10. Vince
VINCE
The door opened, and there she was.
Relief hit me so hard I couldn't breathe for a second.
Josie stood in the doorway, her hair pulled back the way she wore it when she was working, and she looked whole.
Unhurt. Real. I'd spent the last forty minutes in the car with my hands locked on the wheel, my mind running through every worst-case scenario I could think of—accidents, muggings, worse things I didn't want to name—and here she was, safe, standing right in front of me in Rosa's narrow hallway.
"Thank God," I said. My voice came out hoarse.
Her face didn't change. She just stood there with one hand on the doorknob, looking at me like I was a stranger who'd knocked at the wrong address. The relief in my chest twisted into something heavier, something cold that sat in my throat and wouldn't move.
"Josie."
"Vince." Her voice was flat. Cold. Nothing in it but my name.
I tried a smile, but it felt wrong on my face, like wearing someone else's clothes to a funeral. "Come home with me."
"No."
The word landed like a slap. I blinked, certain I'd misheard her. "What do you mean, no?"
"I mean no." She didn't move from the doorway. Didn't step back to let me in, didn't step forward to meet me. Just stood there, perfectly still, her dark eyes locked on mine like I was a problem she was calculating how to solve. "Go home, Vince."
My heart kicked up, thumping hard against my ribs.
This wasn't right. This wasn't her. Josie didn't talk to me like this—like I was a problem to be managed, a stranger to be dismissed, someone she couldn't wait to see the back of.
"Josie, whatever this is, whatever happened—just come home and we'll talk about it. Please."
"There's nothing to talk about."
"There's obviously something." I ran a hand through my hair, frustration crawling up my spine and settling at the base of my skull like a headache waiting to happen. "The bedroom looked like you were moving out. You left your ring at the office. Just tell me what's wrong and I'll fix it."
Her jaw tightened, a muscle jumping beneath the skin, and for a second I thought she might slam the door in my face.
Instead she just looked at me. Looked right through me, like I was glass, like she could see straight to the other side and didn't like what was there.
"How?" she asked quietly. "How exactly are you going to fix it, Vince? "
I stared at her. My mind raced, sorting through possibilities, trying to figure out what the hell had happened between this morning when I'd kissed her goodbye in the kitchen and now, standing in a hallway that smelled like old carpet and someone else's cooking.
The bedroom had been half-emptied when I got home.
Closet standing open with hangers bunched on the rail, socks spilled where she'd yanked a drawer free, a shelf knocked crooked, a chair shoved against the wall, a scarf by the bed, her nightstand drawer hanging open with only a notepad and pen inside—whatever she'd wanted, she'd already taken.
The ring—the diamond I'd spent three months' salary on, the one that was supposed to replace the cheap iron band I'd given her when we were kids and I had nothing—sitting in a paper lunch bag at the front desk like a piece of trash she'd thrown away.
God. The corner. It always came back to the corner.
"The shop," I said, and the answer clicked into place, clean and simple, the way answers always did when I stopped overthinking and just looked at the numbers.
"You're worried about the shop. About the break-ins, the neighborhood.
" I took a step closer, warming to it now, because this I could solve.
This I knew how to do. This was what I was good at.
"I can take care of it. I'll buy the block—the whole thing.
Tear it down, rebuild it properly, put Mercer's in a new building.
Clean. Safe. State-of-the-art security, cameras on every corner, reinforced glass.
You'd never have to stand on that street again, never have to worry about someone smashing the windows at three in the morning or threatening the staff when they're locking up?—"
She went very still. Her hand moved to her pocket, her fingers closing around something small I couldn't see.
I kept going, the plan building itself in my head the way plans always did, each piece locking into place like I was stacking blocks, solid and sure.
"I can have the contracts drawn up by Monday.
We'll get the city permits fast-tracked—I know people at the zoning board, people who owe me favors.
You'd have final say on the design, on everything.
Whatever you want—skylights, proper ventilation, climate control for the metalwork, a showroom with real display cases instead of that old cabinet your father built.
We could even add apartments on the upper floors, set them aside for the families so they're not commuting an hour each way every morning.
" I looked at her, willing her to understand, to see what I was offering, to see that I was trying.
"I have put a number on nine thousand shops exactly like it," I said, "and I have never once been wrong. "
Josie's fingers curled tighter around whatever she was holding in her pocket. I watched her knuckles go white through the thin fabric of her jeans.
"That's not what I want," she said quietly.
I blinked. "What?"
"That's not what I want, Vince."
The frustration was back, tightening like a fist in my chest, squeezing until I couldn't get a full breath. "Then what? Just—tell me what you want and I'll get it for you."
"Vince—"
"A bigger space? A second location somewhere safer, somewhere you don't have to worry every time you lock up at night?
I can set up a trust for the families, make sure Lena and Marcus and the rest of them are covered no matter what happens to the business, no matter what happens to the shop itself?—"
"I don't want?—"
"Or if it's not about the shop, fine." I was talking faster now, words spilling out before I could sort them properly, before I could think them through.
"We'll travel. Take a month off, two months, however long you need.
You've always talked about the markets in Istanbul, the metalworkers in Damascus, the artisans in Morocco.
We'll go. I'll clear my schedule, postpone the Riverside development, hand the whole thing off to Gideon—he can manage the numbers, the contractors, all of it?—"
"Vince—"
"A house, then. You want a house, we'll get a house.
