Azalea Vitiello POV

I spent a week existing in the shadows.

I did not power on my main phone. I did not check the hemorrhaging balance of my bank accounts. I simply sat in the dim light of the brownstone and watched the old Azalea wither and die.

Azura came and went like a spectre, bringing sustenance and intelligence.

She told me the streets were whispering. Caleb was spinning the narrative, telling anyone who would listen that I was "unwell," resting at a private facility to manage my hysteria. He was controlling the story before I could even speak a word.

Then, against my better judgment, I logged into a burner Instagram account.

The photo was the first thing to assault my eyes at the top of the feed.

Kimberly.

She was perched on the white velvet sofa in my penthouse. My sofa. She cradled a glass of red wine, her bare legs draped casually over the lap of a man whose face was cropped out of the frame. But I knew those hands. I knew the platinum Patek Philippe on the wrist.

The caption was a masterclass in cruelty: Home is where the heart is.

And there, in the background, curled up at her feet like a traitor, was Brutus. Caleb's massive Cane Corso. The dog that snarled at everyone except Caleb and me.

She was in my house. With my husband. With our dog.

I hurled the phone across the room. It struck the plaster with a sickening crack and slid to the floor.

Azura looked up from her stack of files, her expression guarded.

"Do not look at it, Aza."

"She is touching my things," I said. My voice was low, vibrating with a deadly calm.

"It is bait," Azura warned. "She wants a reaction. She wants you to break."

I stood up, the decision crystallizing in my chest. "I need to go back."

"No," Azura said, rising quickly to block my path. "You are not going back there."

"I left my mother's rosary," I said, the image of it burning in my mind. "It was in the jewelry box on the vanity. The amethyst beads. The one the Pope blessed before she died. I am not leaving it with that woman."

"We can buy a new one," Azura said, though her eyes betrayed the lie.

"I am going," I said, grabbing my coat from the rack. "I am not going to fight him. I am just retrieving what is mine."

I took a cab to the Nexus Tower. The doorman looked startled to see me, his eyes darting nervously, but he opened the gate. On paper, I was still the owner.

I took the private elevator to the penthouse. My heart hammered a frantic rhythm against my ribs, but my hands remained steady.

The apartment was silent.

I knew Caleb had a sit-down with the union representatives today. He would be out, playing the tycoon.

I stepped into the foyer. The air smelled wrong. It smelled like her. Cheap vanilla and raw ambition.

I walked straight to the master bedroom. The door stood ajar.

Kimberly was standing before the floor-to-ceiling mirror. She was wearing my silk robe. The emerald green one Caleb had bought me for our honeymoon in Como. She was applying lipstick in the reflection, watching herself with narcissistic adoration.

She caught my eyes in the glass. She did not flinch. She smiled.

"I wondered when you would show up," she said.

"Take it off," I commanded.

She turned around slowly, leaning her hip against the vanity. "It hangs better on me, don't you think? Caleb says green brings out my eyes."

I strode toward the vanity. The jewelry box was open.

"Where is it?" I demanded.

Kimberly feigned innocence, batting her lashes. "Where is what?"

"The rosary," I said, my patience fraying. "The amethyst beads. Where is it?"

"Oh, that old thing?" she asked.

She reached into the deep pocket of my robe and withdrew a tangled mess. She held it up for a moment, then let her fingers open. Purple beads and a snapped silver chain rained down onto the marble counter. They scattered like spilled blood.

"Oops," she said, her voice dripping with false sympathy. "I was trying it on, and it just... snapped. It was so fragile. Just like you."

Something inside me fractured. It was the last tether to my sanity, severing with a violent snap.

I did not think. I lunged.

My hand connected with her hair, twisting into the roots. I yanked her head back. She screamed, a high-pitched shriek that grated on my ears.

"You touch my mother's memory?" I hissed.

I slapped her. Harder than I had ever slapped Caleb. Her head cracked against the mirror. A crystal perfume bottle toppled and shattered on the floor, the scent of vanilla choking the air.

Kimberly clawed at my arms, her nails digging furrows into my skin. "Get off me! You crazy bitch!"

I dragged her away from the vanity and threw her onto the bed. She scrambled back against the headboard, gasping, a trickle of blood blooming on her lip.

