Ivo must have sensed the turmoil behind my silence, because he pressed on.

"You're doing the right thing, Dominic. Chiara is part of this Family. Your father's oath binds you to protect her. That is sacred. That is debito d'onore. Neve will understand once the anger has passed and she can think clearly."

I turned back to him, doubt still heavy in my chest.

"You really believe that?"

"I'm certain of it." A note of quiet confidence threaded through his voice. "Don't let this consume you. It's nothing. Neve is hurt right now, but she will realize you were fulfilling your duty. Nothing more."

I nodded slowly. I had been so tangled in guilt and frustration that doubt had started to poison everything, distorting my judgment about what this would mean for us. I was doing the right thing. I could not be in two places at once. What I did for Chiara was what any Don would have done. What my father would have expected me to do.

"I just don't want to lose Neve." The words came out barely above a whisper, and I hated how vulnerable they sounded in the stillness of that room.

"You won't." Ivo's voice carried the weight of absolute conviction. "Neve loves you. That's precisely why this is hitting her so hard. But she'll come around. The two of you have been bound together too long for this to be undone by a single incident."

I let out a long breath, and some of the iron tension in my chest began to loosen. Ivo was right. He was always right about these things.

"Thanks, Ivo. I needed to hear that."

He smiled, and there was a glint in his eyes that caught the lamplight.

"Anytime. That's what I'm here for."

I pushed myself up from the chair, feeling lighter than I had since the moment Neve's voice had gone cold on the other end of that call. The conversation with Ivo had helped, but I still had a great deal of damage to repair. The fracture between Neve and me was real, and no amount of reassurance from my underboss could mend it. Only I could do that. But at least now, the guilt was no longer drowning me.

"I'll talk to her later tonight. Give her time to cool down first."

"Smart. Neve has a soft spot for you, Dominic. Always has. Use that to your advantage."

We walked to the study door together, and for the first time in hours, I felt prepared to face whatever came next.

Ivo clapped a hand on my shoulder, his grip firm and familiar.

"You've got this. Just remember you're not alone in this."

"Thanks, Ivo."

He left, and the weight on my shoulders had lifted enough that I could breathe again. But now came the harder part. I had to find a way to make things right with Neve.

I drove across the city to the apartment Neve and I shared. It was our private space, separate from the compound, the one place where we were not the Don and his betrothed but simply two people who had chosen each other. Or so I had believed.

When I opened the door, the apartment was dark. The kind of dark that had nothing to do with the hour and everything to do with absence.

"Neve?"

My voice echoed off the marble floors and died against the walls. No answer. I moved through the rooms, checking the kitchen, the living room, the bedroom. Everything was in its place. Everything except the things that mattered.

Instinct seized me, cold and sudden, and I walked to the closet. I pulled the doors open.

Empty. Every hanger bare. Every shelf cleared. Her shoes, her coats, the small leather case where she kept her grandmother's rosary. All of it, gone.

Neve had left me.

My legs gave out, and I sank to the floor of the closet, surrounded by nothing but the faint ghost of her perfume and the hollow click of empty hangers swaying in the draft. The silence pressed in from every side, absolute and merciless, and for the first time since I had become the Don of the Valente Family, I felt completely and utterly powerless.

I never thought packing could break a person. Every item I folded into the suitcase felt like tearing a piece of my life with Dominic free from the bone. The life I had imagined would last until they put me in the ground.

I bit back tears when I stared at the empty closet. The hangers swayed gently, catching the faint light from the window like skeletal fingers waving goodbye. I couldn't believe this was happening. We were supposed to be bound for life. A sacred betrothal, sealed in blood and witnessed by the Family. Instead, here I stood in a half-stripped room, shoving silk blouses into luggage like a woman fleeing a war zone. I pressed the heel of my palm against my eyes and wiped the tears away before they could fall. Now was not the moment to be weak. I was worth more than this.

My phone vibrated against the dresser. Ivo. He seemed unfinished with his lecture from earlier, as though the first round hadn't been enough.

"Neve, please don't make any rash decisions. I'm sure Dominic will fix this. He's just dealing with a lot right now. Give him time to make it up to you."

I scoffed and rolled my eyes hard enough to feel the pull in my temples.

"Fix this? How could he?" My voice came out low and venomous, barely above a whisper. "Where was he, Ivo? He canceled without thinking twice. He didn't even think of me. And I'm supposed to understand him." I hissed the last word like it was poison on my tongue and pulled the phone away from my ear, ignoring whatever he said next.

I shoved the last blouse into the suitcase, pressing it down with both hands, trying to crush the memory of the blood-bound union that was supposed to happen today. I had dreamt of it for months. Walking through the grand hall of the Valente compound with the entire Family watching. The candlelight. The oath. The ring of witnesses. Dominic's hand closing over mine as the Consigliere read the vows that would bind us before God and the Family both.

But today, when it was supposed to happen, Dominic's eyes had gone to Chiara. Sweet, fragile Chiara Mancuso, who had faked another injury during her training session. Collapsed in the gym like a porcelain doll with a cracked spine. I couldn't count how many times she had pulled this act, and I couldn't fathom how blind Dominic remained to the performance. Every time, the same script. The trembling lip, the wide doe eyes, the whispered "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to cause trouble." And every time, Dominic dropped everything. Dropped me.

"Damn them."

