Nia POV

For five days, I remained in Dante's cabin. For five days, the mountain remained silent.

On the second morning, Dante left before the sun breached the horizon. He walked down to the town and returned with medical supplies, fresh clothes, and a cheap plastic burner phone.

He dropped the bags at the foot of my bed before heading right back out to patrol the woods.

He never demanded answers. He never asked why a half-frozen woman was dying on a mountain road in the middle of the night.

By the third day, the swelling in my knees had gone down enough that I could walk around the small dirt yard.

To quiet my own thoughts, I watched how he lived.

There were two cabins—one for living, the other packed to the rafters with tools.

Two massive guard dogs were tied under a wooden shed. They barked at the bitter wind, but they sat without a sound the moment Dante raised his hand.

Dante cooked with a practiced economy of motion, preparing a thick porridge in the morning and roasting meat at night.

His knife skills were precise. He sliced through bone and muscle without wasting a single movement, his focus absolute.

"Do you get lonely out here?" I asked him on the third night. "Seven years is a long time to hide in the woods."

Dante wiped his blade with an oiled rag. "It is quiet," he murmured. "A man like me does not belong in the city."

On the fourth afternoon, I took the burner phone and walked down the steep trail.

Dante had told me I could catch two bars of signal near the town post office at the base of the ridge.

I stood by the rusty mailbox, letting the wind bite through my new sweater.

I hesitated for a long time, my thumb hovering over the keypad.

Then, I dialed my mother's number.

She answered on the third ring. Her voice sounded weary, laden with the usual family dramas.

"Antonia, where are you?" she asked. "Carmela told me you threw a tantrum and ran away."

I gripped the cheap plastic of the phone. "I did not run away, Mom. Franco left me on the mountain. He took my coat. I nearly died."

The line went silent.

"Couples fight, Nia," my mother finally said, her tone brittle and dismissive. "Franco is a difficult man, but he provides. He did not mean to hurt you."

I closed my eyes, a wave of sickness rising in my throat. "He left me in the snow."

"You provoke him," she continued, her voice hardening. "A Capo has stress. He takes care of us. If you just gave him a child, things would be fine. Stop this foolishness and go home."

The blind tone buzzed in the cold air. I had already hung up.

I stood in the freezing wind for half an hour, letting my mother’s cold judgment settle into fact.

My own blood had chosen his money over my life.

The burner phone buzzed in my numb hand. It was an unknown number.

I answered it.

"Nia?" Mia's voice filtered through the cheap speaker, her tone a confection of false concern. "I am calling on Franco's behalf."

"What do you want?" I asked, my voice hollow.

"The mountain thing was just a joke," Mia said breezily. "Everyone in the Family knew it was a prank. We all knew you would take it so seriously and run off. Give me an address. I will wire you some cab fare so you can come back and apologize to him."

I stared at the dirt road, the last thread connecting me to that life finally fraying.

"Do not bother looking for me," I said quietly. "Pass a message to your Capo."

I took a deep breath. "Three years of marriage. It is over."

I hung up and powered off the phone.

I turned and walked back up the mountain trail to the cabin, a hard knot tightening in my chest.

Dante was in the yard, splitting logs with a heavy steel axe.

He saw my face.

The heavy steel axe ‘thumped’ into the chopping block. He did not look at me, but turned and walked inside, returning a moment later with a dry towel and a steaming bowl of hot porridge.

I sat on the wooden threshold of the cabin and accepted it.

I took a trembling bite of the food.

Hot tears spilled over my eyelashes and fell into the bowl.

I did not bother wiping them away.

Dante stood by the woodpile, watching the tree line, giving me the unbroken silence I needed to come apart.