"You are nothing," I told her, my voice shaking with a terrifying rage. "You are a placeholder. A warm body."

Kimberly wiped her mouth. She looked at the crimson smear on her fingers and laughed, a wet, breathless sound.

"And you are the past, Azalea. He tells me everything. He tells me how you just lie there like a corpse. He tells me he only married you for the clean money."

I grabbed a heavy glass vase from the nightstand. The weight of it felt good in my hand. I wanted to smash it. I wanted to smash everything.

"Do it," she taunted, her eyes gleaming with malice. "Show him you are the monster he says you are."

Azalea Vitiello POV

I lifted the heavy vase, my knuckles white.

My reflection caught in the shattered mirror-hair wild, eyes manic, chest heaving. I didn't recognize myself. I looked like a woman possessed.

The bedroom door crashed open.

"What the hell is going on?"

Caleb stood in the doorway, framing the chaos. He took in the scene instantly: me, holding a weapon; Kimberly, cowering on the bed, bleeding, wearing my robe.

He did not ask if I was okay. He did not ask why I was there.

He crossed the room in two strides and grabbed my wrist. His grip was bruising. He wrenched the vase from my hand and shoved me backward. I stumbled, hitting my hip hard against the dresser.

"Are you insane?" he shouted, his voice cracking like a whip.

He turned to Kimberly. He touched her face gently, examining the cut on her lip. "Are you hurt?"

"She's crazy, Caleb!" Kimberly sobbed, burying her face in his chest. "She broke in! She attacked me! I was just getting dressed!"

I stood there, frozen, watching my husband comfort his mistress in our bedroom.

"She broke my mother's rosary," I said. My voice sounded small, pathetic even to my own ears.

Caleb looked at the scattered beads on the vanity. He looked back at me with pure disgust.

"It is jewelry, Azalea. We can buy another one."

I felt the air leave the room. It is jewelry. He knew exactly what those beads meant. He had held my hand while I prayed with them at her grave.

"It is not just jewelry," I whispered.

He turned fully toward me, shielding Kimberly with his body. "Look at yourself. You are violent. You are unstable. Kimberly was right. You need help."

Kimberly peeked out from behind his arm. The tears had vanished. She was smirking-a tiny, victorious curl of her lips that only I could see.

He chose her. In front of me, in the wreckage of our marriage, he chose the woman who mocked my dead mother.

"You told her I was damaged goods," I said. The words tasted like ash.

Caleb stiffened.

"Kimberly told me," I continued, my voice rising. "You told her about the assault. You used my trauma to entertain your whore."

Caleb ran a hand through his hair, exasperated. "It came up in conversation, Azalea. You are making a big deal out of nothing. Everyone has baggage."

Baggage. My rape was baggage to him. My pain was nothing more than conversation filler.

I looked down at my arm. Kimberly's nails had left deep red welts. I felt a strange calm wash over me. The sadness evaporated, replaced by a cold, hard resolve. If he wanted a monster, I would give him a dragon.

I reached up and deliberately scratched my own arm, right over the marks she left, digging in until I drew fresh blood. The pain was sharp and clarifying.

Caleb watched, horrified. "What are you doing?"

I stepped forward. The fear was gone. The man I loved was dead. Standing before me was just a stranger in an expensive suit.

I walked right up to Kimberly. Caleb tried to block me, but I moved fast. I reached out and raked my nails down her cheek, mirroring the mark she left on me.

She screamed.

Caleb grabbed me by the throat and pinned me against the wall.

"Enough!" he roared.

I looked into his eyes. His pupils were blown wide. He was furious. But for the first time, I saw something else there too. Fear. He didn't know this Azalea.

"You think I am unwell?" I laughed. It was a jagged, ugly sound that bounced off the walls. "You have no idea, Caleb. You want to see crazy? I will show you crazy."

I leaned in close.

"I will burn this building down with you inside it," I promised.

He let go of me as if I burned him. I slid down the wall, still laughing, while Kimberly sobbed about her face.

"You are a monster," Caleb whispered.

I looked up at him, wiping the blood from my arm.

"I learned from the best, husband."

Azalea Vitiello POV

The slow, rhythmic sound of clapping sliced through the tense silence of the room.

