7. Cat
— ? —
Cat
Max leaves at dawn.
I hear the car pull away from our bedroom window, watching the taillights disappear down the drive. Chicago again. Another trip, another excuse, another week of pretending his wife doesn’t exist.
Good.
The house is quieter when he’s gone. The new guards stay outside my rooms. They watch the doors rather than sit with me, and I still don’t know which voices on their radios they obey. I’ve never been sure who’s loyal to whom in this place, and after yesterday, I’ve stopped trying to figure it out.
I wait until the morning bustle settles, staff moving through their routines, the security shift change at seven, the kitchen chaos that accompanies breakfast prep. Then I slip out of my room and head for the study.
His study.
The door is unlocked, which surprises me. Since the freeze set in, this room has been his fortress, always closed, usually locked, a clear signal that the donna isn’t welcome in the don’s private space. But today the handle turns easily, and I step inside.
The room smells like him. Leather and sandalwood, with the ghost of late-night whiskey and cigar smoke underneath. I haven’t been in here in months, not since those early days when we’d sprawl on the rug and play chess until midnight.
Don’t think about that.
I’m here for the treaty.
The original document is in a safe somewhere, but Max kept a copy in his desk.
I remember him pulling it out once, during a conversation about alliance obligations.
My signed copy is with Enzo. Asking him for it now would bring questions I cannot answer without bringing him to this house armed.
I want to read the hearing provisions myself and see how much of Marcella’s threat was bluff.
I want a countdown.
The desk is massive, dark wood, cluttered with papers and files in a way that would drive my organized brother insane.
I start with the obvious places, the center drawer, the file tray, the stack of folders on the left side.
Business correspondence, financial reports, meeting notes. Nothing personal, nothing useful.
I move to the side drawers. More files, a bottle of whiskey, a chess set I recognize from our games, packed away like a relic from another era.
That hurts more than it should.
The bottom drawer is locked, but I’m not looking for secrets, just the treaty. I turn to the desk surface itself, shuffling papers, lifting folders.
And then I see it.
Cream stationery, tucked half under the leather blotter like someone slid it there in a hurry. The handwriting is familiar, looping, feminine, precise.
Marcella’s handwriting.
My stomach drops. I shouldn’t read it. Whatever this is, it’s not meant for me, and reading someone else’s correspondence is…
Since the attack wasn’t fruitful, I’ll try something else soon.
I can’t breathe.
She won’t be with us much longer.
My knees go loose.
M.
I read it again. And again. The words don’t change.
Since the attack wasn’t fruitful.
The attack. The men in my bedroom, the panic button, the guards flooding in. That wasn’t random. That wasn’t some rival family making a move.
That was her.
And he knows.
He’s known this whole time.
The coldness after the attack, the way he wouldn’t look at me, the meeting where he told everyone he couldn’t stand being married to me, it wasn’t indifference. It was complicity. He knew someone was trying to take me, and he didn’t stop it. He didn’t warn me. He just… let it happen.
And when it failed, he let Marcella try something else.
She won’t be with us much longer.
My hands are shaking so badly the paper rattles. I set it down on the desk, pressing my palms flat against the wood, trying to remember how to breathe.
He wants me dead.
My husband wants me dead.
No, that’s not even the worst part. The worst part is that he’s doing it with her. He’s been planning this with Marcella, talking to her, conspiring with her, and the whole time I’ve been crying in my room wondering why he stopped loving me…
He was never going to love me. He was just waiting for a convenient way to get rid of me.
She won’t be with us much longer.
The thing that breaks me worst isn’t the murder of it. I should be terrified. I am terrified, somewhere underneath the shock, but terror isn’t what’s making my eyes burn and my throat close up.
It’s the Marcella of it.
He chose her. He’s with her. He’s been with her this whole time, and I’ve been the pathetic idiot crying over a man who was planning my disappearance with his mistress.
That hurting more than the death threat is fucked up enough that I should probably have my brain checked. I know that. I know it’s insane to be more devastated by the affair than by the fact that my husband apparently wants me gone badly enough to hire people to take me.
But it hurts anyway.
It hurts so much I can barely stand.
I press my hand over my mouth to keep the sound in, because even now, even in this moment, I can’t let anyone hear me break. The staff could walk in. The guards could report back. And if Max finds out I know before I can get away…
Get away.
The thought cuts through the grief like a blade.
I have to get away.
Right now. Today. Before he comes back from Chicago, before Marcella tries “something else,” before I end up another footnote in the long bloody history of the Moretti family.
