Eliana POV

I took nothing but my old Nikon camera bag.

On the console table, I left the platinum credit cards.

Beside them, I left the keys to the Mercedes.

I walked four miles to the subway station because I refused to use the Uber account linked to his card. I refused to leave a digital trail he could follow.

I went to Sarah.

Sarah was the wife of a Soldier in Dustin's crew. She lived in a small apartment in Queens, far from the sterile glitter of the penthouse.

She opened the door, took one look at my face, and pulled me inside.

She asked no questions.

That is the beauty of Omertà. It applies to the women, too.

She gave me a blanket and a cup of tea. I sat on her couch for three days.

I felt numb. It was a hollow, gray silence, as if someone had surgically removed my heart and forgot to stitch the wound.

On the fourth day, I woke up.

The numbness was gone. In its place was a strange, terrifying lightness.

I picked up my camera. I had not touched it in fifteen years.

Stepping out into the cool air, I walked around Sarah's neighborhood. I photographed the cracks in the pavement, the rust on the fire escapes, the unapologetic grit of the city.

I remembered who I was before I became Dustin's wife.

I was an artist. I was a creator.

When I got back, Sarah was watching the news. She looked pale, her knuckles white as she gripped the remote.

"You need to see this," she said.

On the screen was a segment about Powell Tech, Dustin's legitimate front. Dustin was smiling at the camera.

He looked charming. Successful. The perfect lie.

Beside him stood Jami. The caption read: Local philanthropist and his Muse.

"She brought me these amazing macadamia nut cookies," Dustin told the reporter, laughing with a practiced ease. "She is the secret to my success."

I stopped breathing.

Macadamia nuts.

The room spun. I am deathly allergic to macadamia nuts.

My throat closes up within minutes. Dustin knew this. We had spent a night in the ER five years ago because a bakery had cross-contaminated a cake.

He was not just indifferent.

He had erased me so completely that my fatal allergy was now a cute anecdote for his mistress.

My phone buzzed against the coffee table.

It was a text from him.

Where are you? The house is a mess. I need my passport. Stop being selfish and come home.

He did not ask if I was okay.

He did not apologize.

He just wanted his servant back.

I almost threw the phone against the wall. But I stopped.

I looked at my hand. My ring finger was bare.

But my mother's ring-a sapphire set in eighty-year-old gold-was still in the wall safe at the penthouse. It was the only thing I had left of my family history.

"I am going back," I told Sarah.

She looked terrified. "He will kill you, Eliana."

"No," I said, my voice surprisingly steady.

"I am just going to get what is mine."

I need to see him one last time.

I need to see him without the rose-colored glasses.

I need to look through the lens and finally see the monster.

The doorman buzzed me in, though he couldn't bring himself to meet my eyes.

He shifted his weight, studying the marble floor as I passed. He knew. Everyone knew.

I took the elevator to the penthouse, my stomach churning with a mix of dread and fury. I punched in my code. Dustin's arrogance was absolute; he hadn't even bothered to change the locks.

He doubtless thought I would come crawling back.

The apartment was suffocating, reeking of cheap, sickly sweet vanilla perfume.

It was nauseating.

I walked straight to the master bedroom. The wall safe was ajar. Panic hammered against my ribs.

I reached inside.

Empty.

My mother's ring was gone.

"Well, look what the cat dragged in."

I spun around.

Jami was standing in the doorway, draped in my silk robe-the one I had bought in Paris. And there, around her neck, dangling on a flimsy gold chain, was my mother's sapphire ring.

"Take it off," I said. My voice was low. Dangerous.

Jami laughed, a shrill, grating sound. She fingered the sapphire possessively.

"Finders keepers. Dustin said I could have anything I wanted."

"That is an heirloom, Jami. It belonged to my grandmother. Give it to me."

I stepped forward.

She screamed.

"Dustin! She is attacking me!"

She threw herself back against the doorframe, clutching her stomach in a theatrical display of distress.

Dustin appeared instantly. He was shirtless, a towel low around his waist. He looked at me with pure disgust.

"What the hell are you doing here?"

I pointed a trembling finger at Jami. "She has my mother's ring."

Dustin glanced at the necklace, dismissive.

"It is just a ring, Eliana. I will buy you a better one. Let her have it. She likes the blue."

It wasn't about the blue.

It was about heritage. It was the only thing I owned that his money hadn't touched.

"No."

I lunged for Jami.

I grabbed the chain. Jami shrieked and yanked back. The old gold snapped with a fragile pop.

The sapphire slid off the chain and skittered across the hardwood floor.

"You crazy bitch!" Jami yelled.

She raised her hand to scratch me, but I was faster. I caught her wrist.

And I slapped her.

It was a sharp, cracking sound that echoed off the walls. Her head snapped to the side.

Suddenly, the world tilted.

Dustin shoved me. He didn't hold back. He used his full weight, the brute strength of a man accustomed to violence.

