Elena POV

Vincent stared at the broken pieces of jewelry scattered across the marble floor.

His breathing slowed, becoming heavy and deliberate.

This was the quiet before the violence—the warning sign every soldier in his syndicate knew to fear.

"I sent you five encrypted messages that night," I said, my voice steady despite the frantic pounding in my chest. "I told you I was running a fever of a hundred and four. I told you I couldn't drive."

Vincent looked up from the floor, his dark eyes narrowing.

"I don't read every message you send," he said coldly. "My operations require my full attention, I do not have time to babysit a needy wife."

It was a habit of his—to treat my existence as an afterthought unless he needed something from me.

I looked down at the ruined bracelet.

"This is from the bulk supply Chloe buys for the downtown laundering front," I said, letting out a dry, bitter laugh that scraped my throat. "You couldn't even be bothered to buy a real apology. You just grabbed whatever your mistress had lying around."

Vincent stepped forward, closing the space between us in an instant, and gripped my jaw in his large hand.

He tilted my head up, forcing me to look at him.

"You are testing the limits of my mercy, Elena," he warned, his grip a vise, tight enough to bruise. "You will clean up this mess, and you will wait here until I decide you have learned some respect."

"I want a divorce, Vincent," I said.

I did not blink. I did not look away.

His grip tightened for one agonizing second before he shoved my face away.

The demand for a divorce was a direct challenge to his absolute control.

Nobody left the Don.

Nobody walked away from the Cosa Nostra.

"You are out of your mind," he spat, turning his back on me. "You belong to me. You belong to this Family. You will sit in this apartment until you remember your place."

He stormed to the front door, yanked it open, and slammed it shut behind him.

The walls of the penthouse trembled from the force. The elevator required his fingerprint to be summoned, the security system his iris. There were no bars, but the very air was rationed out by his will.

Left completely isolated in the silence, I walked over to the closet and pulled out a small duffel bag.

I remembered Rosa sitting on the edge of my bed years ago, brushing my hair.

She had told me to endure Vincent's darkness, to internalize my suffering for the sake of Omertà and the Family.

She believed that silence was strength.

But my only true anchor in this dark world was gone.

Rosa was dead, and my silence had not protected her.

It had only protected him.

I packed three pairs of jeans, a few plain shirts, and my passport.

I left the designer dresses, the expensive bags, and the jewelry in the closet.

I left every single luxury bought with blood money, and walked away without a second glance.

I walked over to the mahogany desk, where days earlier I had left the syndicate's official separation papers I had drafted months ago. I had signed them and sent them by a trusted courier directly to Vincent's headquarters three days ago, right after the storm, though he clearly had not bothered to read them.

Then, I picked up the heavy marble urn resting on the side table.

It held Rosa's ashes.

I had retrieved her from the crematorium this morning.

Her dying wish was to rest beside her late husband, the former Boss, in the Family's ancestral mausoleum on the edge of the city.

I walked out of the apartment, locking the door and dropping the key down the hallway trash chute.

I took a taxi to the graveyard.

The sky was a bruised gray, and the wind was biting as I walked up the stone path toward the massive marble structure that held generations of Vincent's bloodline.

I pushed open the heavy iron gates of the mausoleum, the metal groaning.

I walked down the steps into the dim, quiet vault, holding the urn tightly against my chest.

I found the empty alcove next to the late Boss's tomb.

Before I could place the urn inside, the rhythmic, heavy thud of boots echoed down the stone steps.

I turned around.

Vincent was standing in the doorway, his massive frame blocking the only exit.

Chloe was standing right behind his shoulder, holding a tablet that no doubt displayed my courier's delivery notification.

Behind them, six armed soldiers blocked the stairs, their hands resting on their holstered guns.

Vincent looked from me to the open vault, and his eyes went black with a terrifying rage.