And something happened that I did not expect. A strange calm washed over me. Not numbness. Not shock. Something quieter and more deliberate than either. The kind of calm that arrives when you stop fighting the current and let it carry you somewhere new.
I smiled and shook my head.
"It's okay, Olivia," I said to myself. My voice was steady. The rain ran down my face and I let it.
Then, I whispered, "He's just a man, nothing more."
Just a man. A Capo in the Moretti crime family, yes. A man whose name made other men lower their eyes. A man who carried a gun beneath his jacket and the Don's trust in his pocket. But underneath all of it, underneath the rank and the territory and the blood-bound oaths, he was just a man. And a man who could stand in the rain kissing another woman while his pregnant wife watched from thirty feet away was not a man worth keeping.
The sedan turned the corner. The taillights disappeared.
I raised my hand and waved at the empty road.
"Dante, I don't want you anymore. You're hers."
My voice didn't break. My hand didn't tremble. I said it the way you say something that has already been decided, something that only needed the words to make it real.