The funeral was quiet, mostly because I couldn't afford for it to be anything else.

Dante controlled the accounts. I had a black card, but he saw every transaction, every decimal point. If I bought a coffin worthy of a Prince, he would know. If I bought a plot in the cemetery, he would know.

So I paid cash—stolen from the grocery budget over three years—for a cremation.

I stood on the pier at Coney Island, the wind lashing my hair into my face. The gray ash swirled in the air, indistinguishable from the dirty sand. I poured Luca into the Atlantic Ocean. No priest. No flowers. Just me and the salt water.

My phone rang.

It was Dante.

It had been a week since Luca died. A week of silence.

"Elara," he said. He sounded tired, the way he always did when he wanted me to feel guilty for his workload. "I am coming home tonight. Have dinner ready."

"Did the cat survive?" I asked. My voice was flat, hollowed out by the wind.

"What?"

"The surgery," I said. "Dr. Alistair. Did he save the cat?"

Dante sighed, a heavy exhale of impatience. "Elara, do not start. Seraphina's animal was in critical condition. It is a prize-winning breed. It is an asset."

"Luca was my brother," I said.

"And he was sick for a long time," Dante replied, dismissive. "We knew it was coming. You are being hysterical. I will bring you a bracelet tonight. The diamond one you liked."

"Don't bother," I said. "I won't be there."

"Excuse me?" His voice dropped an octave. The Don was surfacing. "Where will you be?"

"Cleaning," I lied.

I hung up.

I walked back to my car, a modest sedan Dante allowed me to drive because the Maybach was "too much car for a woman."

On the passenger seat lay a stack of papers. Divorce papers. Dante had drafted them six months ago during a fight, throwing them at me to prove I had nowhere to go. He never expected me to sign them.

But the ink was dry.

I drove to the Outskirts. The neutral territory. The slums where I grew up. Where I met Dante. Where I saved his life.

I needed to clear out Luca's apartment before the landlord threw his things on the street.

I pulled up to the crumbling tenement block. The windows were boarded up. The graffiti was fresh.

And parked right in front of the rotting entrance was a black Maybach.

My stomach dropped.

I killed the engine and sat low in the seat.

Dante stepped out of the car. He looked like a god among insects. His suit cost more than this entire building. He was impeccably groomed, his dark hair slicked back, his presence commanding the very air around him.

The passenger door opened.

Seraphina stepped out.

She was wearing white. Who wears white to the slums? She looked around with a sneer, lifting her heels high to avoid the puddles of grime.

"It smells like piss, Dante," she whined.

Dante walked around the car and wrapped an arm around her waist. He pulled her close, kissing her neck.

I watched my husband kiss another woman in front of the building where we fell in love.

"Not for long," Dante said, his voice carrying in the quiet street. "I bought the block this morning. We bulldoze it next week."

"And the penthouse?" Seraphina asked, tracing a finger down his lapel.

"Top floor," Dante promised. "Glass walls. You can look down on the city."

He took off his jacket—a five-thousand-dollar bespoke piece—and cast it over a muddy puddle so she could walk to the sidewalk.

I felt something snap in my chest. It wasn't a heartstring. It was a tether.

I opened my car door.

The sound of the metal hinge creaking was like a gunshot.

Dante's head snapped toward me.

Panic flared in Dante's eyes for a fraction of a second.

He shoved Seraphina away—a sharp, reflexive motion. But the moment he realized who it was, the alarm vanished. It was just me. Just Elara. The quiet wife. The mouse.

He straightened his tie, the mask of cold arrogance sliding back into place.

"Elara," he said. His voice was calm, laced with danger. "What are you doing here? This area is not safe."

I stood on the cracked pavement. I was wearing jeans and an old sweater. I looked like I belonged to the ruins. He, in his bespoke suit, looked like an invader.

"I am cleaning my brother's apartment," I said. "Before you bulldoze it."

Seraphina laughed. It was the sound of breaking glass—sharp and tinkling. "Oh, look, Dante. The charity case is stalking us."

She stepped forward, linking her arm through Dante's. She was staking her claim.

"I didn't know you allowed your pets off the leash," she said to him, her eyes fixed on me.

"Seraphina," Dante warned, but he made no move to detach her. He looked at me, his jaw tight. "Go home, Elara. We will discuss this later."

"Discuss what?" I asked. "The cat? Or the penthouse you're building on top of my childhood home?"

Dante stepped toward me. "I am expanding the territory. This is business."

"Is she business?" I pointed at Seraphina.

"She is a partner," Dante said.

"I am the one he chose," Seraphina corrected. She walked toward me. Her perfume was overpowering, a cloying mix of expensive roses and rot.

"You should go," she whispered when she was close enough that Dante couldn't hear. "You look tired. Grief makes you ugly."

I didn't move. I stared at her. The silence stretched taut between us.

Seraphina hated my silence. She wanted a reaction. She wanted me to scream so she could call me crazy.

