Salvatore Bellomo had two front-row concert tickets tucked neatly into the breast pocket of his tailored suit. I thought he had planned a surprise for me. I was giddy with anticipation, counting down the days until the concert. But when the day finally came, I found out he had taken those tickets and gone on Family business instead.

With the help of a few connections and a ridiculous amount of money, I managed to get a ticket last minute. And that's when I saw it.

Onstage, under the dazzling lights and booming music, he was kissing another girl—deeply, passionately, like they were in the middle of their own love story. Their kiss was so emotional, so raw, that the camera crew caught it and broadcasted it on the giant screen for thousands of people to see.

After the concert, I stumbled across the girl's social media post.

Sharing a kiss with the love of my life at our idol's concert… Best birthday gift ever.

The comment section was filled with blessings and heart emojis.

Wishing you 99! they said, wishing them a love that would last a hundred years.

Meanwhile, I got hit by a car. His car. When I woke up, I was in a hospital bed in a private clinic on the Family's payroll, the kind of place where no one asks questions and the hallways smell of disinfectant and silence. Salvatore was sitting beside me, scrolling through his phone, a soft smile playing on his lips. A smile I had never seen him wear when he was with me.

I asked, "Who is she?"

Without even lifting his eyes, he replied coldly, "I'm your boss. Now that you're awake, just focus on recovering."

Then he walked away. No hesitation, no guilt. I turned my head away from the door and dialed my uncle's number.

"Hart, about that alliance marriage you mentioned… I'll do it. I'll marry him."

——

There was a long pause on the other end of the line, so long that I almost thought the call had dropped. Then came a quiet exhale, followed by an unmistakable sigh of relief.

"Elena, finally," the voice said, a mix of concern and satisfaction threading through the words. I could picture him in his study, the ember of his cigar glowing as he tapped ash with his thumbnail. Three precise strokes, never two, never four. "That man kept you hidden in the dark for five whole years. Five years. A man like that doesn't even deserve to see the light of day."

I didn't respond right away.

"When can you come back?" he continued, the tone shifting, becoming more urgent, more hopeful. "I just reached out to them. They're already asking to finalize the wedding date."

Five years.

Five years with Salvatore, and I was always the one tucked away, the one who couldn't exist in the open. No introductions, no acknowledgment, no place in his world that anyone else could see. I was convenient when he needed me, invisible when he didn't. In the Bellomo Family, I had been kept off every guest list, absent from every feast night and gala, a woman who existed only behind closed doors in a Don's private rooms.

Now that he had made it so clear that I meant nothing to him, I didn't see a reason to hold on anymore. If I severed ties with the Family's front, I doubted he would even try to stop me.

"The sooner the better," I said quietly, my voice steady despite everything. "I can handle the process quickly."

I had barely finished speaking when the clinic room door opened again.

Salvatore walked back in.

Apparently, he had forgotten something.

"Severing ties?" he echoed casually, as if the words had simply caught his attention in passing. His eyes moved around the room as he searched for something, completely unconcerned. The silver lighter was turning over his knuckles in that idle, precise rhythm he carried with him everywhere. "Who's leaving our operation?"

His tone was light, almost amused, like it was nothing important.

He would have to sign off on it anyway, so there was no point hiding it. I gave a small nod, but he didn't even notice. He didn't lift his head from his phone long enough to register my response.

After a moment, he found what he was looking for.

His car keys.

Picking them up, he let out a short, half-laugh. "The doctor said you hit your head pretty hard. Might even have some memory loss." He paused briefly, glancing at me with a faint smirk. "Honestly, for a second there, I almost believed it."

My fingers tightened slightly under the blanket.

"The car…" he added, almost as an afterthought, like it wasn't worth much attention. "It was mine. The streetlights were dim, and you were staring at your phone…"

I froze.

So that was it.

That was the explanation. The reason he had said nothing, offered nothing, and treated me like I was nothing more than an ordinary associate he barely knew.

Ten minutes ago, when he introduced himself as "just my boss," his expression had been flawless. Professional. Composed. Distant in exactly the right way. There had been just enough concern in his voice to make it believable.

But not even a trace of guilt.

Right before I lost consciousness, I had seen everything clearly.

The car.

