Caroline POV

The taxi ride home was a blur of streetlights and throbbing pain.

My leg felt like a concrete anchor encased in fiberglass, heavy and impossibly awkward. My shoulder burned with a sharp, rhythmic fire under the bandages.

The penthouse was dark when I keyed in the code.

It smelled of stale air and expensive misery.

I shouldn't have come back. Logic dictated that I should have gone straight to a hotel.

But I needed the book.

I hobbled down the hallway, the rubber tip of my crutches squeaking obnoxiously against the hardwood floors, echoing in the silence.

The door to the study was ajar.

A sliver of amber light spilled onto the floor, cutting through the shadows.

I pushed the door open.

Blake was there.

He wasn't working. He wasn't planning the next takeover for the Outfit, nor was he brooding over spreadsheets.

He was sprawled on the leather chesterfield, his tie undone, his shirt unbuttoned at the collar to reveal the hollow of his throat.

An empty bottle of Macallan 25 lay on its side on the Persian rug.

He was asleep.

Or passed out.

I moved closer, the pain in my tibia shooting up my thigh with every jarring step.

He looked younger when he slept. The lines of cruelty that usually bracketed his mouth had smoothed out.

For a second, my heart did that traitorous thing. It remembered the man who used to bring me coffee in bed during our first year, before the silence took over.

Then he shifted.

His brow furrowed in distress.

"Ari..." he mumbled.

I froze.

He turned his head into the cushion, seeking comfort in the cool leather.

"I've got you," he whispered, his voice slurred and thick with drink. "Don't go."

I stood over him, balancing precariously on my good leg.

"I'm here," I whispered.

It was a test. A stupid, masochistic test.

He didn't open his eyes.

"Caroline?" he muttered.

"Yes," I said.

He let out a long, heavy sigh. It sounded like pure disappointment.

"Five years," he groaned into the silence of the room. "Nothing. Just... empty."

The words hit me harder than the ceiling beam had at the gallery.

Empty.

That's what I was to him.

I wasn't a partner. I wasn't a wife. I was a vacancy he was forced to occupy.

He rolled over, turning his broad back to me.

I stared at the expanse of his shoulders, watching the slow rise and fall of his breath.

The tether snapped.

It wasn't a loud noise. It wasn't an explosion like the one at the gallery.

It was a quiet, internal severance. Like a balloon string being cut, letting the helium escape into the cold atmosphere.

I didn't feel angry anymore.

I didn't feel sad.

I felt nothing.

I limped to the desk.

I opened the top drawer and pulled out the black leather ledger.

I flipped to the last page.

My hand didn't shake. My handwriting was surgical.

Minus five points.

Called our life empty.

Score: 0.

I closed the book.

I picked up the secure burner phone I had taped under the bottom of the drawer three years ago.

I dialed the number.

"This is Caroline Rossi," I said, my voice steady as steel. "Initiate the extraction. I'm done."

Caroline POV

The extraction team needed twenty-four hours to clear the offshore accounts and prep the plane.

That meant I had exactly one day left in this purgatory.

"Get dressed," Blake said the next morning.

He didn't ask about my leg. He didn't ask why I was home from the hospital so early.

He looked worse than hungover. His eyes were bloodshot, rimmed with exhaustion, and his temper was a frayed wire.

"Where are we going?" I asked, adjusting the strap of my sundress over my bandaged shoulder.

"The cemetery," he said, checking his watch impatiently. "It's the anniversary of your mother's death. You always go."

He remembered the date.

He didn't remember my coffee order, but he remembered the date my mother died.

It was theater. Everything with him was a performance for the Family-the dutiful husband escorting his grieving wife.

We took the black sedan. He drove.

The sky was a bruising purple, heavy with unshed rain.

When we arrived at the cemetery, the wind was already whipping the trees into a frenzy.

I got out. The grass was uneven, and my crutches sank into the soft earth.

I made my way to the headstone.

Elena Rossi.

"I'm going to burn it down, Mama," I whispered to the cold granite. "I'm finally leaving."

Blake waited in the car. The engine was still running.

He was on his phone.

I stood there for ten minutes, letting the wind bite exposed skin.

Then, a horn blared.

Once. Sharp. Impatient.

I turned.

He had rolled down the window.

"Get in," he shouted over the rising wind. "Now."

I hobbled back as fast as my injury allowed.

"What is it?" I asked, yanking open the door.

"Ariana," he said. The name was both a curse and a prayer in his mouth.

"What about her?"

"She has a flat tire," he said, putting the car in gear before I even closed the door. "She's stuck in the South Side. Near the Kings' territory."

I stared at him.

"You're joking."

