Chapter 7

The bedroom door clicked shut. I lay in the dark, listening to the silence of the mansion.

Half an hour later, the front door opened and closed. The roar of Dante's armored SUV pierced the night, gradually fading away.

He went to find her.

I closed my eyes, remembering the first day I met him.

It was during an underworld negotiation where my father had brought me along. Back then, Dante was just a ruthless enforcer.

I followed him, even when my family threatened to disown me. Three years later, we were married.

The first two years were beautiful. But then, he consolidated his position as Godfather through violence.

The Syndicate swallowed the man I loved. I accepted his constant absence, spent birthdays alone in this vast house, and smiled when he came home covered in blood. I understood the weight of his crown.

For a whole year, I cooked his favorite meals every day and brought them to his office. I wanted him to have one normal thing amidst the chaos.

Then he told me to stop coming. He said my presence was a distraction.

I only found out the real reason weeks later: he had hired a private secretary.

Dante claimed a dying Capo had recommended Tess as his ward, and he couldn't refuse. I tried to understand.

But then I realized Tess was always around him.

Dante loathed noise and intrusions into his private space, yet he let Tess sit in his office for hours. He started texting her late at night, sharing the trivia of his day-things he no longer shared with me.

The memories flooded back, and my chest tightened.

I realized I was just a ghost haunting a house he no longer wanted to come home to.