Chapter 11 #3
“I do not need Rafael’s permission to leave the house,” I said, my voice sharpening despite myself. “Please arrange another driver. I need to go to a club.”
“A club?”
The disbelief in his voice was impossible to miss.
“Yes.”
“You wish to go to a club?”
“I do.”
“But... why?”
My fingers tightened around my handbag.
Because I was tired of feeling unwanted.
Because I was tired of sitting in that house pretending his indifference didn’t affect me.
Because if Rafael could spend every day pretending we weren’t married, then perhaps I could spend one night pretending it didn’t hurt.
“I need that atmosphere,” I said quietly. “The music. The noise. The people. It’s been years since I’ve stepped inside a club, and tonight... I need something different. Please arrange a driver, Ramiro.”
“I’ll drive you myself.”
The response came so quickly that I almost thought I had imagined it.
“Why?”
A short silence followed.
“Because every instinct I possess is telling me this is a terrible idea,” he admitted. “And because if anything happened to you after I put you in a car alone, Rafael would probably bury me somewhere nobody would ever find me.”
I heard him move first—boots against gravel, then the soft mechanical click of a car door being unlocked.
The sound carried clearly through the night air.
I followed the direction of his steps.
My hand reached out instinctively, sliding along the side of the vehicle.
I traced it until my fingers found the handle, gripping it for a second longer than necessary before pulling it open.
I lowered myself into the passenger seat.
I placed my hand on the armrest, orienting myself through touch alone, feeling the space rather than seeing it.
Ramiro settled into the driver’s seat a moment later. The door closed with a firm, contained sound.
Then the engine started.
A low, steady purr that vibrated through the car like a restrained heartbeat.
We pulled away from the estate.
“So...” Ramiro began after a few minutes, his tone cautious but neutral, “do you have a particular club in mind?”
I stared straight ahead into nothing.
“No,” I said flatly. “Just take me to whichever one is closest.”
My voice sounded distant even to me.
The humiliation from earlier still clung to me like a second skin.
No matter how much time passed, I could not shake it.
I had spent hours preparing Rafael’s favorite food, convincing myself it could be the beginning of something. A small gesture. A bridge. An acknowledgment that perhaps we could finally start becoming the couple he had once claimed he wanted us to be.
How foolish.
I had imagined us sitting across from one another at the table, sharing a meal instead of silence.
I had imagined conversation—awkward at first, perhaps, but real. I had imagined learning the things that made him laugh, the subjects that interested him, the thoughts he kept hidden behind that controlled exterior.
Instead, I had been reminded exactly where I stood.
Not beside him.
Not in his heart.
Not even in his future.
The moment Zara’s name entered the room, I ceased to exist. Suddenly it was not my effort he saw, not my intention, not the courage it had taken for me to reach toward him.
It was her.
Always her.
And perhaps that was the cruelest part of all.
I had not been competing with another woman.
I had been competing with a memory.
A memory he still loved too much to let go.
A memory I could never hope to replace.
And somewhere between his grief and my humiliation, I realized that I had mistaken his kindness for something more.
That perhaps, in Rafael’s eyes, I was still exactly what I had always been.
Tess’s nanny.
And despite the ring on my finger and the vows we had exchanged, I had never truly become his wife.
I dug my nails into my palms, the sharp sting grounding me in something physical.
The pain was small, but it reminded me I still existed in my own body, not just inside my thoughts.
A beat passed.
Then I asked, suddenly, without preamble:
“What illness did Zara have?”
The car shifted slightly.
Not from movement, but from attention.
I heard Ramiro adjust his posture, a faint crack of his neck as he turned to glance at me, clearly surprised by the direction of the question.
For a moment, he didn’t answer.
The silence in the car felt different from the one in the dining room.
“Brain tumor,” he said finally, voice lowering into something more respectful. “It started small. No symptoms at first. They only caught it during a routine scan.”
I turned my face slightly toward the window, even though it showed me nothing but darkness beyond the glass.
“They operated to remove it,” he said, his voice tightening slightly. “But within months, it returned—more aggressive each time. It never stopped coming back... six surgeries in all.”
My throat tightened without warning.
Six.
