The Woman He Let Go Eight Times

My phone buzzed on the nightstand. I picked it up, the screen illuminating the dark bedroom.

Flight confirmed. Your new apartment in Paris is fully furnished and paid for the first year. Everything is ready, Natalia's text read.

I let out a breath I didn't realize I was holding. Freedom was finally tangible. Just three more days.

Before I could lock the screen, another message popped up. It was from an unsaved number, but I knew exactly who it was.

What about the deal? Have you thought about it? Lorenzo asked.

I stared at the glowing words. Last night in the car, Lorenzo had made me an offer. He knew I wanted to disappear, and he had the resources to make me completely untraceable. In exchange, he wanted the internal financial records I had memorized during my years playing the dutiful Don's wife. The ledgers. The tribute flows. The laundering routes through European operations that I'd absorbed silently across eight alliance ceremonies and eight annulments, sitting in rooms where men forgot I existed because I was nothing more than furniture to them.

I was still weighing my options when the bedroom door suddenly flew open, slamming against the wall.

Before I could even sit up, a hand cracked across my cheek. The slap was sharp, the sting immediate.

"You bitch!" Gianna screamed, her perfectly manicured face twisted in ugly rage. "What did you do to Dominic? Why did he change his mind?"

I slowly turned my head back to face her, tasting copper on my lip. I didn't flinch. I just looked at her, my expression completely blank.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," I said, my voice eerily calm.

"Don't lie to me!" Gianna shrieked, stepping closer. "He was supposed to propose to me tonight! The ring was ready, the families were waiting! But he canceled everything and said he needed to finalize his remarriage to you first! What kind of spell did you put on him?"

I let out a dark, humorless laugh. So Dominic had actually delayed his precious proposal just to keep me trapped. The Don of the Castellano Family, and he couldn't even let his captive bride walk away clean.

I stood up from the bed, towering over her slightly. "Maybe he finally realized you're just a tourist in his life, Gianna. You leave whenever you get bored, and you only come back when you need his protection. Maybe he actually loves me now because I was the one who stayed."

It was a lie, of course, but I wanted to see her bleed.

Gianna's eyes widened in fury. She raised her hand to strike me again. "You delusional—"

"What the hell is going on here?"

The deep, furious voice came from the doorway. Gianna froze, her hand suspended in the air.

Dominic stood there, his eyes sweeping over the room. The hallway light cut across his shoulders. Behind him, in the corridor, the soldier on night rotation had gone completely still, gaze fixed on the middle distance, seeing nothing. Hearing nothing. That was the rule in this house.

The second Gianna saw him, her entire demeanor shifted. The vicious, screaming woman vanished.

"Dominic!" she cried, running to him and burying her face in his chest. "She's crazy! I just came to ask her why she was doing this to us, and she started saying horrible things! She said you never loved me!"

I stood there, the metallic taste of blood still on my tongue, the red mark burning into my cheek. I waited for Dominic to look at me. I waited for him to see the cut on my lip, to see that Gianna was the one who had hit me.

But he didn't.

Dominic wrapped his arms tightly around Gianna, kissing the top of her head. Then, he looked at me. His eyes were completely devoid of the possessive fire from this morning. There was only cold, hard disgust.

"Are you out of your mind, Bianca?" he spat, his voice laced with venom. "I brought you back here to keep you out of trouble, not to terrorize the woman I actually love."

My chest tightened. Even though my heart was already dead, his words still managed to twist the knife.

"She hit me, Dominic," I said quietly, pointing to my bleeding lip.

He didn't even blink. "Don't play the victim. You provoked her. Let me make this perfectly clear to you so you stop living in a fantasy: I only delayed the proposal because the optics of a sudden annulment look bad for the Family right now. The other families are watching. The Commision is watching. I need you to play the good wife for the allies for a few more months."

He sneered, his grip tightening protectively around Gianna.

"Don't flatter yourself into thinking I want you," he added cruelly. "You are nothing but a convenient shield until Gianna and I are ready."

He turned around, guiding a sobbing Gianna out of the room, leaving me completely alone in the cold, silent bedroom. The soldier in the hallway resumed breathing. A door closed somewhere deeper in the compound. Then nothing.

I stood there for a long moment, staring at the empty doorway. The last pathetic, lingering shred of hope I didn't even know I was holding onto finally turned to ash.

I walked calmly back to the nightstand and picked up my phone. I opened the message from the unsaved number.

My thumb pressed hard against the inside of my ring finger. I didn't catch myself doing it.

My fingers didn't tremble at all as I typed my reply to Lorenzo.

I'll take the deal. Get me the hell out of Dominic's life.