Salvatore in the passenger seat.

And the girl he had just kissed. She was the one behind the wheel.

He hadn't given me a chance to question him. Not even a single second. He had simply brushed it off, thrown out an excuse about the Family being too busy, and left as if I had imagined the entire thing.

At the time, I thought he was avoiding me because he didn't know how to face me after hitting me with the car.

But the truth was even more pathetic than that.

I didn't matter enough to him.

Not even enough for him to feel guilty.

Still a little dizzy, I forced a polite smile onto my face, as if everything was perfectly normal.

"Guess I was still a bit foggy when I woke up," I said lightly. "Didn't recognize you, boss."

The word slipped out naturally, but it carried none of the warmth it used to.

He barely reacted. The lighter kept moving over his knuckles, steady as a heartbeat.

And I kept going along with it, as if this distance between us had always existed. As if there had never been anything more.

He finally looked at me again, his brows drawing together slightly, confusion flickering in his eyes.

The girl who used to cling to him over the smallest things, who would demand hugs and kisses over something as trivial as a paper cut, was gone.

In her place was someone quiet.

Still.

Unreachable.

Salvatore glanced around the room, making sure no one else was there. Even in a clinic that answered only to his Family, old habits held. Only then did his expression soften a fraction, his voice dropping lower.

"Elena," he said, almost gently, "these places are full of people. And whispers travel." He paused, choosing his words carefully. "We can't risk anyone seeing us like this."

Like this.

What we were had to stay hidden. Even now. Omertà didn't just govern secrets about blood and money. It governed me.

"Just rest," he continued. "Focus on recovering. Once you're home, I'll make it up to you."

I looked at him, then gave a small, composed smile.

"Thank you… boss."

I used to call him that as a joke, a teasing nickname when we were alone. Back then, it had been playful, intimate, filled with something unspoken between us.

Now, it felt completely different.

Cold.

Distant.

Like a wall had been built between us, brick by brick, until there was nothing left to cross.

He frowned slightly. He noticed it.

Of course he did.

Just as he was about to say something else, the door opened again and the doctor walked in for a routine check.

In an instant, Salvatore changed.

The softness disappeared as if it had never existed. His posture straightened, his expression cooled, and the distance returned. He was once again the Don, untouchable and controlled. The silver lighter went still in his hand for one beat, then slipped into his jacket pocket.

After exchanging a few brief words with the doctor, he turned to leave.

At the door, he paused.

Then he looked back at me one last time.

"Get some rest," he said.

There was a slight pause before he added, his tone firm, almost like a warning.

"And don't think your… special arrangement gives you any privileges inside my Family."

His eyes held mine, steady and unreadable.

"Everyone is treated equally. Everything follows the code."

With that, he walked out, the door closing softly behind him, leaving the room colder than before.

The doctor glanced at the smile I was forcing onto my face and let out a light, teasing chuckle, like he could see straight through it.

"Your boss already left," he said casually. "No need to push yourself to keep smiling like that anymore."

I didn't respond.

"But I'll give him this," he added with a grin, flipping through my chart. "Stubborn mouth, soft heart. He already took care of all your medical bills."

My smile didn't disappear, but it shifted—subtly, almost imperceptibly—into something bitter.

Salvatore really did deserve an award for his performance.

To everyone else, he was just a responsible boss at the front office, someone who took care of his people out of basic decency. A man with principles. No one knew the truth. No one knew that behind the locked door of his private study at the compound, I had been in a relationship with him for five years. Five entire years of secrecy, of compromise, of waiting.

No one except a handful of his closest men. His inner circle. The ones bound by the same silence that bound me.

I had asked him more times than I could count, always carefully, always hoping for a different answer.

"When can we stop hiding?"

Every single time, he brushed it off with the same vague excuse.

"The timing's not right."

I used to believe him.

I used to tell myself that there was a reason, that the Family's politics demanded patience, that one day things would be different.

But today, I finally understood.

When he thought I had lost my memory, the first thing he did was draw a line between us.

I'm your boss.

That was the truth.

That was all I had ever been to him.

An associate working the books in his legitimate front.

A secret.

My injuries weren't serious, so the doctor kept me under observation for three days before discharging me. Everything was routine. Quiet. Uneventful. The private clinic smelled of antiseptic and old money, and the staff moved with the particular carefulness of people who knew better than to ask whose name was really on the bill.

