His fingers fumbled desperately at the buttons, trying to silence it.
It wouldn't stop.
My footsteps halted at the threshold.
I turned slowly.
Leaned against the mahogany shoe cabinet by the door—a piece I had selected myself, back when I still believed this house could become a home.
Tears fell, one drop at a time, tracing hot paths down my cheeks.
"Nico."
I said his name.
The name I had whispered in the dark when he lay beside me but a thousand miles away. The name I had written on medical forms and emergency contacts. The name that had become synonymous with my own slow destruction.
"You never loved me. Why did you marry me?"
His throat worked visibly.
As if he wanted to say something. As if, for once, he might break his silence and offer me the truth.
But in the end, he stayed mute.
Omertà—the code of silence. He had kept it with me more faithfully than any oath sworn to the Family.
My phone screen lit up in my pocket.
A message from him.
Let me explain, Isabella.
I closed my eyes.
Forced myself to stay calm.
Pushed down the bitterness rising in my chest like bile, like blood, like all the words I had swallowed for three years of this blood-bound union.
"Leave."