I flew backward.

My head cracked against the solid oak nightstand.

Pain exploded behind my eyes, blinding white and hot. I slumped to the floor. Warmth trickled down the side of my face.

Blood.

I looked up through the haze. Dustin was staring down at me. He saw the blood pooling on the floor. He saw my eyes rolling back.

But then Jami groaned.

"My baby!" she wailed, clutching her stomach. "I think she hurt the baby!"

She was faking it. I knew it, and deep down, he had to know it too.

But Dustin turned his back on me.

He stepped over my legs. He stepped over my bleeding body to get to her.

"Are you okay, baby? Let me help you up," he cooed to her.

I lay there on the cold floor. I watched him comfort the woman who stole my life while I bled out on the wood I had polished with my own hands.

Something inside me finally snapped.

It wasn't a bone. It was the tether-the invisible, pathetic thread that had kept me hoping.

I reached out with a trembling hand. I found the sapphire ring under the bed. I closed my fist around it.

The marriage died in that moment.

I pulled myself up. The room was spinning violently.

I walked out.

Blood dripped from my chin onto my shirt, blooming in dark red flowers.

I walked past them. Dustin didn't even look up.

I walked into the elevator. I stared directly at the security camera.

I made sure the lens captured every drop of blood. I made sure the doorman saw the ruin of my face.

I wasn't a wife anymore.

I was a witness.

And I was going to bury him.

Eliana POV

The emergency room doctor threaded six stitches into the skin of my forehead.

As he tied the final knot, he paused. He asked if I felt safe at home.

"I'm handling it," I told him, my voice steady.

The moment I walked out, I called Laura, my father's lawyer.

"I want the papers drawn up," I said. "And I want a restraining order attached to this medical report."

She asked if I wanted to freeze the assets.

"Not yet," I said.

"I have a renovation to finish first."

I stopped at a hardware store next.

I bought a ten-pound sledgehammer.

Then I called Craig.

Craig used to be an Enforcer.

He had left the life two years ago to sculpt metal, but he still had the size of a tank and the loyalty of a war dog.

"I need muscle, Craig."

He met me at the curb of the penthouse building with three of his guys.

They were carrying heavy tool bags.

I walked up to the doorman and slapped the property deed on his desk.

My name was on it.

Dustin had put the penthouse in my name five years ago to hide it from a RICO investigation. A loophole he was about to regret.

"I am the owner," I told the doorman, my tone brokering no argument. "These men are contractors. We are doing emergency demolition."

He looked at the bloody bandage on my head, then at the size of Craig, and stepped aside.

We went up.

Dustin was gone.

Probably taking Jami to a spa to recover from her fake trauma.

Perfect.

"Start with the server room," I told Craig.

I led them to the hidden room behind the library.

This was the brain of Dustin's operation.

The servers blinking in the dark held every illegal transaction, every laundered dollar, every hit order.

I had built it.

"Rip it out," I said.

The sound of metal tearing was music.

They ripped sensors from the walls.

They cut the fiber optic cables.

They smashed the hard drives with hammers.

His digital fortress was crumbling.

I walked to the kitchen.

I took the sledgehammer and swung it into the twenty-thousand-dollar espresso machine.

Steam hissed violently and glass shattered across the floor.

It felt better than good.

It felt like taking my first breath in years.

Craig walked over to me.

He held a blowtorch.

I handed him the pieces of the broken gold chain and the setting of the ring.

I kept the sapphire in my pocket.

"Melt it," I said.

He fired up the torch.

The gold turned liquid, pooling on the granite counter.

It cooled into a raw, ugly nugget.

I took a permanent marker and wrote on the counter next to it: Payment for stitches.

The elevator chimed.

Dustin and Jami walked in.

They stopped dead.

The apartment looked like a war zone.

Wires hung from the ceiling like gutted entrails.

The smart glass windows were opaque and dead.

Dustin's face turned purple.

"What the fuck have you done?" he screamed. "I am calling the cops!"

I pointed to the bandage on my forehead.

"Go ahead, Dustin."

"Call them."

"Tell them you assaulted the owner of this apartment."

"Tell them about the illegal servers that are currently being turned into confetti."

He looked at the server room.

His face went pale.

"You destroyed the system?"

I tapped my temple.

"Intellectual property rights, Dustin. I built it. I own the code. I revoked your license."

Jami started to cry.

"My sofa!" she whined.

I looked at her.

"It is all yours, honey. Enjoy the ruins."

I dropped the sledgehammer on the floor.

It made a heavy thud that shook the room.

I looked at Dustin.

He was kneeling on the floor, trying to piece together a smashed hard drive.

He looked small.

"You are trash, Dustin," I said.

I signaled to Craig.

We walked out.

I left him kneeling in the dust of his own empire.

I stepped into the elevator.

I did not look back.

I had just lit the match.

Now I was going to watch him burn.