After Love Turned to Ashes, I Chose Myself

The next morning, I prepared breakfast for one.

Warm milk and a pressed sandwich on sourdough — simple, efficient, sufficient. The kitchen in the penthouse above the Falcone social club was silent except for the low hum of the espresso machine I did not bother to use. Pale light came through the reinforced windows and lay flat across the marble countertop where I set my single plate.

Dominic walked over to the dining table out of habit, already dressed in charcoal wool, cufflinks gleaming, the signet ring catching the overhead light as he reached for his usual place. He found his glass empty.

"Where's mine?" he asked.

I hesitated for a moment. "I thought you didn't like milk."

Dominic didn't respond. He was not happy. The ring on his right hand turned once, slow, deliberate, his thumb rolling it against the knuckle.

He didn't like milk, but in the past, I would always heat a glass for him and insist he drink it, regardless of his preferences. I did it because he had a weak stomach — years of late-night sit-downs, too much espresso, meals skipped in favor of counting-room business — and milk was good for it. Every morning for eight years I had set that glass in front of him like a small act of devotion he never once acknowledged.

Ignoring his stare, I glanced at the day's schedule pinned beneath a magnetized clip on the refrigerator, downed the milk in one gulp, put the dishes in the washer, and moved toward the door. My heels were quiet on the hallway runner, but my pulse wasn't. Behind me, Dominic seemed to say he would take me, but my footsteps were too loud, and I thought I must have misheard.

I rubbed the pad of my thumb once over the inside of my wrist, feeling the small flutter there. A habit I had never been able to break — checking that I was still here, still breathing, still upright when every instinct told me to sit down and weep.

Dominic and I had been together for eight years, working under the same roof of the Falcone organization, yet I took the crowded subway downtown every day. Eight years of keeping the Family's laundering fronts spotless, of making sure every dollar ran clean through the shell companies I had architected, and I still stood on a packed train with strangers who smelled of wet wool and cheap cologne while the Don rode in a black sedan with tinted glass.

Today, because of my injuries — the mauled arm still bandaged beneath my coat sleeve, the deeper wound no bandage could touch — I had arranged for one of the Family cars to collect me half an hour earlier.

Dominic, who was usually punctual, was late. He arrived with his personal courier, Adriana Bellini.