I’m moving before I’ve finished the thought.
The plan comes together in pieces.
First: get out of the house. The extra guards are still here, even with Max away. Guards at every exit, cameras on every door. I’ve been watching the patterns for months, just in case, because that’s what a Romano does in enemy territory.
There’s a gap in the garden wall. A place where the old stonework has crumbled, hidden behind an overgrown hedge.
There was a repair crew here yesterday. From my window, I watched them cover the gap with a panel and leave.
The stonework behind it is still loose. Someone has signed off a job that isn’t finished.
I can make it through if I time it right.
Second: create a distraction. Something big enough to pull attention away from the residential wing, long enough for me to slip out unnoticed.
Third: disappear.
I don’t let myself think about the third part. Not yet. One step at a time.
Then I grab Marcella’s note and fold it into my pocket. Evidence. Proof, if I ever need it, of what they planned together.
I have to move. Now.
Back in my room, I pack quickly. One bag, small enough to carry easily. Cash. I’ve been hoarding it for months, pulling small amounts from household accounts, telling myself it was just in case. Documents. A change of clothes. My laptop with the manuscript files.
I don’t pack much else. I don’t want to carry memories of this place.
Then I sit at the small desk by the window and pull out a sheet of stationery.
I need to leave a note. Not for him, for me. For the record. So he knows I didn’t just vanish, so he knows why, so he can’t pretend later that this was anything other than what it was.
The pen shakes in my hand.
You want me gone.
I write it fast, before I can talk myself out of it.
I’ll save you the job. I’ll disappear myself. Forget me. But if you ever come after my life again, Massimo, war comes to your doorstep.
It sounds tough. Strong. Like a woman who’s done being a victim.
The truth is I’m crying so hard I can barely see the paper. Tears dripping onto the stationery, blurring the ink, because even after everything, the coldness, the meeting, the note, the murder plot. I don’t want anything to happen to him.
How fucked up is that?
He’s been planning my death with his mistress, and I’m sitting here weeping because some pathetic part of me still loves him. Still remembers the board between us and the way he laughed when I beat him, that whole-chest laugh he never gave anyone else.
Was any of it real?
It doesn’t matter. It can’t matter anymore.
I fold the note carefully.
Then I slip down to the mudroom. I grab his flannel off the hook by the door. The gray one. Soft from washing, too big for me, the one I used to steal during the warm months when I wanted to feel close to him.
I hate myself for taking it.
I take it anyway.
From there, I make my way to his study through the service corridors. The halls are quiet, most of the staff is busy with morning routines elsewhere.
His desk is exactly as I left it an hour ago. None of it matters now.
I set my farewell in the center, carefully positioned so he can’t miss it. Then I slide my wedding ring off my finger, the diamond catches the light, beautiful and cold and meaningless, and place it on top of the paper.
You want me gone. I’ll save you the job.
For a moment I just stand there, looking at the ring, remembering the day he put it on my finger. The cathedral. The vows. The wedding night that made me think maybe, just maybe, this arranged marriage could become something real.
What a joke.
The east wing laundry room is always busy this time of day. Sheets being pressed, uniforms being mended.
I wait until the attendant steps out for her break. Slip in through the service corridor. A small fire in a laundry basket, contained, brief, enough to trigger the smoke detectors.
The lighter trembles in my hand.
You’re really doing this.
Yes. I really am.
The fabric catches. I slip back out the way I came.
The alarms start screaming before I reach the garden.
The house erupts into chaos.
I can hear it from outside, shouting, running feet, the distant wail of the smoke detectors cutting through the morning air.
Through the windows, I see staff members rushing toward the east wing, two guards sprinting past the doorways while the others follow a radio order toward the guest wing, where someone thinks I am.
Away from me.
I move fast, keeping low, using the hedges for cover. The garden is stark this time of year, bare branches, dormant beds, the paths gray with winter. I’ve spent hours out here during the lonely months, walking, memorizing the layout.
I knew this moment would come. I just didn’t know it would hurt this much.
The gap in the wall is exactly where I remember, behind the hedge and a sheet of temporary boarding. I ease the panel aside. The climbing rose hides me while I work through the crumbling section. I push through the thorns, feeling them catch at my clothes, tear at my skin. I don’t care.
On the other side: freedom.
I land hard on the soft ground outside the wall, bag clutched to my chest, his flannel shoved inside it. For a moment I just crouch there, breathing, listening for shouts or footsteps or any sign that someone saw me.
Nothing.
I made it.
I stand up slowly, brush the dirt off my knees, and disappear into the morning.