26. Chapter 22
Z asha
I close her door behind me and walk down the hall as if I’m moving through a haze of smoke. It feels like I’ve been sucker-punched and am waiting for my legs to give out.
I make it to my study. The door clicks shut behind me, and I lock it. Not because I think she’ll come after me. I know she won’t.
Her words still echo in my head, sharp and emotionless:
“I want a divorce.”
I sit down heavily in the chair behind my desk. My elbows hit the wood with more force than I intend. My hands drag down my face, as though trying to make sure this is not a fucking dream.
I can’t make sense of it.
Just hours ago, she was wrapped around me like she couldn’t get enough of me. We kissed like we were starving. We touched like we were finally crossing a threshold neither of us had dared name out loud.
I felt her, not just on top or under me, but with me. She was present. Open. Real.
It was fucking real for me. So, what the hell happened between then and now?
Did I misread everything?
How could I?
I pride myself on being able to read people. It’s not just a skill—it’s my survival. I’ve built alliances and avoided ambushes by trusting my gut and reading the truth behind a man’s smile.
And somehow, I missed this?
Was it only ever physical for her? Some sort of distraction? Maybe she was only using me to fill the silence while we waited for the clock on our arrangement to run out.
I swallow hard, leaning back in the chair.
There’s no anger in me, well, not yet. There’s only confusion. The kind that feels like frost creeping up from your chest, turning your limbs stiff and hollow.
If divorce is what she wants—if being married to me feels like suffocation to her—then I’ll give her what she asked for.
I push myself out of my chair and walk to the cabinet where I’ve kept the bracelet.
I open the velvet box and look at the piece of jewellery.
It is simple and clean, not flashy—just something elegant.
Something I imagined on her wrist when she’d reach for her coffee, when she’d dance barefoot across the kitchen, and when she’d touch me.
I had hoped to have her wear only this bracelet as she moans my name.
Now I stare at it with a clenched jaw. I was going to give her this tonight and tell her that I wanted more.
Planned to say it over a romantic dinner because she deserved to be wooed.
I chose the restaurant myself: candlelight, fine wine, and the same dessert she once said reminded her of her childhood.
I even let Lev and Viktor join in the plans. Took their teasing like a man because it was worth it. I close the box, walk back to my room, and flop down on top of the covers, still dressed.
The lights are off. The ceiling stares back at me. My body aches, but it’s not from anything physical. It’s the weight in my chest. The silence pressing in on all sides. And her absence.
I close my eyes and see her dancing barefoot in the kitchen, swaying to a tune she only half remembers, and laughing when she catches me watching.
The way she scrunched her nose when the pancakes got too brown on one side, and how she curls into me at night as if I were home.
Mara had grown accustomed to teasing me. Calling me a grump. A caveman. Her caveman. She said it with a smirk, but now she won’t even let me near her.
What the hell happened between this afternoon and tonight? I thought she was mine. Not in a way that meant ownership. But in a way that meant we had carved out something real.
Was I wrong all along? Was I the only one who was falling? And what does she mean when she says she has had enough of me?
I turn onto my side, but it doesn’t help. The bed feels too big. Too empty. And all I can do is wonder.
After what feels like centuries, I push off the bed, joints stiff, spine tight like I haven’t slept at all—because I haven’t.
I get off the bed and walk to the door. I’m going to Mara to get answers to my questions because I have fallen for her, and she is not going to walk away and leave me on my knees.
As I approach her door, I hear her on the phone.
“It is over,” she says, “And I am leaving him. There is no point in staying here anymore.” There is a pause, and then she tells whoever is on the other end that she will see them the next day.
The bracelet nearly slips from my grip, but I hold it tighter and quietly retrace my steps to my room, fully aware that we can no longer share a future together.
When I reach my room, I hold the bracelet for a moment longer than intended, knowing I’ll never see it on her. Then, I place it gently in the top drawer and close it with a quiet final click.
Feeling battered, like I have been physically hit by a truck, I pull out my overnight bag and start packing. Shirts. Knife. Phone charger. No thought. Just muscle memory. There’d be no confrontation between us.
I zip the bag shut.
She says she doesn’t want me.
And I won’t beg someone to stay where they don’t want to be.
Xiomara
The next morning, as I walk into the Delgado estate, the guards give me little nods. One of the maids offers a soft smile and murmurs, “Good morning, senora.”
I nod back politely, but I don’t return the smile. I’m not sure I have one left.
The hedges are still perfectly trimmed. The fountain in the center courtyard still gurgles softly. The air smells like citrus and roses—just like it always did.
And yet everything feels different.
I feel different, and even though I was raised in this place, I don’t belong here anymore. I walk slowly through the halls, my sandals clicking softly against the marble floors. Every step feels heavy, like I’m dragging a version of myself I no longer recognize.
