In the guest room, I opened my suitcase, and every piece of clothing inside had been slashed to ribbons. Silk blouses gutted seam to seam. Dresses split open like wounds. The kind of damage that required patience, a sharp blade, and hatred held at a steady simmer.
Thankfully, my passport and the documents tucked deep inside, the ones that mattered, were untouched. My thumb pressed against the inside of my ring finger where the wedding band used to sit. The skin there was smooth now. Almost healed.
Just as I gathered everything and turned to leave, I found Daniela blocking the door.
She held a black bottle in her hand, eyeing me with scorn as she scanned me from head to toe. Her other hand rested on her stomach, that practiced, deliberate gesture, though no one else was in the room to perform for. Old habits. Or perhaps she simply never stopped performing.
"Wow, Seraphina. You've got some nerve," she sneered.
"Even after I waltzed in here and made you the laughingstock of every Family wife on the Eastern Seaboard, you're still shamelessly clinging to the Valente name like some parasite."