripped to a bare mattress. But I welcomed the change. Anything was better than that compound tonight.

As I unpacked, I tried to push thoughts of Dominic from my mind, but they crept back like smoke under a closed door. His voice. His hands. The way he looked at me when he thought I wasn't watching, as though I were something precious and breakable. The way he looked at Chiara when everyone was watching, as though she were something he owed.

Just as I was pulling a fitted sheet over the mattress, my phone vibrated again. I hesitated before picking it up, certain it would be Ivo circling back for another round, or worse, Chiara calling to deliver some saccharine apology designed to twist the knife. But when I saw the name on the screen, my heart lurched against my ribs.

Dominic.

My breath came thin and shallow as I read the message.

"Neve, please. Can we talk? I need to see you."

I stared at the screen until the words blurred. Did he really think he could fix this with a handful of words on a glowing rectangle? After everything? After today?

My hands were shaking when I typed my reply.

"I don't think that's a good idea right now."

Before I could even set the phone down on the nightstand, it rang. Dominic's name filled the screen, pulsing with each vibration. I hesitated, my finger hovering over the decline button, but something stopped me. Some stubborn, traitorous part of my heart that still wanted to hear his voice. I took a deep breath and answered.

"What do you want, Dominic?" I kept my voice as steady as a blade balanced on its edge.

"Neve, it shouldn't have gone this far. Let's talk about this. Please." His voice carried that particular blend of desperation and warmth that had always undone me. The voice of a man who commanded a hundred soldiers but couldn't command the woman he was promised to.

"Why? So you can cancel again?" My voice climbed despite my efforts to hold it level. "So you can tell me how much you care while you keep putting Chiara first?"

"No. I wanted to explain." A pause. I could hear him breathing, measured and deliberate, the way he breathed before difficult negotiations. "I know you're hurt. I understand it. This isn't because of Chiara. I am the Don. I am responsible for every member of this Family's safety. She is under my protection. That is an obligation my father swore on his deathbed. You know this."

I scoffed, shaking my head even though he couldn't see me.

"Dominic, she is always injured. Every single time something important is about to happen for us, she collapses. Don't you find that a little odd?"

"Come on, Neve." Irritation sharpened his tone, the Don bleeding through the lover. "Anything can happen during combat training. You push yourself, you get hurt. Injuries are part of learning. Any recruit could understand that."

The words hit like a slap.

"Are you trying to say I'm childish? And Chiara getting injured every single time is not behaving like a child herself?"

"No, that's not what I meant." He caught himself, pulled back. "You have every right to be upset. We have been preparing for the ceremony for months. But you know we can never predict what will happen. Chiara's injury wasn't even that serious. She'll heal in a day or two. We can reschedule the union. What is a day or two?"

What is a day or two. As though the date meant nothing. As though I hadn't spent weeks with Nonna Lolita choosing flowers and fabric. As though the entire Family hadn't been gathered. As though my heart hadn't been laid bare on a silver tray for everyone to see, only to be pushed aside for a girl with a bruised ankle and a rehearsed whimper.

"I can't do this right now." My voice trembled despite every effort to hold it still.

"Neve, please. I just need you to hear me out. Can we at least meet? Just to talk." He was pleading now, and the sound of it was almost worse than the anger. Dominic Valente did not plead. Not with rival bosses. Not with federal prosecutors. Not with anyone. Only with me, and only when he knew he had lost ground he could not afford to lose.

"Talk? About what? About how you chose Chiara over me?" I pressed my free hand flat against the bare mattress, steadying myself. "You know what? I'm done hearing excuses."

"It's not an excuse. I just need a moment to explain everything. I thought you would understand my position. Being the Don, carrying the obligations of the Family. This isn't just about us, Neve."

"Right. Because your obligations are clearly more important than what we have. I understand that, Dominic. I do. But that doesn't change how I feel."

He sighed, and I could hear the frustration in his breath, heavy and controlled, the exhale of a man who was used to having the final word in every room he entered.

"You're right, it doesn't. But I never wanted to hurt you. I just wanted to do what was best for the Family. You know I care about you. You know that, don't you?"

"Do I?" The question came out quieter than I intended, almost fragile, and I hated myself for it. "Because it doesn't feel that way. You keep saying you care, but your actions tell a different story, Dominic. Every single time."