“Eventually,” he said more quietly, “the doctors said further operations were no longer possible. The tumor was growing too fast, too large. They couldn’t keep up with it anymore.”
I swallowed hard.
The car felt smaller suddenly.
Like the air inside had changed density.
“Zara was one of the kindest women I’ve ever known,” Ramiro added after a pause, his voice softening as the professionalism briefly fell away. “It’s difficult... thinking about how long she endured it.”
My chest tightened.
“How long?” I turned toward him sharply, even though I couldn’t see his reaction.
My voice came out more brittle than I intended.
“It was their third wedding anniversary when they found the tumor,” he said after a pause, his voice subdued.
Something in my chest sank at that detail.
“It was like they were granted three beautiful years first,” he continued after a pause, his voice lower now. “Then the tumor was discovered on their third anniversary, and from that point on it became a different life entirely—hospitals, scans, surgeries, constant treatment.”
His tone softened. “Rafael stayed with her through all of it. Zara fought for another five years after that.”
Five years.
The number repeated in my head like something I couldn’t place.
The words settled into me like weight.
“After Zara died, Rafael swore he would never marry again,” Ramiro said quietly. “He said he would die alone. Their marriage was never built on love, yet he carried her death like it was his fault... no one really understood that. The mafia was shocked when he chose to marry you.”
My breath caught slightly at that.
“But then I understood,” he went on after a pause. “The arrangement makes sense. It’s structured, almost cold... but it works. He married you so you could look after Tess, to be present for her. That’s all it was meant to be.”
That’s all it was meant to be?
The question tore through me, exposing a part of myself I thought I had already numbed.
In his world, in his circle, I had never been anything more than this—his wife in name alone, defined by duty, reduced to a single responsibility: Tess.
I sat straighter in the seat, the leather creaking softly beneath me as I shifted.
“Fine,” I said, the words coming out sharper than I intended. “If that’s what everyone sees me as—nothing more than a caregiver instead of a wife—then this marriage serves no purpose.”
My breath tightened. “When my internship ends in seven months, I’ll divorce him. And I’ll be gone.”
The words felt strange in my mouth, but they were final.
“I won’t spend my life married to a man who will never love me,” I said, voice hardening. “A man who will always see me through the lens of his dead wife. No.”
My chest rose unevenly.
“He was the one telling me just a week ago that I could heal, that I could escape the darkness I’ve been trapped in,” I said, anger threading through the pain. “I thought that meant something. I thought he was finally seeing me... not just tolerating me.”
A bitter breath left me.
“But I misread everything. His gentleness. His words. All of it.”
I swallowed.
“I will leave him,” I said, more certain now. “I will leave... and I will not come back.”
Ramiro didn’t respond immediately.
When he finally did, his voice was careful.
“Rafael doesn’t usually let people walk away from his world.” His tone lowered slightly. “And Tess... she’s attached to you. You’ve built a bond with her. Will you really walk away and leave her behind for something her father did?”
Tess.
Her name alone shifted something in me.
She wasn’t just Rafael’s daughter in my mind anymore.
She was... mine.
My fingers curled in my lap.
Abandoning her felt wrong in a way I couldn’t easily dismiss.
But staying—
Staying meant existing in a space where I would always be second to a memory I could never compete with.
A woman I had never met.
A grief I could never touch.
My chest tightened painfully.
“As much as I care for Tess,” I said, forcing the words out even as they cracked inside me, “I have to put myself first. Seven months is enough time to slowly detach... to let her grow closer to her father.”
My throat tightened. “So when I leave, it won’t hurt her as much.”
The moment I finished speaking, something inside me broke quietly at the thought of it.
I don’t even know if I can do it.
But I had to believe I could.
Ramiro didn’t respond.
He only sighed.
The car shifted slightly as we approached something louder, more chaotic.
I could feel it before Ramiro even spoke again.
Music spilled into the night air in waves I couldn’t see but could feel in my bones.
The club.
We had arrived.
And suddenly I understood why I had asked for this.
Not because I wanted joy.
But because I couldn’t stand silence anymore.
I needed noise to cover the echo of Rafael’s footsteps leaving the room.
To erase the image my mind kept replaying—the way he had said Zara’s name like it still hurt to breathe it.
Ramiro slowed the car.
The engine softened as he parked.