"She's alone, Caroline. She's panicked."

"Call a soldier," I said. "Call Mark. Call AAA."

"She called me," he snapped. "She only trusts me."

"We are at my mother's grave," I said, my voice rising. "A storm is starting. I have a broken leg."

"I'll call you an Uber," he said.

He reached across me and unlatched my door.

"Get out."

The first drops of rain hit the windshield. Heavy. Fat.

"You are leaving me here?" I asked. "In a cemetery? In a storm? For a flat tire?"

"The dead can't hurt you, Caroline," he said, his eyes hard as cold gray flint. "The Kings will hurt her. Get out."

He shoved me.

Not hard. But enough.

I stumbled out of the car. My crutch slipped on the wet pavement.

I caught myself on the door frame.

"Blake," I said. "If you drive away, don't come back."

"Stop with the ultimatums," he growled. "I'll be back in an hour."

He slammed the door shut.

He peeled out.

The tires spun on the wet asphalt, spraying mud all over my dress.

I watched the taillights disappear around the bend.

The sky opened up.

Rain came down in sheets, icy and relentless.

I pulled my phone out.

No signal.

The cemetery was in a dead zone.

I started walking toward the main road.

My cast was soaked. It felt like a concrete block dragging me down.

The wind howled.

I reached the edge of the highway.

Headlights cut through the gloom.

A truck.

It was moving too fast for the slick road.

I saw it skid.

I tried to step back.

My crutch hit a patch of oil.

I slipped.

I couldn't jump. My leg was an anchor.

The grill of the truck filled my vision.

I didn't scream.

As the metal rushed toward me, I just thought, At least the score is finally zero.

Caroline POV

Pain wasn't just a sensation anymore. It was a universe.

I was floating in it, untethered.

Bright lights scorched my retinas.

"BP is crashing!" someone yelled, voice distorted by panic. "She's hemorrhaging internally!"

"We need blood! O-negative! Stat!"

I tried to speak. I tried to force my name past my lips.

"Mrs. Santos?" A young doctor's face swam into view above me. He looked terrified. "Stay with us."

"Blake..." I whispered. Not because I wanted him. But because he was a surgeon. He controlled the blood bank.

"We're paging him," the doctor said, pressing a mask to my face. "He's the on-call trauma lead for the region. He has the override codes for the shortage."

I drifted out.

I drifted back in.

The doctor was arguing on the phone, his knuckles white as he gripped the receiver.

"Dr. Santos, please! Her hematocrit is critical. We need the reserve units!"

Silence.

Then the doctor's face went deathly pale.

"But sir... it's your wife."

Silence again. A heavy, suffocating pause.

"Understood. Reserving the units for Patient Whitfield in case of shock."

The doctor hung up. He looked at the nurse. He looked sick.

"He refused," the doctor whispered, disbelief coloring his tone. "He said to keep the O-neg on standby for Ariana Whitfield. She has a laceration on her finger and anxiety."

"What about her?" the nurse demanded, pointing at me.

"Saline," the doctor said, his voice cracking. "Push fluids. Pray it's enough."

It wasn't enough.

I felt the cold creeping in.

Not from the rain. From the inside.

Then, I felt a cramping in my lower belly. A deep, twisting agony that had nothing to do with the truck.

"We're losing the fetal heartbeat," the nurse said softly.

Fetal heartbeat?

I blinked, trying to clear the fog.

"Pregnant?" I rasped.

"Eight weeks," the doctor said, tears swimming in his eyes. "Mrs. Santos... without the blood... the body prioritizes the vital organs. It's shunting flow away from the uterus."

I tried to scream.

I tried to tell them to take my heart instead.

But I had no air.

I felt the life slip away.

A tiny spark, extinguished because of a reserve order for a paper cut.

I passed out.

When I woke up, the room was silent.

I was alive.

But I was empty.

My hand went to my stomach. Flat. Hollow.

The young doctor stood by the door. He couldn't look me in the eye.

"I'm sorry," he whispered.

"Did he come?" I asked. My voice was shards of broken glass.

"No," he said. "He's still with Ms. Whitfield. She's... she's sedated."

I reached for the bedside table.

My purse was there. Bridget had packed it.

I pulled out the ledger.

It was wet. Stained with mud and blood.

I opened it.

Minus five points.

Killed our child for her reserve.

Score: -5.

"Doctor," I said.

"Yes?"

"I need you to witness a signature."

I pulled out the separation papers.

I signed them. The pen tore through the damp paper.

"Call my housekeeper," I said, my voice devoid of emotion. "Tell her I'm ready."

I didn't cry.

Tears were for people who had hope.

I was just a ghost leaving a haunted house.