I snatched up the check, tore it in half with my one good hand, and hurled the pieces at him. They fluttered to the ground like dead leaves.
He froze.
As if he'd never seen me lose my temper like this before.
And perhaps he hadn't. For three years, I had been the perfect blood-bound wife. Quiet. Devoted. Invisible. I had swallowed every slight, every absence, every night spent alone in our bed while he stared at photographs of another woman.
No more.
He lowered his head and wrote another line.
"I won't let you hurt Massima."
Those words drove into my heart like a blade.
One I couldn't pull out no matter how I tried.
He turned and left without looking back. The door clicked shut behind him with a sound like a coffin closing.
The room was silent except for my trembling.
I stared at the ceiling—water-stained, institutional, nothing like the gilded ceilings of the Volpe compound—and murmured to myself.
"Ten more days... Ten days, and we're done for good."
Ten days until the dissolution was finalized.
Ten days until I was free of the Volpe name.
If I survived that long.
Three days later.
"Signora Volpe, these flowers are from the Young Don."