You Said Die Quietly, So I Did

Dante Vitiello POV

I remained standing in the parking lot until my legs went numb.

I couldn't go back to the office. I couldn't go back to the estate.

Eventually, I forced myself into the driver's seat and started the engine. I didn't have a conscious destination, but the car knew where to go. It followed the ghosts of my past straight to the Safe House.

The blue shutters were gone. The front lawn was a muddy mess of tire tracks and debris.

I got out. It was dark, illuminated only by the hollow glow of the streetlights.

I walked to the dumpster.

It was overflowing. Drywall. Carpet.

And then I saw it.

Sticking out of a black trash bag was a corner of a canvas.

I climbed into the dumpster. I didn't care about my bespoke Italian suit. I didn't care about the mud seeping into my shoes.

I pulled the painting out.

It was a watercolor. Simple. Imperfect. Elena painted it for my birthday the year we bought the house. It was a picture of us, sitting on the porch, old and grey.

The inscription on the bottom read: To growing old together.

It was cracked down the middle. Someone had deliberately stepped on it.

Sienna.

I wiped the dirt off the canvas with my sleeve. I held it to my chest like it was the Holy Grail.

I screamed.

I screamed until my throat felt raw, until the sound tore at my vocal cords. I screamed at the house, at the sky, at myself.

Finally, silence reclaimed the night. I climbed out of the dumpster, clutching the painting against my ribs.

I drove back to the main estate.

I kicked the front door open.

Sienna was coming down the stairs, wearing a silk robe.

"Dante?" she asked. "Where have you been? Is she... is it over?"

I walked past her. I didn't even look at her. If I looked at her, I would kill her, and I wasn't ready for that yet.

I went to the living room. I needed photos. I needed to see Elena's face. Not the wax doll in the morgue. My Elena.

I opened the drawers. Empty.

I checked the mantle. Bare.

I ran to the library. The albums were usually on the bottom shelf.

Gone.

"Where are the photos?" I yelled.

A maid hurried in, looking terrified.

"Madam... Madam burned them, sir."

"What?"

"Yesterday. In the fireplace."

I ran to the fireplace.

It was cold. A pile of grey ash sat in the grate.

I fell to my knees. I dug my hands into the ash. I sifted through it, looking for a corner of a photo, a scrap of a smile.

Nothing. Just dust.

She had erased herself. She had scrubbed her existence from my life so thoroughly that it was like she had never been here.

Except for the pain. The pain proved she was real.

I sat in the ashes of my memories, holding the broken painting, and finally, I understood.

She didn't just leave me.

She divorced me from her soul.