At the Thanksgiving dinner, Raphael's assistant Daphne was sitting in my seat.

I frowned at Raphael. “Why is she in the Donna's seat? Doesn’t she know, and don’t you?”

Raphael clicked his tongue, impatient.

“You're the one who showed up late. People sit where they want. If it bothers you, leave.”

I opened my mouth to argue, and his thoughts reached me before I could.

[Scarlett, get angry. Fight back.]

[Tell me you're my wife, the Donna of the Sterling family, that no one else has the right to sit at my side.]

[Prove you love me. It's the only thing that makes me feel safe.]

This time, I didn't give his thoughts what they were begging for.

I slid the wedding ring off my finger instead.

“That's the Donna's seat. If you've decided she belongs in it, I won't argue.”

“Let's get divorced.”

The ring landed on the table and bounced once in front of him.

Raphael went pale.

Even his family, who had been watching the show, traded uneasy looks.

Seven years.

I had endured a life like this for seven full years.

Raphael loved to humiliate me in front of people, then wait for me to swallow my pride and come and coax him back.

Every single time, I did exactly what his thoughts asked. I came to him, and I made up first.

It was not only because I could hear what he truly thought, and knew the sick shape of what he needed.

It was also because he was the Don, and I had to uphold that absolute, unquestioned authority of his.

After a while, his family stopped noticing.

They would laugh and tease us. “A sadist and a masochist. You two really do deserve each other.”

So when the word divorce came out of my mouth, Raphael's sister Serena hurried over to talk me down.

“Scarlett, are you just in a bad mood today? You know how he is. He always says the opposite of what he means.”

Raphael's brother Ron kept a straight face and spread his hands.

“Thanksgiving is a family holiday. You can be upset, but don't joke about divorce.”

I crossed my arms and gave a cold laugh.

“Oh? So you know it's a family holiday. Then is Daphne family too?”

Serena and Ron went stiff and said nothing.

Bang!

Raphael slammed his fist on the table and shot to his feet. “Scarlett, are you done? Daphne is my guest!”

“Divorce? Fine. Fine!” He ground the words through his teeth. “Get out! Get out right now!”

For all the thunder in that shout, his thoughts sounded like a kicked puppy.

[Divorce? Scarlett, you said you'd love me your whole life. It's only been seven years.]

[Darling, please don't leave me. Without you I'll fall apart.]

I spent a full decade swallowing these conflicting emotions all alone.

When I first met him, I already knew he carried a deep emotional disorder and a bottomless sense of inferiority.

He couldn't say what he truly felt. The more something mattered to him, the harder he pushed it away.

He pushed me away so that I would come back, again and again, just to confirm that I really loved him.

Pushed to its limit, that inferiority grows into spines, a way of protecting yourself.

And from the day I met him, I could hear his thoughts.

Every time he screamed at me to get out, his thoughts were a desperate plea. [Scarlett, please. Stay.]

I was moved by how pure the feeling underneath it was, and slowly I let myself fall for him.

We were together three years, then married for seven.

Because of me, his condition improved enormously. He could express himself like a normal man now.

For seven years he could be gentle with everyone else. Only with me did he stay cruel past the point of cruelty.

I had cried over it. I had broken down over it.

But Serena always said, “Scarlett, he suffers from mental illness. He just says the opposite of what he feels. The truth is he loves you to the point of madness.”

I knew she was telling the truth, because his thoughts said the same thing.

For love, I held on.

Then the assistant, Daphne, appeared.

Raphael, who didn't have a romantic bone in his body, bought a newly discovered planet and named it after Daphne.

For Daphne's birthday, he booked out an entire amusement park.

The ruby necklace I had wanted for half a year, he bid for it only to put it on Daphne right after.

Now he was even bringing Daphne to the Thanksgiving dinner.

His thoughts wailed like a baby who had never been weaned, crying for me to look at him.

But as I watched Daphne sit there in my seat, that ruby necklace at her throat.

Something in me finally woke up.