Azura stood in the doorway, a silhouette of lethal elegance. She was flanked by two large men I recognized as freelance security contractors-mercenaries who answered to no one but her. They certainly didn't answer to the Vitiello family, and they definitely didn't answer to Caleb.

"Bravo, Caleb," Azura said, her voice smooth but dripping with venom. "You really are the big man on campus. Choking your wife while your side-piece bleeds on the Egyptian cotton sheets. How... classy."

Caleb straightened his tie, jerking his chin up in a futile attempt to regain his composure. "Get out of my house, Azura. This is a private matter."

Azura walked right up to him. She didn't flinch. She didn't hesitate.

She slapped him.

It wasn't emotional like mine had been. It was cold. It was calculated. A disrespect so profound in our world that the air seemed to vibrate with the shock of it.

"You violated the Code," she said, her voice dangerously calm. "You touched a Made woman in anger without cause. You aired family business to a civilian."

She pointed a manicured finger at Kimberly, who was still cowering on the bed, holding a towel to her face.

"Get her out of here," Caleb growled, though his voice lacked its usual thunder.

Azura turned to me, ignoring him completely. She helped me stand. Her eyes scanned my bruises, and her jaw tightened until a muscle feathered in her cheek.

"The movers are downstairs, Aza," she said softly. "Do you want your things?"

I looked around the room. The shattered glass. The broken rosary. The bed where they had slept. The ruin of a life I thought I loved.

"No," I said, my voice hollow.

I walked to the closet. My wedding dress was hanging there, preserved in plastic like a shrine. A custom Vera Wang. I ripped the plastic off, the crinkling sound harsh in the quiet room.

"What are you doing?" Caleb asked, stepping forward.

One of Azura's guards immediately stepped in his path. Caleb stopped short, eyeing the distinct bulge of a firearm under the man's jacket.

I took a pair of heavy shears from the vanity. I walked to the dress.

I jammed the scissors into the silk bodice. Caleb flinched as if I had stabbed him.

I dragged the blades down, ripping the fabric with a terrible, shrieking tearing sound. I shredded the lace. I destroyed the tulle. I desecrated the memory.

It took me two minutes to turn the symbol of our vows into a pile of shimmering rags.

I dropped the scissors. They clattered loudly against the hardwood.

"It is all contaminated," I said to the movers who had just appeared in the doorway, gesturing vaguely at the luxury surrounding us. "Leave it. I want nothing that has been in this house with her."

Kimberly, emboldened by Caleb's presence, shouted from the bed, her voice shrill and desperate. "You're just jealous! You know he never really wanted you! He told me you just laid there like a dead fish!"

Azura spun around, her eyes narrowing into slits.

"One more word," she hissed, "and I will sue you for alienation of affection, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and then I will let the streets handle the rest."

Kimberly shut her mouth with an audible click.

I looked at Caleb one last time. He looked small. He was surrounded by his power, his penthouse, his mistress, but stripped of my admiration, he looked small.

"You built this empire on my back, Caleb," I said softly. "You used my name to wash your money. You used my face to make the politicians trust you."

He scoffed, rolling his eyes. "I built this. I am the Architect. You were just the bank."

I smiled. It was a sad, broken thing.

"The bank is closed, Caleb."

I turned to walk out.

"You cannot leave me!" he shouted after me, panic finally seeping into his tone. "You own thirty percent of the laundering front! You cannot just walk away!"

I stopped at the door, my hand hovering over the frame.

"Watch me."

I walked out of the penthouse, leaving everything behind. My clothes, my jewelry, my past. As the elevator doors slid closed, I heard the satisfying sound of Caleb throwing something heavy against the wall.

Silence settled over us in the elevator, heavy and final.

Azura handed me a tablet once we were settled in the back of her car.

"What is this?" I asked.

"The divorce papers," she said. "And the liquidation authorization."

I looked at the screen, the glowing light reflecting in my tired eyes.

"I want to sell my shares," I said.

"To who?" Azura asked, pausing.

I thought about the rival Irish mob. The ones Caleb had been fighting a bloody war with for territory on the docks. Mark Ellison.

"Sell them to Ellison," I said.

Azura's eyes widened, her composure slipping for the first time. "That will start a war, Aza."

I looked out the window at the city skyline, watching the lights blur as we sped away.

"Good," I whispered. "Let it burn."