Chapter 9
Aurora’s POV
The elevator doors slid apart and something inside me split clean through the center.
Enzo stood within the narrow space, tall and
commanding as ever, his dark suit cut perfectly to his broad frame. Yet it wasn’t the sight of him that locked my breath in my chest.
It was the woman tucked beneath his arm.
Sophie leaned into his side, her head close to his shoulder, and he held her the same way he once held me.
Her son stood before them, blissfully unaware of the ruin unfolding behind his small back.
My mother’s fingers tightened around mine. She must have felt the tremor racing through me.
The elevator wasn’t crowded. There was room for us, for my parents and me, if we chose to step inside. A few passengers shifted politely, making space, waiti 12:28
< Chapter 9
I stayed frozen.
Enzo looked up then, his gaze colliding with mine, and I searched his face for anything.
There was nothing.
Not even relief that I was alive and standing here after days of silence.
No surprise.
No concern.
No reaction at all, as though my absence had barely registered, as though I was no more than a passing inconvenience in an otherwise orderly life.
And now he stood there, holding another woman, while I bled five feet away.
Someone behind me sighed, sharp with impatience.
I stepped back, drawing my mother with me, and let the doors glide-shut.
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His face vanished behind steel, and only then did my lungs remember their purpose.
“Aurora?” My mother’s voice trembled. “What just happened?”
I couldn’t speak. Not here, not in a hospital hallway thick with strangers and listening ears. In our world, walls talked. A single overheard sentence could travel from a nurse’s station to a rival family’s dinner table by nightfall. I pressed the call button again and waited, my hand shaking against the cold railing.
The last three days crashed over me all at once.
I’d been holed up in a motel at the edge of town, the kind that rented by the hour and never asked for names.
The kind of place no one from the Family would ever think to look. The sheets reeked of disinfectant, and the walls were so thin I heard every argument next door.
I fell asleep crying. I woke up crying. I ate through tears, unable to taste anything beyond salt and grief.
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And Enzo never came.
He didn’t knock on the door and demand answers. My phone never lit up with his name. For all I knew, he hadn’t even noticed I was gone.
Because she was there.
The elevator arrived again. It was empty.
I ushered my parents inside and pressed the button for the ground floor, forcing myself to stay upright until we were far away from this place.
When we got to my parents’ house, I helped my mother onto the couch, stacking pillows behind her back and pulling a blanket over her legs despite her protests. My father lingered nearby, adrift in his own living room, unsure where to put his hands or his worry.
When there was nothing left to fix, I sank into the armchair across from her and let the exhaustion settle
into my bones.
“Aurora,” my mother said gently. “Tell me what’s going qn between you and Enzo.”
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I stared down at my hands, at the ring still circling my finger like a quiet mockery.
“I want a divorce.”
I said it finally, my chest heavy, my hand on my stomach.
She didn’t argue nor flinch. She simply waited.
“His first love is back,” I went on, my voice splintering. Tears spilled freely now. “He doesn’t want me, Mom. She’s the one he loves.”
I shattered.
Tears fell from my eyes. I had cried so many times for him and I didn’t want to cry anymore, but unfortunately, here I was.
My mother pulled me into her arms.
“Whatever you choose,” she whispered, “I’m with you. If you stay and fight, I’ll stand beside you. If you leave and never return, I’ll help you leave. You’re my daughter, and nothing matters more than your happiness.”
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I clung to her, letting her words soothe the ache.
My father crossed the room. When I looked up, he stood by the window, shoulders bowed beneath a weight I’d never seen before.
“This is on me,” he said softly.
“Dad…”
“If I’d been a stronger boss, none of this would’ve happened.” He faced me, guilt heavy in his eyes. “When the Serranos’ gunmen came for our territory, they gutted everything I’d built because I failed to protect it. Enzo’s family saved what remained of ours, and I repaid the debt with you.” His voice cracked. “A marriage to seal an alliance. I handed over my daughter like she was another asset on the table, and now I watch him hurt you.”
“You couldn’t have known.”
“I should have.” He knelt beside me, taking my hand. “I should have demanded better terms. Better guarantees. I thought you were happy.” His grip trembled. “I’m sorry, Aurora. I failed you.”
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There was nothing I could say.
Enzo’s POV
The house was empty when I returned.
Aurora was with her parents. Her mother had just been released from the hospital. She’d return in a few days, maybe a week.
She always did.
I called my mother first.
“She’s safe,” I said. “I saw her at the hospital.”
Relief flooded her voice. “Thank God. I’m coming over.”
She hung up before I could respond, and twenty minutes later she and Jenna were standing in my living room, scanning the space as though Aurora might appear.
“Where is she?” Jenna snapped.
“With her mother.”
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My mother’s expression hardened. “And you’re here? Alone?”
“They don’t need me hovering.”
“Hovering?” She scoffed. “Your wife’s mother just left the hospital and you can’t be bothered to show up?”
I didn’t answer.
Jenna folded her arms. “You need to talk to her. She disappeared for days. You don’t get to wait this out.”
“I’m not waiting.” My voice stayed calm. “She needed space. When she’s ready, she’ll come home.”
My mother shook her head. “This is why she’s leaving you. You treat her like an afterthought.”
“She’s not divorcing me.”
Her gaze softened with something like pity. “One day you’ll wake up, and she’ll be gone.”
They didn’t understand her. None of them did.
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Aurora loved me. She’d built herself around this
marriage. Women like her didn’t walk away. They
endured.
Still, the warnings lingered.
“I said she’s not leaving,” I repeated. “This conversation is
over.”
My mother studied me for a long moment.
“Wait and see,” she said quietly.
Then she left, Jenna following.
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