Somewhere with a yard, a garden, room for a proper studio so you're not working in that cramped back room anymore.
You want to move out of the city entirely?
We'll move. Connecticut, upstate, the shore, wherever you want.
Just tell me what it is and I'll make it happen.
" My hands felt useless at my sides, empty, like they were supposed to be holding something and I'd forgotten what.
"Whatever you want, Josie. Name it. Just say it and it's yours. "
"You never asked me."
I stopped. My mouth was still open, another offer half-formed on my tongue—something about the penthouse, about renovating it, about knocking down walls and adding windows—but her voice cut through everything.
Through the frustration and the fear and the terrible, grinding need to fix this before it broke completely and I couldn't put it back together.
"What?"
Josie's eyes were bright. Too bright. Wet.
"You never asked me what I want, Vince. You're just—you're just throwing things at me.
Money. Buildings. Trips. Things." Her voice cracked on the last word, split right down the middle, and something in my chest cracked with it, sharp and sudden.
"When did you ever actually ask me what I want? "
My throat went tight. The hallway felt too small suddenly, the walls pressing in, the ceiling too low.
I could feel my pulse in my neck, fast and hard.
"I'm asking now," I said, and the words came out rough, scraped raw from somewhere deep in my chest. "What do you want, Josie? Just tell me. Please."
She looked at me for a long moment, and I could see her throat move as she swallowed.
The hall light behind her turned her hair to gold at the edges, lit up the side of her face and left the rest in shadow, and I wanted to reach for her.
Wanted to pull her close and hold on until whatever this was passed, until we got back to solid ground.
When she finally spoke, her voice was so quiet I almost didn't hear it.
"Go home, Vince."
"Josie—"
"Just go home." There were tears in her eyes now, bright and terrible and wrong, and that scared me worse than anything else that had happened today.
Worse than the empty bedroom, worse than the ring in the bag, worse than driving through the city with my pulse hammering in my ears because I didn't know where she was or if she was safe or if she was coming back.
Josie didn't cry. Not like this. Not looking at me like I'd hurt her and she couldn't even explain how, like the hurt was too big for words and all she could do was stand there and bleed.
"Come with me," I said, and I heard the desperation in my own voice, naked and shameful and impossible to hide. "Please. Just come home with me and we'll figure this out. We'll talk, or we won't talk, whatever you need. Just don't—don't do this. Don't leave."
"She asked you to leave."
I turned. Rosa stood in the hallway behind Josie, her arms crossed over her chest, her expression hard as stone.
I'd met her maybe twice before—Josie's friend from the corner, the one who ran the restaurant a few doors down from Mercer's—and she was looking at me like I was something she'd scraped off her shoe and couldn't quite believe she'd stepped in.
"This is between me and my wife," I said. My voice came out harder than I meant it to, sharp at the edges.
"Your wife asked you to leave," Rosa said again, and there was steel in her voice, the kind of steel that said she wasn't backing down, wasn't going anywhere, wasn't letting me past her to get to Josie. She moved to stand beside Josie, shoulder to shoulder, a wall of two. "So leave."
I looked at Josie, willing her to say something.
To tell Rosa it was fine, that we just needed a minute alone, that she'd handle this.
But she wouldn't meet my eyes. Her hand was still in her pocket, her fingers curled tight around whatever she was holding, and she looked so small standing there between the door and her friend.
So far away, even though she was close enough that I could reach out and touch her if I tried.
"Josie," I said. Tried one more time, because I didn't know what else to do. "Please."
"Goodnight, Vince."
The door closed. The sound of it—that soft, final click of the latch catching—echoed in the empty hallway like a gunshot.
I stood there, staring at the wooden panel where her face had been.
My heart was pounding, a sick heavy thud against my ribs that I could feel in my throat, in my wrists, in my temples.
My hands hung at my sides, useless, and there was a cold, creeping dread spreading through my chest like spilled ink, staining everything it touched.
I didn't understand. I'd offered her everything I had, everything I knew how to give, and she'd looked at me like I was speaking a language she didn't know. Like I was a stranger trying to sell her something she'd never wanted in the first place, something that had nothing to do with her at all.
The hallway was silent. Somewhere behind the door I could hear voices, low and indistinct, but I couldn't make out the words. Couldn't make out anything except the terrible certainty settling in my gut like a stone that I had just lost something I didn't know how to get back.
I raised my hand. Almost knocked. Almost begged her to open the door again, to give me one more chance to say the right thing, to find the magic combination of words that would fix whatever I'd broken without even knowing I was breaking it.
But I didn't. My hand dropped. There was nothing left to say. Nothing left to offer.
I turned away, walked down the hall toward the elevator, and the dread followed me every step. My shoes were too loud on the tile. The fluorescent lights overhead buzzed like insects, bright and harsh and wrong.
I didn't know what she wanted. After nine years—nine years of marriage, of waking up next to her, of coming home to her, of building a life I thought we both wanted—I didn't know what my own wife wanted, and that should have told me something.
Should have woken me up months ago, years ago, before it came to this.
Before she packed a bag and walked out of our home and looked at me with tears in her eyes like I was the problem she couldn't solve and didn't know how to explain.
The elevator doors opened with a soft chime that sounded too cheerful, too normal for what had just happened. I stepped inside. Hit the button for the ground floor.
The doors slid closed, and I was alone with my reflection in the brushed steel, staring back at me like an accusation I didn't know how to answer.