28. Chapter 23
Z asha
Three weeks later.
The ride back from Panama is longer than it should be. Customs delays. Broken air conditioning in the SUV. Viktor bitching about the humidity like it’s a personal insult.
But I barely register any of it.
I keep thinking of home. Of walking through the front doors and finding her curled on the couch with her tea. Maybe still angry, maybe quiet. But there. Present and ready to talk.
Instead, what greets me when I step into the estate is silence. Not stillness, but stark absence. The air feels stale. The kind of cold that settles in when a house is empty and void.
My duffel slides off my shoulder and thuds against the floor. There is no music playing in the kitchen. There’s no scent of citrus shampoo lingering in the hallway. Only a heavy silence signals that my house has returned to how it was before Mara.
I walk through the first floor slowly, almost like I’m checking for signs of life. As if she might still be here, hiding in some corner. But I know better.
The weight pressing into my throat tells me I already know. In the kitchen, something catches my eye. A white envelope resting on the counter—placed with intention, not carelessness. My name is written on it in her handwriting.
I don’t open it right away. For a few seconds, I just stare at it, as though maybe if I wait long enough, it will disappear.
But it doesn’t, so I tear it open.
Inside are the divorce papers—already signed. Her neat and clean signature is at the bottom of the page. Tucked inside is a short note, handwritten in the same precise calligraphy:
Zasha,
I’ve signed my part. Please forward the completed document to my lawyers. If you require anything else, contact them directly. They will liaise with me.
— Xiomara Delgado
That’s it?
No explanation, not a fucking goodbye. No ‘thank you for letting yourself be used’. All she left is instructions.
My stomach knots, slow and tight. I set the letter down, but it feels like it’s burned into my hand. She didn’t even want to be here when I returned. She couldn’t even look me in the eye when she severed us.
I pick up the letter again, read it, then again. Like the words might morph into something else if I stare hard enough. Like there’s a hidden sentence I missed.
There isn’t.
She told me I was merely an escape route.
I understood that. She had been honest from the start, clearly stating her intentions and expectations.
There would be no hearts drawn in the margins.
I accepted it because I didn’t expect to fall for her.
I didn’t expect her laughter to feel like sunlight breaking into all the cold places I had forgotten I had.
I didn’t expect the way she curled into me at night to feel like being chosen.
When she gave herself to me, I thought we were past pretending, and that I was beginning to matter. But apparently, I was wrong.
I press the heels of my hands into the counter. My jaw grinds until my teeth ache. The knot in my chest pulls tighter, heavier, like it’s anchoring me to the floor.
I move through the house like a ghost, touching nothing, saying nothing. Just pacing through the hallway she used to brighten with her quiet routines—morning tea, phone calls in the sunroom, humming when she thought no one could hear.
I find myself in her room.
The door is slightly ajar, as if left that way on purpose. The bed is made—tighter than she ever kept it. She always left one pillow creased, one side slightly folded, like she planned to crawl back into it.
Not this time.
The room is stripped of her warmth. Closet doors open to reveal empty hangers. The jewelry tray on her vanity is bare.
Except for one thing.
A small, familiar velvet box. I walk over and lift the lid slowly, already knowing what’s inside.
Her wedding ring. I pick it up between my fingers. It’s light. Too light to carry the weight it was supposed to hold.
She left it behind as a way of telling me that she has left me and our fake marriage behind.
I close the box with more force than necessary and walk down the hall, fingers wrapped around soft velvet. My steps carry me to my room before I’ve even decided where I’m going.
I pull open the drawer of my nightstand where the bracelet is and drop the ring into the drawer beside it.
It lands with a small, dull thud, and I slam the drawer shut.
As if closing it could shut off everything I feel.
It doesn’t. I sit on the edge of the bed, hands clenched between my knees.
The silence presses in harder now, wrapping around my throat, my chest, my ribs.
I can’t breathe in here. Not with the smell of her shampoo gone and the ghost of her laughter lingering like smoke.
She was the first person I let in. Not just into my space—but into the parts of me I never let anyone near.
I didn’t even realize I was doing it at first. The way I watched her without meaning to. The way her touch didn’t make my skin crawl. The way her voice could steady something in me without trying.
She called me her caveman.
Said it with a smirk. With affection.
And I let myself believe—just for a second—that she saw the real me. Not just the enforcer, but the man behind this hardened mask. The man who wants to have what everyone around him has found.
The next day, I go to see Thiago because all attempts to reach Mara have been impossible. He’s waiting in his office, shirt sleeves rolled up, sipping something expensive like he didn’t just help pull the rug out from under my life.
He gives me a long, unreadable look. “So,” he says, “you got the papers.”
I sit without asking.
“You knew she was going to divorce me?” I ask.
He nods once, slowly. “She told her mother and me two weeks ago.”
“You agreed to it?” My voice is flatter than I expect.
His jaw flexes. “No. But I didn’t stop her either.”
I stare at him.
“You think I want to see my daughter throw away her marriage?” He leans forward, elbows on the desk. “But I also won’t force her to live out the rest of her life with a cold, emotionless man.”
The words land with the weight of a verdict.
“Is that how she sees me?” I ask.
Thiago’s voice tightens. “You had your chance to convince her otherwise, Zasha. But you didn’t.” He eyes me. “I gave her out in marriage, not sold her into slavery.”
I say nothing.
He exhales, frustration bleeding into fatigue. “Lola would have my head if I tried to keep Mara in a house where she’s wasting away. And I’d deserve it.”
