16. Dominic
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Dominic
Stefan sat across from me in my study with a glass of scotch he hadn’t touched and an expression that said he was about to tell me something I didn’t want to hear.
“You look like hell.” He set the glass down on the desk between us. “When’s the last time you slept?”
“I sleep fine.” I rubbed my hand over my jaw, feeling the stubble I hadn’t bothered to shave in days. “Whole bed to myself now. No one stealing the covers or waking me up at three in the morning because she had a nightmare about something she read in one of those romance novels.”
“You’re a terrible liar.” Stefan leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. “You’ve got circles under your eyes that look like bruises and you’ve been wearing the same shirt for two days.”
“Maybe I like this shirt.” I picked up my own glass and took a long swallow, letting the burn of it fill the silence instead of an answer.
“What happened after the migraine?” Stefan’s voice was quieter now, less mocking. “You were with her for days. Rina said you barely left her side. I thought maybe you two were working things out.”
“So did I.” I set the glass down and stared at the amber liquid. “Everything I did was right, Stefan.”
“And?”
“But she still left. Said she was done listening to my promises.”
“Would you have kept them?”
I turned to look at him. “What kind of question is that?”
“You’ve been making promises to that woman for years and breaking them just as fast.”
“I know what I did.”
“Do you?” He stood up and walked toward me. “Because from where I’m standing, it looks like you’re still doing it. You’re standing here feeling sorry for yourself instead of actually changing anything.”
“She doesn’t want me to go after her.” I turned back to the window. “She made that very clear. She said the only thing she wanted was for me to let her go.”
“And you’re going to do that?”
“Physically, I cannot make myself let her go. I’ve tried. I’ve picked up those divorce papers a dozen times and every time I try to sign them, my hand just stops. Like there’s some part of me that refuses to accept that it’s over.”
Stefan was quiet for a moment. The clink of glass told me he had picked up his scotch and finally taken a drink.
“She took Bianca.” It wasn’t a question.
“Of course she took Bianca.” I pressed my forehead against the cool glass of the window. “She’s her mother. Where else would Bianca go?”
“Where are they staying?”
“Gina’s apartment, for now.” My eyes closed. “It’s too small for both of them. Bianca’s been sleeping on a pull-out couch in the living room. Liana’s been looking for a rental.”
“Have you talked to her?”
“She won’t take my calls. She responds to texts about Bianca but nothing else. If I try to talk about us she just stops responding.”
“So what are you going to do about it?”
I didn’t have an answer.
The days ran together after that conversation.
Work at the compound continued. Meetings happened. Decisions got made. The Don stayed in control, the man everyone feared and no one challenged.
Every night I came home to a house that echoed with absence.
Safe houses with bodies cooling in the next room had never bothered me. Warehouses where deals might go wrong, cars where I watched targets who didn’t know they were being watched. None of those places had ever felt as oppressive as my own home without my family in it.
Bianca’s crown sat on the hall table where she had left it the day Liana took her to Gina’s.
A dozen times I picked it up, meaning to put it away, meaning to box it up with the rest of her things until she came back for them.
Every time I just stood there holding it, remembering the weight of her on my shoulders as I carried her down to the dock, remembering her voice demanding that I do the wolf voice one more time, just one more time Papa please.
The crown stayed on the table. Moving it felt like admitting she wasn’t coming back.
Everywhere I looked there were reminders of what I had lost.
The divorce papers lived in the top drawer of my desk.
Liana’s name was already there at the bottom of the last page.
***
One of my capos knocked on my study door late one afternoon.
“Boss, there’s something I thought you should know about.” He stepped into the room and closed the door behind him.
“What is it.”
“Your wife.” He hesitated, weighing his words. “She’s been looking at rentals. I heard from one of the guys that she toured a place on the east side yesterday. Nice building, good neighborhood, walking distance from Bianca’s school.”
My hand tightened around the pen I had been holding. “Which building?”