Seven Years of Omertà

When I lost my baby in a car wreck, Dominic just happened to be driving by with his personal aide in the passenger seat.

He saw my white dress soaked in blood, shielded Penelope's curious eyes with his hand, and coldly muttered, "Bad luck. Don't look." Then he sped off.

That same night, while I was in the bedroom of the townhouse on Sloane territory, I found a lace bra stuffed in the corner of our closet. A bra that definitely wasn't mine.

I stood there for a long time. The house was quiet the way houses in this world are always quiet. Not peaceful. Monitored. Two soldiers stationed at the front door, another in the car idling at the curb. The low hum of a surveillance feed running somewhere behind the walls. I had lived inside this silence for seven years, and I had mistaken it for safety.

Closing the closet door, I calmly dialed a number. "Salvatore, I've made up my mind. I can leave the city next week and start handling the books for your operation."

"That's wonderful news, Olivia! We're excited to have you with us!" he replied, and I could hear the satisfaction beneath the warmth. A man like Salvatore Mancini didn't get excited. He got strategic. Recruiting the woman who had managed every laundered dollar flowing through the Sloane syndicate for the better part of a decade was the quietest act of war anyone had ever committed against Dominic.

I knew what I was doing. I knew what it meant.

The second the call ended, Dominic walked out of the bathroom. His hair was damp, and beads of water still clung to his skin. The silver lighter sat on the edge of the sink where he'd left it. Penny's lighter. He carried it everywhere, never lit a thing with it.

He used to take five minutes in the shower. Lately, he'd been spending at least half an hour, always with his phone in hand.

"Who were you talking to?" he asked, not even looking up from his screen.

"I was on the phone with Salvatore Mancini," I replied honestly.

The name should have stopped him cold. Mancini. The family that had been locked in a cold war with the Sloanes for a decade. The name alone, spoken inside this house, should have made the soldiers downstairs shift on their feet.

"Ah," he said, barely paying attention. As usual, he wasn't really listening.

And for the first time, I didn't get mad or make a fuss. I just started drafting my formal severance of allegiance on my phone. The language was careful, clinical. In this world, you didn't simply leave. You documented your departure in terms that couldn't be mistaken for betrayal, even when betrayal was exactly what it was.

When he reached for his water glass, likely expecting the chamomile I used to prepare for him every night, he paused, noticing it wasn't there.

Finally, he spared me a glance.

"I showed your CT scan to a specialist. He said it was just a minor injury, nothing serious. Just keep the wound dry."

"Alright," I said without looking up, still typing.

This afternoon, I'd had eight stitches in my leg from the wreck. Worse still, I had just found out I was four weeks pregnant and already showing signs of miscarriage.

The doctor had apologized, saying that if I had been brought to the hospital sooner, the baby might have been saved.

If I had been brought sooner. If the Don of the Sloane family had stopped his car instead of shielding his aide's eyes from the sight of me bleeding on the pavement. If he had carried me to the back seat the way he carried Penelope's shopping bags and dry-cleaning and whatever else she needed ferried from place to place. If he had done any single thing differently.

But he hadn't. And the baby was gone.

Seeing the blank expression on my face, Dominic frowned and started walking over to check what I was doing.

But just then, his phone buzzed.