His thoughts were only ten years of habit.

He had already found someone new to love.

I watched Raphael's throat work up and down, and I smiled.

“Fine. I'm leaving now.”

I turned for the door, ignoring Serena and Ron as they tried to stop me.

I had barely taken two steps when a hand yanked my wrist.

[Is Scarlett actually angry? What do I do? I'm so scared. Does she really not want me anymore?]

[If she goes, I'm alone. What then?]

[No. I can't let her leave. Stay, Scarlett. I'm begging you!]

His thoughts wrapped around me in layers.

My feet stopped. I turned back to look at him.

His face had gone bloodless, which only made his eyes look redder, as if the blood in his chest had risen straight to them.

In that moment, his grief and his despair were so real.

My heart softened, and I was about to speak.

Then his words came down on me like a hammer.

“Leaving? Fine. Give me back everything I gave you first, then you can go!”

His red eyes raked over me. “Your clothes, your jewelry, your shoes. Take all of it off! If you're leaving, leave clean!”

The words I had been about to use to coax him froze solid in my mouth.

I forced them down, and the cold ran from my throat all the way to my heart.

I looked down at the couture suit I was wearing.

Raphael had bought it for me a year ago.

He had handed it over with a flat face. “Picked it up on the way home.”

But his thoughts had been like a child waiting to be praised.

[Scarlett, ask me about it! I spent a month on this. I had a brand designer make it just for you!]

[It was never mass-produced. It is one of a kind in the whole world.]

[I would never let my Donna wear the same thing as some other woman!]

The shoes and the jewelry he gave me were all custom-made.

Just as his thoughts said, only one-of-a-kind things were worthy of one-of-a-kind me.

But all of that ended a year ago.

A year ago was exactly when Daphne appeared.

I took off the sapphire necklace and dropped it in front of him.

“Fine. The necklace is yours again.”

I took off the custom Patek Philippe and dropped it in front of him.

“Take a good look. The watch too.”

Piece by piece, I stripped off everything he had given me.

Raphael's face had gone nearly transparent, and you could see the veins under his skin.

His fists were clenched white, as if he were fighting to hold back rage.

Serena rushed in to smooth it over.

“How did it get to this? Scarlett, ten years now. You know he's sick. You know he never says what he means.”

“He chose all of this for you so carefully. How can you bear to give it back? It was all just to keep you.”

“No need.” I cut Serena off and looked straight into Raphael's eyes. “Can I go now?”

“No!”

He roared at me as if something had snapped. “The clothes you’re wearing are mine too!”

I peeled off the jacket and threw it to him. “Should I keep going?”

He gripped the jacket, his body trembling faintly.

I gave a cold laugh and reached for the zipper at the back of my dress.

Smack!

Raphael's hand cracked across my face.

“Scarlett, have you no shame at all? You enjoy stripping in front of everyone? Get out! Get out!”

My face burned like a live flame.

The tears hadn't even fallen before the heat burned them away.

I looked down at the jewelry and the watch scattered across the floor.

All of it was Raphael's love gone rancid.

“Why are you still here?”

Raphael flung the jacket down hard and roared.

The jacket landed like a shroud, covering the scattered corpse of everything we had been.

The next second, his thoughts flooded in again.

[Scarlett looks so sad. She must still care about me.]

[Hitting her was wrong, but I couldn't help it. I have to keep her here!]

[If she'll just admit she was wrong, I'll buy it all back twice over, no, ten times over, to make it up to her!]

His thoughts were only noise to me now.

Ten times over, so what. I never wanted the things you could put a price on.

What I cherished was only his priceless love back then.

I turned and opened the door, and the wind cut straight through me.

In a thin dress, I walked out into the night without looking back.

No one came after me.

Behind me, Daphne laughed. “You're really not going to keep the Donna? She looks so upset.”

“Keep her?” Raphael called out loudly, on purpose. “Let her go. In half an hour she'll come crawling back to apologize.”

He didn't know that this time was different.

This time, I really was leaving.