When I didn't blink, she reached out. She pretended to brush a piece of lint off my shoulder.

Her fingers dug into the soft flesh between my neck and collarbone. Her nails were sharp. She pinched hard, twisting the skin with vicious intent.

I gasped, stumbling a step back.

Seraphina threw herself backward.

She let out a high-pitched scream and collapsed onto the dirty sidewalk, sprawling in a way that looked theatrically practiced.

"Dante!" she cried. "She pushed me!"

Dante blurred into motion. He was between us in a heartbeat.

He didn't look at Seraphina to see if she was hurt. He looked at me with pure, unadulterated rage.

"What is wrong with you?" he roared.

"I didn't touch her," I said. My voice was steady, but my hands were shaking.

"I saw you lunge," Dante lied. Or maybe he believed it. He always saw what he wanted to see. "She is defenseless."

"She is a viper," I spat.

Seraphina sobbed from the ground, clutching her ankle. "My ankle... Dante, I think she broke it."

Dante knelt beside her. "Let me see."

He touched her leg with a tenderness that used to be mine.

I watched him. This man who had sworn to protect me from the world was now protecting the world from me.

"Get in the car," Dante ordered over his shoulder, not looking at me. "Now."

"No," I said.

He stood up slowly. The air around him turned frigid.

"Do not make me repeat myself, Elara."

He strode toward me, grabbing my arm. His grip was bruising. He dragged me toward the Maybach.

"You are embarrassing me," he hissed.

He opened the back door and shoved me inside.

I fell against the leather seats.

Seraphina limped to the car, smirking at me through the window before Dante helped her into the front seat.

She wasn't hurt. She was winning.

The air inside the car was suffocating.

Dante drove with a white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel. Seraphina sat in the passenger seat, fussing with her makeup in the visor mirror, her "broken" ankle miraculously forgotten as she crossed her legs comfortably.

I sat in the back, pressing a wad of tissue to the spot on my shoulder where her nails had broken the skin.

"We are going to lunch," Dante announced, his eyes meeting mine in the rearview mirror. "You will behave."

"I have boxes to move," I said, my voice hollow.

"The movers will do it," he replied dismissively.

"They will throw it away," I countered. "It's Luca's life. It's not trash."

"It's junk," Seraphina chimed in, snapping her compact shut. "Dante told me. Old comic books and plastic toys. You're hoarding garbage, Elara."

I saw a box on the floorboard of the front seat. My box. I had left it on the curb when I went inside the tenement earlier. Dante must have picked it up.

"Give that to me," I said, reaching forward.

Seraphina grabbed the box first.

She rummaged through it and pulled out a small, red model airplane.

It was cheap plastic, glued together with clumsy, childish precision. Luca had built it when he was twelve. It was the first thing he ever made with his own hands before the tremors started. It was his pride.

"Look at this," Seraphina laughed, twirling it in her manicured fingers. "Did a toddler make this?"

"Put it down," I said. My voice shook.

"It's dusty," she said. She pressed the button to roll down the window.

"No!" I screamed.

I lunged forward, scrambling over the leather center console.

Dante slammed on the brakes.

The car screeched to a halt in the middle of the empty street.

"Sit down!" Dante yelled.

Seraphina dropped the plane. Not out the window, but onto the plush floor mat.

She lifted her stiletto heel.

I watched in slow motion as the sharp metal point came down on the red plastic.

CRUNCH.

The wings snapped. The fuselage shattered.

It wasn't just plastic breaking. It was the last piece of Luca I had left.

Something inside me snapped.

I lost my mind. I clawed at her. I grabbed her hair. I wanted to hurt her. I wanted her to bleed like my heart was bleeding.

"Get off her!" Dante roared.

He reached back. He didn't pull me away.

He kicked.

He twisted in his seat and his heavy boot connected with my stomach.

The air left my lungs in a violent whoosh. Pain exploded in my abdomen. I was thrown back against the rear seat, gasping, curling into a ball.

"You are insane!" Dante shouted. He checked Seraphina's face, cupping her cheeks. "Are you okay, cara?"

"She scratched me," Seraphina wailed, holding up a flawless cheek.

I lay on the backseat, clutching my stomach, unable to draw a breath.

"It was Luca's," I wheezed. "You broke it."

Dante looked at the shattered plastic on the floor. He shrugged.

"It is a toy, Elara," he said coldly. "I will buy you a better one. Stop acting like a child."

He put the car in gear.

He drove fast, angry. He was barking at someone on the phone now, handling business, ignoring the wife he had just kicked in the stomach.

Seraphina reached over and fed him a grape from a bag she had in her purse. He took it, nipping at her finger playfully.

I stared at the ceiling of the car.

I felt the vibrations of the road.

Then, I felt the impact.

A truck ran the red light.

It slammed into the passenger side. The side where Seraphina was sitting. But the force spun the heavy Maybach like a top.

Metal screamed. Glass exploded. The world turned upside down.