I zipped the suitcase with a vicious pull, grabbed the handle, and walked out. I told no one. Not even Nonna Lolita, who loved me more than anyone left in that house. She would have stopped me, and I couldn't afford to be stopped. Not tonight.

The car I had called was already idling at the curb outside the compound's service entrance, its headlights cutting pale lines through the October dark. I rushed down the gravel path, stuffed my luggage into the trunk, and slid into the back seat, instructing the driver to go. No hesitation. No looking back.

I looked back.

The compound shrank in the rear window, its iron gates and limestone walls dissolving into the amber blur of passing streetlights. My heart sat like a stone behind my ribs. Every block we passed carried a memory. The corner café where Dominic had bought me espresso the morning after our betrothal was announced. The park where he had walked with me in silence, his hand warm against the small of my back, saying nothing because nothing needed to be said. I had fought for so long to make this work, to earn my place beside him, to prove that I was more than just a name on an old arrangement between our fathers. But now I was done. I was taking back control, even if it carved me hollow.

When I arrived at my old apartment in the Village, I stood on the sidewalk and stared at the building before going in. A narrow brownstone with a fire escape that zigzagged up the facade like a scar. I had lived here less than a year before moving into the compound, and it had felt like home then. Comforting but painful now, the way a childhood bedroom feels after a funeral. I wished I could become the old Neve. The one full of hope. The one who still believed that Dominic Valente's love was something she could hold in her hands.

I dragged the suitcase up three flights of stairs. Its weight felt lighter than whatever sat crushing my chest. When I reached the bedroom, the small space felt foreign, the air stale and cold, the bed stripped to a bare mattress. But I welcomed the change. Anything was better than that compound tonight.

As I unpacked, I tried to push thoughts of Dominic from my mind, but they crept back like smoke under a closed door. His voice. His hands. The way he looked at me when he thought I wasn't watching, as though I were something precious and breakable. The way he looked at Chiara when everyone was watching, as though she were something he owed.

Just as I was pulling a fitted sheet over the mattress, my phone vibrated again. I hesitated before picking it up, certain it would be Ivo circling back for another round, or worse, Chiara calling to deliver some saccharine apology designed to twist the knife. But when I saw the name on the screen, my heart lurched against my ribs.

Dominic.

My breath came thin and shallow as I read the message.

"Neve, please. Can we talk? I need to see you."

I stared at the screen until the words blurred. Did he really think he could fix this with a handful of words on a glowing rectangle? After everything? After today?

My hands were shaking when I typed my reply.

"I don't think that's a good idea right now."

Before I could even set the phone down on the nightstand, it rang. Dominic's name filled the screen, pulsing with each vibration. I hesitated, my finger hovering over the decline button, but something stopped me. Some stubborn, traitorous part of my heart that still wanted to hear his voice. I took a deep breath and answered.

"What do you want, Dominic?" I kept my voice as steady as a blade balanced on its edge.

"Neve, it shouldn't have gone this far. Let's talk about this. Please." His voice carried that particular blend of desperation and warmth that had always undone me. The voice of a man who commanded a hundred soldiers but couldn't command the woman he was promised to.

"Why? So you can cancel again?" My voice climbed despite my efforts to hold it level. "So you can tell me how much you care while you keep putting Chiara first?"

"No. I wanted to explain." A pause. I could hear him breathing, measured and deliberate, the way he breathed before difficult negotiations. "I know you're hurt. I understand it. This isn't because of Chiara. I am the Don. I am responsible for every member of this Family's safety. She is under my protection. That is an obligation my father swore on his deathbed. You know this."

I scoffed, shaking my head even though he couldn't see me.

"Dominic, she is always injured. Every single time something important is about to happen for us, she collapses. Don't you find that a little odd?"

"Come on, Neve." Irritation sharpened his tone, the Don bleeding through the lover. "Anything can happen during combat training. You push yourself, you get hurt. Injuries are part of learning. Any recruit could understand that."

The words hit like a slap.

"Are you trying to say I'm childish? And Chiara getting injured every single time is not behaving like a child herself?"

"No, that's not what I meant." He caught himself, pulled back. "You have every right to be upset. We have been preparing for the ceremony for months. But you know we can never predict what will happen. Chiara's injury wasn't even that serious. She'll heal in a day or two. We can reschedule the union. What is a day or two?"

What is a day or two. As though the date meant nothing. As though I hadn't spent weeks with Nonna Lolita choosing flowers and fabric. As though the entire Family hadn't been gathered. As though my heart hadn't been laid bare on a silver tray for everyone to see, only to be pushed aside for a girl with a bruised ankle and a rehearsed whimper.

"I can't do this right now." My voice trembled despite every effort to hold it still.

"Neve, please. I just need you to hear me out. Can we at least meet? Just to talk." He was pleading now, and the sound of it was almost worse than the anger. Dominic Valente did not plead. Not with rival bosses. Not with federal prosecutors. Not with anyone. Only with me, and only when he knew he had lost ground he could not afford to lose.

"Talk? About what? About how you chose Chiara over me?" I pressed my free hand flat against the bare mattress, steadying myself. "You know what? I'm done hearing excuses."

"It's not an excuse. I just need a moment to explain everything. I thought you would understand my position. Being the Don, carrying the obligations of the Family. This isn't just about us, Neve."

"Right. Because your obligations are clearly more important than what we have. I understand that, Dominic. I do. But that doesn't change how I feel."

He sighed, and I could hear the frustration in his breath, heavy and controlled, the exhale of a man who was used to having the final word in every room he entered.