Chapter 27
Elodie’s POV~
Sabina lingered by the doorway, her hands folded tight against her apron.
“Alpha,” she said carefully, her voice carrying a note of unease, “Madam didn’t look well when she left. She… she seemed angry p>
I paused for only a moment, the words settling between us. Angry? Elodie? That amused me more than it concerned me. In front of me, she’d always been obedient, measured. A woman like her getting angry, it was novel, almost laughable. Perhaps Sabina misunderstood her expressions. I knew Elodie long enough.
“She must’ve had something urgent,” I said, my tone flat, dismissive. “Don’t trouble yourself, Sabina p>
Her eyes flickered, as though she expected me to ask more, to rise from my chair and go after her. But I didn’t. Why would I? Whatever storm she carried, it wasn’t mine to bear. At least not by the time of the day. I was too tired to care for such type of irrevelant things.
I walked past her without another word, heading upstairs. The city lights poured through the tall windows. On my desk, I tossed the brown envelope and waterbed as it lay waiting, it was her handwriting unmistakable.
For the briefest second, I considered opening it. Then my phone buzzed. Sienna’s name lit up the screen. A tiny smile broke up to my lips and without hesitation I answered. When the call ended, I tossed the envelope onto the bed. It slid off, landing face-down on the floor with a muted thud. I didn’t bother to pick it up. I might open it later, when I am in the mood.
That night, I didn’t return home. I walked the terraces of the skyscraper instead, breathing in the sharp scent of the city, watching the restless pulse of headlights below. Her absence didn’t weigh on me. It didn’t touch me.
The next morning, when I returned, Sabina came to clean, she found the envelope. I watched from the hall as she bent, picked it up, turned it over in her hands. She stared at him for a couple of seconds before she slipped it into a drawer, assuming I had read it.
I hadn’t. At least not yet. I was preoccupied with a lot of things to start reading a mere letter, when she could easily send a text across or drop a message. Maybe later.
Elodie’s POV
The moment I stepped into the house, one of Dante’s houses in south Bellini, the silence hit me. Not the peaceful kind, no, this one in particular was heavy, suffocating, almost mocking. Seven years of my life here, and yet it didn’t feel like home. It never had.
I went upstairs without turning on the lights, not wanting to see the walls that had watched me fade into someone I didn’t recognize anymore. My suitcase lay open on the bed, and I started to pack. Slowly, methodically, like if I lingered too long, the weight of every single thing would crush me.
Clothes. A few books. Toiletries. That was all I could take. How strange, to look around at rooms filled with things I once thought we’d built together, and realize none of it was mine.
On the dresser sat the two cards Dante had given me after we married, his own version of support. One for me, one for Liora. I’d never touched hers. That money was hers, untouched, pure. Mine… I rarely used it for myself. I’d walk into stores and always come out with something for him, name them… ties, cufflinks, shirts he probably never noticed. As if clothing him could make him see me. Could cloth the cracks forming in our marriage.
For Liora, I gave everything I had. For Dante, I gave everything I was. And for myself? Nothing.
My card still held more than four million. A laugh escaped me, and it was low, bitter, empty. For Dante, that was pocket change. For me, it was the proof of all the years I starved myself of even the smallest kindness just to make sure he and Liora had everything.
I transferred it out. My hands didn’t tremble. I left both cards on the dresser. Tombstones of a marriage that was already buried.
Dragging my suitcase to the door, I didn’t look back. Looking back meant begging, and I had begged enough in silence. I closed the door as though I were closing the last Chapter of a book I’d never wanted to read.
The apartment I went to wasn’t big. Just a place I’d bought years ago, back when I was foolish enough to think Dante might one day need me to have a space of my own. I had never lived there, but someone had kept it clean. The walls smelled faintly of polish, waiting for a life that never came.
That night, after scrubbing and making up the bed, I collapsed, exhausted. My body ached, but my heart ached worse. I thought I’d sleep, but at one a.m. sharp, the alarm I had set years ago went off.
Liora.
I grabbed the phone before the sound could tear me apart. For so long, I’d set that alarm to make sure I could call her while she had breakfast in the Bellini Pack. At first, she’d cry into the phone, begging me to come, her little voice trembling with how much she missed me. But children learn. They adapt. Her tone had shifted over the years— from “Mama, I need you” to “Mama, I’m busy p>
She was slipping away from me, piece by piece, and I couldn’t stop it.
My thumb hovered over her name, my chest tightening as if I were being torn open from the inside. I wanted to hear her voice. I wanted to beg her not to forget me. But what good would it do? She already belonged more to Dante’s world than to mine.
With tears burning at the corners of my eyes, I deleted the alarm. For the first time in years, I let the silence answer me back.
Somewhere, in Dante’s grand dining room, Liora was probably eating breakfast. Maybe she noticed I hadn’t called. Maybe she even felt relief. No endless reminders, no mother clinging to her over the phone. And Dante, if he noticed, he wouldn’t care enough to ask why.
That thought gutted me, but I smiled anyway. A broken, bitter smile that tasted like salt and ashes.
The next morning, I walked into Dante’s company and handed in my resignation. The HR director looked at me like I had lost my mind. Maybe I had. But the truth was simple: I had joined this empire for Dante. And now I was leaving it for myself.
For the first time in six years, I wasn’t waiting for his approval. I wasn’t waiting for Liora to run back into my arms. I wasn’t waiting to be loved.
I was just… leaving. And it broke me that no one would even chase after me.