Betrayed For A Fake Heir: The Wife's Exit

Dante wouldn't let me leave.

Not yet.

He blocked the door to my room, his broad frame filling the archway like a barricade.

"Please," he said.

His voice was desperate, stripped of the imperious command that usually defined him.

"Just one night. The high school reunion. We RSVP'd months ago. Everyone expects us."

I looked at him coolly while I continued packing my bag.

"You want to play pretend?" I asked.

"I want to remember," he said, stepping closer. "I want you to remember who we were before... before this mess."

This mess.

He spoke of his infidelity and cruelty like it was nothing more than a spilled glass of wine.

"If I go, will you sign the papers?" I asked.

He hesitated.

His jaw tightened.

"Yes."

He was lying.

I knew he was lying.

But I needed him distracted while I finalized the transfer of my assets.

"Fine."

We went to the reunion.

It was held in the gymnasium of our old private school, which had been transformed with silk drapes and crystal chandeliers to mask the scent of floor wax and teenage angst.

People stared.

They whispered.

They saw the Don and his wife.

They didn't see the wreckage beneath the smile.

Dante was attentive.

He brought me punch.

He held my chair.

He touched the small of my back with a reverence that made my skin crawl because it was a performance.

Then came the time capsule.

The principal announced it, dragging a dusty metal box onto the stage.

We had buried it ten years ago.

Dante opened his envelope first.

He laughed, pulling out a photo of his first car.

Then he handed me mine.

It was a letter.

The handwriting was jagged, aggressive.

It was from sixteen-year-old Dante to his future self.

I unfolded it, the paper brittle with age.

Dante leaned over my shoulder, reading along.

To the man who has Serena,

The letter began.

If you are reading this, you are the luckiest bastard alive. She is the sun. She is the only good thing in your violent life.

I felt Dante stiffen beside me.

I read on.

Protect her. Worship her. And if you ever hurt her... if you ever make her cry... then you are not a man. You are a monster. If you break her heart, let her go. Never forgive yourself.

The paper trembled in my hands.

I looked up at him.

His eyes were wet.

He was reading the condemnation of his younger, purer self.

"Dante..." I whispered.

He grabbed my hand, squeezing it tight.

"Serena, I can fix this. I swear. The boy who wrote that... he's still in here."

His phone buzzed.

The special ringtone.

He froze.

He didn't answer it.

It rang again.

And again.

"Answer it," I said.

"It's Mia," he muttered.

"Answer it."

He picked up.

He listened for a second.

His face went pale.

"I have to go," he said, his voice shaking. "She's bleeding. It might be a miscarriage."

He looked at me, torn between the woman he loved and the duty he had shackled himself to.

"Go," I said.

"I'll come back for you. Wait for me here."

He ran.

He ran out of the gymnasium, leaving me standing alone in the middle of our past.

I looked at the letter one last time.

If you break her heart, let her go.

"I will listen to you, Dante," I whispered to the boy who didn't exist anymore.

I dropped the letter into the trash can by the exit.

I didn't wait.

I walked out the back door.

I took a taxi to JFK.

I dropped my SIM card into a sewer grate outside the terminal.

I boarded a commercial flight to Seattle, sitting in economy, squeezed between a crying baby and a sleeping tourist.

As the plane lifted off, watching the lights of New York fade into the darkness, I didn't cry.

I exhaled.