I was going home, to my real home.

By the time I reached the Sterling estate, I was nearly frozen through.

I sipped hot tea and looked around the place I had once called home.

Everywhere I looked, Daphne had left her mark.

“Scarlett, these are the Cohibas Daphne gave me. I like them. Put them away for me.”

“Scarlett, the cufflinks Daphne gave me. Do they look good?”

“This is the candle Daphne recommended. She said the scent makes her think of me.”

Every time it started a fight, the need to control me only sharpened in his eyes. He liked watching me lose myself over him.

It was as if the more I suffered, the more it proved I loved him.

And his answer was always the same easy line.

“Scarlett, Daphne is just my assistant. Don't lose the Donna's composure.”

Worn down day after day, I stopped caring just as he’d wanted.

I had even been ready to give up the Donna's seat.

When the tea had warmed me through, I started packing my things.

Just as I was ready to leave, Raphael came back.

He reeked of liquor, leaning his weight uselessly against Daphne.

When he saw me, he shoved Daphne off on instinct and forced himself to stand straight.

He started to say something, then he saw the suitcase at my feet, and his whole body locked.

At the same moment, his thoughts were roaring.

[Scarlett, why are you packing? Are you really leaving?]

[I was wrong. I shouldn't have brought Daphne to Thanksgiving. I only wanted to make you jealous, to be sure you still loved me.]

[Don't go, I'm begging you, don't go!]

His face was white and his thoughts were an endless plea, and the words out of his mouth cut deeper than ever.

“Scarlett, I'd think hard if I were you. The women who'd kill to be the Donna of the Sterling family could line up from Sicily to New York.”

“And you? A woman I've thrown away. You think your family will still shelter you the way they used to?”

His arrogance was a pair of pitiless hands, and they strangled the last scrap of hope I had left.

Once it was fully gone, I felt almost light.

I pushed a loose strand of hair behind my ear. “Fine. Then I won't keep you from picking your new Donna.”

His pupils shrank. Right in front of me, he pulled Daphne into his arms.

“There's no need to pick. I'll marry Daphne.”

“She's gentler than you, and more obedient. More than that, she's younger. Not useless like you.”

He stared into my eyes and said each word slowly. “She can give me an heir.”

My breath caught, and the wound in me that had finally scarred over split open again.

Everyone knew the child was my rawest wound.

Six years ago, to save Raphael from a rival family's assassin, I took a bullet for him.

It went into my womb, and after that a child became almost impossible.

But I wanted one so badly.

To get pregnant, I saw every famous doctor in the country and tried every method there was.

In desperation, I even went to a medium.

And still my belly stayed flat, as flat and withered as the heart he had worn down to nothing.

Raphael understood all of it better than anyone, and he still chose to gut me with the child.

My eyes went red. “Raphael, you really are a hopeless bastard.”

Seeing me cry, his body flinched, and he moved toward me on instinct.

But Daphne suddenly caught his arm and said softly, “But Donna, the Don is only stating a fact.”

“Seven years of marriage. You really haven't given him an heir.”

“Any other man would have dumped you long ago, but the Don put up with you for seven whole years!”

“He never said a word, and you're the one asking for a divorce. Aren't you being selfish? You don't spare a thought for how hard this is on him.”

Raphael's feet, which had started toward me, stopped.

He lifted his chin, jaw tight, and looked down at me from above.

So he had already bought into Daphne's absurd claims.

“Scarlett, it seems I've been too good to you.”

His eyes slid to my suitcase.

I had no time to react.

He had already signaled the bodyguard at the door.

The man stepped up and slit the expensive leather case open with a knife.

My things spilled across the floor.

Raphael nudged through them with his foot, then bent down and picked up a velvet box.

It held my mother's legacy, the Star of Florence.

He tossed the velvet box up and down nonstop with his left hand, jabbing a finger straight at my nose with his right.

“Scarlett Hale, do I need to remind you? I paid thirty million to win this diamond back for you.”

The color drained from my face.