I nod, then stand, and without another word, I walk out of Thiago’s office.
The gym becomes my escape.
Or maybe my cage.
Each day begins and ends with pain as I search for ways to release the hurt inside before it suffocates me. I push myself through drills that would break lesser men. I spar with Lev until my ribs ache, with Anton until my arms go numb, and with Viktor until neither of us can stand straight.
Punch after punch, sweat pours down my spine. My knuckles split open. I don’t tape them anymore. I like the sting. It reminds me I’m still here.
At home, the cleaning lady comes and goes quietly. She stops asking for ‘my wife’ after I snap at her the third time.
The divorce papers sit unopened on my desk. Occasionally, I look at them, just enough to sense the ache in my heart. Long enough to hear her voice echo in my mind. Just enough to question why I can’t simply sign the damn line and move on.
But I don’t. Because once I do, it’s final, and I can’t stomach that.
Not yet.
I take a big sip of my whiskey, embracing the burn that scorches my throat. This is the consequence of opening the door. Of hoping. Of believing any woman in her right senses would want me.
My drinking glass strikes the table with a dull thud. My hands shake as I scan the room and notice half a dozen empty bottles in the trash. The space reeks of sweat, smoke, and regret.
This is what’s left of me. A shell of the man who used to strike fear in the heart of others.
The sound of my office door opening makes me turn, and I see Viktor walk in. He and Lev step inside as if they own the place, their boots echoing against the polished floors, their presence disturbing the heavy silence I’ve spent weeks cultivating.
I’m slouched in the leather chair behind my desk, a half-empty bottle of Glenlivet beside me and the glass sweating in my hand. The room is dark except for the sliver of hallway light leaking through the open door.
Lev finds the light switch, flips it on, and I wince as the brightness slices through the fog in my skull like a blade. My eyes throb, along with my temples.
Viktor whistles low. “You look like hell.”
Lev doesn’t miss a beat. “And you smell worse.”
I don’t respond.
Viktor kicks his boots up on the edge of the desk like we’re about to play poker instead of talk about the crater in the middle of my life. “So. You gonna drink yourself to death?”
I say nothing.
Lev leans against the bookshelf, arms crossed. “Where is she now?”
I shrug, slow and sloppy. “Don’t know. Don’t care.”
Viktor raises an eyebrow. “Try again.”
Another shrug. I lift the glass to my lips and take a long, burning swig.
Lev squints at the stack of bottles in the corner. “You’ve got bloodshot eyes and only got empty bottles to show for it?”
I swirl the liquid in the glass. “And bruised knuckles. Don’t forget those.”
“Do you want us to find her?” Lev asks.
My head snaps up, and I stare at him for a long moment. “No,” I say. “She left because she wants nothing to do with me. And I’m not going to drag her back here forcefully.”
Viktor’s jaw tightens. He sits forward, eyes narrowing. “And what do you want, Zasha?”
I don’t answer.
Lev speaks next. His voice is softer than usual. No teasing. No edge. Just quiet disbelief. “So that’s it? You’re going to just let her disappear?”
“She made her decision,” I say. “I’m respecting it.”
Viktor’s chair scrapes against the floor as he stands. “If you let this end without a fight, it means you never loved her. Come on, man, you have to fight for what you love.”
I snort quietly to myself, swirling what’s left of the drink in my glass.
“No,” I mutter. “Letting her have her wish is exactly what shows that I love her.” I say, tipping the glass back and drinking until there’s nothing left but fire in my lungs.
When they leave, I welcome the silence back, allowing it to cloak me in its icy clutches. The scotch weighs heavily in my stomach. My throat is raw. My fists ache from the last round of training, but it’s the ache in my chest that remains sharp, no matter how much I drink, bleed, or fight.
The divorce papers remain there, stirring and waiting for me. The top page is slightly curled at the edge, from how many times I’ve handled it. The ink from her signature is sharp and clean. A single sweep of a pen that says she is truly done.
I sit down, the leather creaking beneath me. The pen rests just beside the folder—uncapped. Ready.
The blank line beneath my name waits like a coffin lid.
I pick up the pen.
Hold it between my fingers.
The weight is familiar.
The action simple.
A line.
Just one line.
One signature to end it all.
I lower the tip of the pen toward the page.
My hand hovers.
I should do it.
It’s the right thing. The respectful thing.
She’s made it clear she wants nothing from me—not even a conversation.
Ignoring the pain in my chest, I press the pen down, ready to sign, but I stop—not because I think she’ll come back.
I know she won’t, but still I can’t sign.
Signing feels like killing the last thing tethering me to her.
As long as that line stays empty, there’s still something real left between us.
I exhale, the sound long and low, and place the pen gently beside the folder without signing the document. I push the papers slightly away from me and stand up, as if even that distance might make the pain less sharp.
It doesn’t.
With the glass still in my hand, I step out onto the balcony, remembering how Mara used to sit on our balcony every morning with her tea.
Every evening, she would read a book with her bare feet tucked underneath her.
She’d hum to herself and sometimes read aloud in Spanish when she thought I wasn’t listening.
I close my eyes for a moment and see her: the soft outline, the sound of a page turning, her lashes catching the light, and the way her fingers curl around the spine of whatever book has her attention that week.
For the first time since I was born, I feel truly alone. It's not like the loneliness I felt in the orphanage, but worse. Because this time, I know what warmth feels like.
I’ve experienced it and lost it.