Chapter 4

Dominic's hand was still locked around my wrist. My question landed like a slap — I watched his pupils shrink, the mask slipping for just a second.

"Sera, you need to trust me." His voice dropped low, urgent, almost desperate. "That's done. It's been done for years. You're the only one I—"

Something in his eyes looked close to genuine panic. A crack in the armor I'd never seen before. For one stupid, treacherous heartbeat, I wavered — maybe he actually gives a damn.

Then his gaze snapped to something over my shoulder, and his whole body changed.

"Dom!" Valentina's voice rang out from the restaurant doorway behind me.

The hand gripping my wrist vanished. He stepped back so fast it was like a reflex — the same instinct that made him reach for a gun when a door opened too quickly. One second he was holding me, the next there was three feet of cold air between us, an invisible line drawn as clearly as if he'd pulled a knife.

And in that moment, everything crystallized. Five years of sharing his bed, his secrets, his life — and none of it could outweigh the sound of her voice.

I took two steps back, widening the gap myself. "Go. She's waiting."

I didn't give him the chance to answer. I turned and shoved through the restaurant's heavy front door. Manhattan's winter air hit me like a wall — sharp, biting, flooding the collar of my coat. My hands were trembling. I shoved them into my pockets and kept walking.

I'd thought I was ready for this. I'd spent weeks building walls, rehearsing indifference. But when you actually watch the man you love flinch away from you like you're a liability — no amount of preparation softens that blow.

The penthouse was twenty blocks north. I walked for three hours.

Side streets. Empty intersections. Past bodegas with their fluorescent glow and doormen who didn't look twice at a woman in a black coat walking alone at midnight. This city had a way of swallowing people whole, and tonight I let it.

By the time I keyed into the apartment, the clock above the entryway read one fifteen.

I folded myself onto the living room sofa, face lit by the pale glow of my phone. Without thinking, my thumb found Valentina's profile.

Her latest post was twelve minutes old.

The photo showed her perched on Dominic's shoulders at some rooftop bar — black dress glittering, arms thrown wide, head tipped back mid-laugh. His hands braced her thighs, face tilted up toward her with an expression so unguarded it made my ribs ache. In the background, the skyline blazed.

"Who says bosses can't have fun? ? #KingAndQueen #RooftopNights"

A memory surfaced unbidden. Last July. A summer block party in Little Italy — music spilling from every doorway, kids running through the streets. I'd watched a girl climb onto her boyfriend's back, shrieking with laughter, and tugged Dominic's sleeve. Playful. Lighthearted. Just wanting one moment of being normal.

He'd pulled his arm away, jaw tightening. "Not here, Sera. Someone could see."

So it was never about being seen. It was about being seen with me.

Affection, it turned out, was always conditional. It just depended on who was asking.

I killed the screen. The moment the light died, a tear slid off my jaw and landed on the back of my hand. I wiped it away immediately. Crying over a man who didn't deserve it was just another way of losing.

I got up and went to the walk-in closet.

Dominic's side hung in meticulous order — rows of custom suits, hand-stitched shirts, each one selected during trips where I'd stood beside him in fitting rooms across Milan and London. Tucked in the back were matching outfits I'd bought on impulse in Paris — his and hers, still in garment bags, tags still on. We'd never worn them. Couldn't risk being photographed together.

"When things calm down," he'd said. "When it's safe."

Standing here now, I understood those clothes were never going to see the outside of this closet.

I pulled his suits off the hangers one by one. Folded each jacket, each shirt, each pair of trousers with the same care I'd used choosing them. Stacked them in storage boxes. The matching outfits went straight into a garbage bag — no ceremony, no hesitation.

Then I turned to my own things.

The Seattle safe house was already furnished. Enzo had seen to that. I only needed the essentials. I dragged the largest suitcase from the top shelf and began packing — clothes, documents, the Beretta I kept in the false bottom of my jewelry box. The gun felt heavier tonight than it usually did, or maybe my hands were just tired.

Dominic came home just before three. I heard the door, then his footsteps slowing as they reached the bedroom. His eyes went straight to the suitcase propped against the wall.

"Packing at this hour?"

I pulled the zipper shut without looking up. "Meeting with the distribution contacts upstate next week. Figured I'd get ahead of it."

He nodded. No suspicion — why would there be? In his mind, I'd always be here. That was the luxury of taking someone for granted; you never had to wonder if they'd leave.

He walked over, crouched beside the case, and checked the lock. His fingers found the combination dial, spun it, and pressed until it clicked into place. He'd always done this — a small, possessive ritual, making sure my things were secured the way he secured everything else in his world.

"Get some rest." He tapped the top of the suitcase twice, like closing a deal, then straightened and headed for the bathroom.

I stared at the case he'd just locked for me, and my throat closed.

He had no idea what was inside. Not clothes for a business trip — but everything I needed to disappear from his life entirely.

Water ran behind the bathroom door. I pressed my palm flat against the cold leather of the suitcase and held it there.

Five years of us. Reduced to one locked case and a heart that would never open for him again.