The charges went through the Family's insurance arrangement, and whatever was left over was refunded directly back to Salvatore's account.

Three days.

Not a single visit.

Not even a message.

And then, on the day I was discharged, my phone rang.

"You're out already?" Salvatore's voice came through, casual, almost mildly annoyed. "You could've at least given me a heads-up."

I held the phone in silence.

"I've got a meet today," he continued. "Can't come pick you up."

"…Okay."

That was all I said.

I swallowed everything else. The questions that rose to my throat. The ones that used to matter.

I didn't ask where he was.

I didn't ask who he was with.

Instead, I opened my phone and checked his location.

A hotel. One of the ones on Family-controlled territory, the kind with discreet staff and no cameras in the hallways.

I didn't need him to explain anything. I didn't need confirmation.

Then, faintly, through the receiver, I heard a woman's voice.

"Come dry my hair, will you?"

The line went dead almost instantly.

He hung up.

I stared at my phone for a moment, unmoving.

Not long after, two transfer notifications popped up.

$1,314.

$1,520.

The numbers hit me harder than anything else.

They weren't random.

They meant something. They always had.

1314 meant forever.

1520 meant I love you.

For years, I had wished for this. For him to send me those numbers, for something so simple and symbolic. I had imagined taking a screenshot, posting it, just once, like everyone else. Just once, to show that I had something real.

But every time I brought it up, he refused.

He didn't like attention.

He didn't want people asking questions.

He didn't want anyone knowing. A Don's private life was a liability, he said. Something rivals could use.

And now… now that I had already decided to let him go, he sent them?

I didn't know if it was guilt. Or habit. Or something else entirely.

I opened his profile without thinking.

The moment it loaded, I froze.

His profile picture had changed.

It was a couple photo.

But not with me.

I didn't hesitate.

I returned both transfers immediately.

A few seconds later, my phone buzzed again.

A string of question marks.

I didn't reply.

When I got back to the apartment, nothing had changed.

Everything was exactly the same as the night of the gala. The same shoes by the door. The same jacket tossed over the chair. The same faint scent lingering in the air, cologne and something sharper beneath it, the ghost of a world where decisions were made in back rooms and sealed with handshakes that could never be taken back.

Which meant one thing.

He hadn't been back.

Not once.

I stood there for a moment, letting the silence settle around me. Then I took a deep breath, pushed down the tight ache rising in my chest, and started packing.

It didn't take long.

Piece by piece, the space began to empty.

Five years.

Five years of a life I had carefully built around him, dismantled in just a few hours.

Most of what I packed were things I had chosen myself.

Couple items.

Matching mugs. Coordinated clothes. Small decorations that hinted at something shared.

Salvatore had never liked any of it.

He never wore anything that could suggest he was taken. Never used anything too obvious. He said a man in his position couldn't afford to look soft. Couldn't give anyone a handle to grip.

I used to joke about it.

Saying he acted like some deep-cover fed, hiding his identity from the world.

Now I realized.

It was never a joke.

He just never saw me as someone he needed to claim.

I was halfway through packing when I heard the door open.

He came back.

"Elena, what's this about?" he snapped the moment he saw me. "I've been calling you! I told you to come out for dinner. You didn't pick up or reply!"

I didn't look up immediately.

The scent reached me first.

A woman's perfume.

Not mine.

Not even close.

Without thinking, I lifted my hand slightly, stopping him from coming any closer.

When I finally raised my eyes, they drifted to his neck.

Faint red marks.

Hickeys.

"Sorry," I said calmly, my voice steady. I smoothed the fold of a blouse flat against the suitcase lining, pressing the crease until it was sharp enough to cut. "I've been busy. Didn't check my phone."

He frowned, his gaze sweeping across the room.

Only then did he notice the suitcases. The empty shelves. The missing pieces.

"Don't tell me you've been busy tearing down the house," he said, irritation creeping into his tone. "You just got out of the clinic. You should be resting."

His eyes landed on a few unopened boxes I hadn't gotten to yet.

Inside were the couple items I had bought recently. Still new. Still unused.

"You don't want any of this?" he asked.