No tears have fallen from my eyes since this morning. There is no way I’m going to keep crying over someone who couldn’t wait to see me walk out of his life. Even Cristóbal has encouraged me not to cry, and it is in times like these, I feel grateful to have him.
He didn’t laugh in my face when I called him. Instead, he offered to come get me this morning, but I declined the offer, knowing I didn’t want to talk to my parents in his presence.
The sunroom is filled with golden light when I step in. My mother is seated with a magazine in her lap. My father is standing at the windows, phone pressed to his ear.
They both look up at the same time.
My mother rises slowly, her expression warm but tight with concern. My father’s brows draw together immediately, reading me in a single glance like he always does.
He hangs up the call without another word and turns toward me.
“ Mija?”
I don’t smile.
There’s no need to pretend. I walk in and sit on the edge of the couch, hands resting on my knees.
“I want a divorce,” I say.
The words drop like stones into still water. My mother blinks in surprise, and my father goes rigid.
“What did he do?” My father demands his nose, already flaring in anger. He starts pacing with clenched fists. “That son of a bitch dared to hurt you?”
“Thiago,” my mother warns gently, already rising to place a hand on his arm. He shakes her off and points at me. “Tell me what he did. Right now. Did he physically hit you?”
“What did he do to you?” Mom joins in, her voice more careful. “Is he cruel, baby? Has he ever laid a hand on you?”
I take a deep breath, but my voice shakes as I answer. “He’s not cruel,” I whisper. “He hasn’t done anything. He is colder than ice. I don’t think he is capable of feeling any form of emotion.” I blink once, and the tears come faster than I can stop them.
“Oh, come here, my baby.” Mom sits beside me, wrapping me in her arms.
“He’s always gone,” I say, struggling to keep my composure. “Even when he’s home, it’s like he isn’t. We’re polite, but distant. And it’s cold, Mom. It’s like I live with a ghost that haunts me. One moment he’s there, and the next—he’s vanished without a trace.”
Mom leans in closer and whispers, so only I can hear, “Have you tried being intimate with him? Sometimes touch can bring down walls.”
I nod once, slow and broken.
“I have. And I can’t anymore. I can’t bear his touch now. Not after knowing it didn’t mean anything to him. I feel cheap, invisible, and used.”
My mom looks at me with eyes full of sympathy. “It may feel like that initially, but maybe if you give it time, you both will grow familiar with each other.”
“No, Mom, we won’t. We’ve been married for six months now, and still nothing has changed.” I say in a panicked voice. “I’d rather die than stay married to a cold and heartless man like Zasha.”
My father is still pacing, trying to keep from exploding. So I turn to him.
“Please don’t make me stay in a house where I’m constantly questioning my right to be there.”
The silence that follows is thick. And for the first time, my father doesn’t have a quick answer. After a brief moment of silence, he explodes like a match struck against dry stone.
“That’s it. I’m calling off every damn agreement with the Bratva. All of it. They don’t get to walk into my family, break my daughter, and keep my ports.”
“Carino?” my mother warns.
But he’s pacing now, rage spiraling out in sharp waves. “They can go back to whatever frozen alley they crawled out of. I don’t care if they are taking over New York like wildfire. I don’t care what it costs. No man makes my daughter cry and keeps my respect.”
I stand and go to him, “Papa?”
He doesn’t stop pacing.
“Papa, please stop.”
His steps falter, and I take a deep breath. My voice is steady, even though my chest is full of shards.
“I know you’re angry, and you want to protect me. But you don’t get to blow up an entire empire because your ego is bruised.”
He spins toward me, thunder in his eyes. “This isn’t ego,” he snaps. “It’s someone messing with my bloodline.”
“It’s business, too,” I reply, calm but pointed.
He goes still.
“Your trade routes into Europe have expanded by more than fifty percent since the Bratva partnership. You finally have a grip on Antwerp and a clean cut through Eastern Europe. Don’t pretend you do not need that to take your business to the next level.”
Mom watches me with something like awe in her expression.
“Zasha is not only my husband,” I continue. “He’s also a leader in the Makarov Bratva. And whether or not we stay married, that organization is on the rise. You’ve said it yourself for the last three years—they are going to rule the dark world of New York with or without you.”
Thiago breathes heavily through his nose. I can see my words are getting through to him, so I continue. “Cutting ties with them now wouldn’t just be a wrong move. It would be stupid. You’d be setting fire to your own future.”
He glares at me, jaw flexing.
Then slowly, he lowers himself into the chair. Still fuming, but silent. I watch his rage shrink into something tighter, smaller. Something he can’t justify with logic.
He knows I’m right.