He drew breath to speak again. I could feel it coming, the same lecture, the same sermon about duty and honor and the weight of the Valente name. He couldn't stop himself. It was as though I were a junior associate who needed to be educated on the realities of the life, a child who couldn't grasp what it meant to sit at the head of La Tavola d'Oro.

I ended the call without asking permission. Without a goodbye. Without giving him the courtesy of a final word.

The phone rang again almost instantly. Dominic's name glowed on the screen, insistent, commanding, the way everything about him was commanding. I watched it ring. Once. Twice. Three times. Then I reached over, held the power button, and watched the screen go black.

The apartment was silent. The city hummed faintly beyond the window, indifferent to the woman sitting alone on a bare mattress in a cold room, holding a dead phone in hands that would not stop shaking.

Laughter rolled through the grand salon of the Valente compound like smoke from a hundred cigarettes, thick and warm and impossible to escape. Ivo's birthday had drawn the entire Family together, every soldier, every associate, every wife and cousin and distant relation who owed their livelihood to the Valente name. Crystal clinked against crystal. Someone had put on old Sinatra records, and the brass notes drifted beneath the noise of conversation like a current beneath a river.

I scanned the room from my place near the head of the long dining table. Neve stood at the bar across the salon, a glass of untouched Barolo in her hand, half-turned toward one of the Family's private physicians. She was engaged in conversation but not entirely present. Her eyes had that faraway quality, the look of a woman whose mind was somewhere else entirely. It didn't matter. I was glad she came.

She had been busy. The work at La Voce Nera had consumed her for weeks, and Ivo had mentioned she wasn't in the mood for a party. But here she was, dressed in black silk, her dark hair pinned back, looking like she belonged in every room she entered. That was Neve. Always doing the right thing. Always putting others before herself.

"Dominic!" Chiara's voice cut through my thoughts, bright and deliberate. She appeared at my elbow, those wide, hopeful eyes turned up at me like a child asking for permission. Her left arm rested in a sling, the bandage visible beneath the sleeve of her cream-colored blouse.

"Could you help me with the prawns and the crab? I can't peel them with my arm like this."

I hesitated. My gaze drifted back toward Neve, still standing at the bar, still talking to the physician. I had meant to go to her. I had meant to pull her aside, ask her how she was, tell her something. Anything.

But Chiara was standing right in front of me, injured, waiting. I couldn't leave her hanging. The debt of honor my father had sworn to her dead mother hung over every interaction like a rosary around a sinner's neck.

"Sure," I said, and moved to sit beside her at the table.

"Thank you. You're a lifesaver." Chiara's smile was radiant, the kind of smile that made everyone in the room believe she was exactly what she appeared to be: fragile, grateful, harmless.

I picked up a prawn and began working the shell free with my fingers. Then a crab leg. The work was tedious, beneath the dignity of a Don in most circumstances, but this was different. This was Chiara. The obligation was clear. Other members of the household could be demanding in their own ways, but this particular duty carried the weight of blood.

"You're always so kind to me, Dominic. I don't know what I'd do without you." She leaned closer, her shoulder brushing mine.

"It's nothing. Just doing what I should."

The shell cracked between my fingers. I set the clean meat on her plate.

Ivo appeared then, two tumblers of aged scotch in his hands. He set one in front of me and dropped into the chair across the table, loosening his tie with his free hand. His dark eyes flicked to Chiara, then to me, and a knowing look crossed his face.

"You really know how to make a man feel useful, huh?" He raised his glass in a mock toast. "What a gentleman."

I chuckled and slid another peeled prawn onto Chiara's plate.

"Just helping a member of this Family who needs it."

Ivo leaned back, swirling the scotch in his glass, and let his gaze drift across the room to where Neve stood. She was alone now. The physician had moved on. She held the same glass of Barolo she'd been holding since she arrived, the wine untouched, the stem turning slowly between her fingers as if she were counting the minutes until she could leave.

"Hey, Dominic." Ivo's voice dropped a register, casual but pointed. "Why don't you peel some of those for Neve? I'm sure she'd appreciate it too."

I frowned. The suggestion landed wrong, like a stone dropped into still water. I hadn't come here to spend the evening shelling plates of seafood for every person in the room. Neve was perfectly capable of doing it herself.

"Neve's fine. She's just taking a break," I said, and the words sounded hollow even to my own ears.

Ivo raised an eyebrow. He took a slow sip of his scotch and set the glass down with a deliberate clink.