Vicky turned, her perfect red lips curling into a smile. “Oh, Sophia! We were just having a snack. There’s only enough for two, but I’m sure we can—”
“I’m fine.” I cut her off, stepping forward.
I slid the document across the polished mahogany desk, the rustle of paper unnaturally loud in the silent study. James barely glanced up from his whiskey with his glass froze midway to his lips. James’ eyes narrowed slightly. “What’s this?”
“The university needs a signed safety liability form,” I flipped it open to the signature page.
“For my research project,” I swallowed. “Since you’re my only family now.”
The truth sat heavy between us. My parents had been gone for years, killed in a suspicious car accident that first pushed me into James’ world. He knew better than anyone how alone I was.
James frowned, “Let me see that—” My nerves suddenly tightened like piano wires. He never asked to read anything. Normally he’d just sign whatever university paperwork I put in front of him without a second glance.
Why today? Why now?
“Oh James,” Vicky laughed, placing a hand on his arm. “You’re too serious! It’s just a form. You remember how many forms we had to sign for the charity gala last month?”
As the heiress to Rossi Enterprises, one of the Moretti family’s most important business partners, Vicky had moved effortlessly in James’ world since her return. They were always together now, at galas, auctions, and those smoky backroom poker games where deals got made. Everywhere James went these days, Vicky seemed to appear at his elbow, her designer dresses complementing his tailored suits like they were a matched set.
He hesitated, then grabbed his fountain pen and signed with a quick flourish, the same way he signed death warrants and business deals.
I took the papers back before he could see the bold “DIVORCE PETITION” header on the first page.
Vicky smirked, “Honestly, James, you treat her more like a kid sister than a wife.”
James didn’t deny it. Just took a sip of whiskey.
I turned and walked out before they could see my hands shake.
The door closed behind me.
I was free.
Walking through the marble halls of the Moretti mansion, I clutched the signed divorce papers in my hand. The ink was barely dry, but the marriage had been over long before today.
I remembered how different James used to be. The way his warm hands would trace my spine when he thought I was asleep. The possessive way he’d pull me into shadowed corners at family gatherings, his mouth hot against mine.
Now he barely looked at me.
My parents died when I was sixteen. Don Moretti, the reigning head of the Moretti mafia family at the time, took me in as a favor to my father—his former driver who’d taken a bullet for him. That’s how I ended up living under the same roof as James Moretti.
James was everything I shouldn’t want. Cold. Dangerous. Ruthless. By twenty-five, he’d already taken over half his father’s operations. The newspapers called him a “young entrepreneur.” The streets knew better.
I kept my distance at first. Made myself invisible. Until that night four years ago, when James came home covered in someone else’s blood.
He found me in the kitchen patching up my own knife wound, a gift from one of his father’s men who thought the boss’s charity case made easy prey.
James didn’t speak. Just took the bandages from my shaking hands and cleaned the cut himself. When his thumb brushed my inner thigh, I should have pushed him away.
Instead, I pulled him closer.
We married three weeks later. A business arrangement, James called it. Protection for me, legitimacy for him. I almost believed him—until Vicky Rossi came back to town and suddenly his late meetings doubled.
Vicky. The Rossi heiress. Their construction empire worked closely with the Moretti family. Since returning after her divorce, And now that her French husband had filed for divorce, she’d become a constant presence——slipping into James’ meetings, his cars, his life.
Last month proved it.
I’d waited six hours at Dante’s—the restaurant James owned through a shell company—for our anniversary dinner. His right-hand man Michael finally showed up at midnight with a diamond bracelet and an excuse about “business troubles.”
The next morning, I saw the photos in the gossip column: James and Vicky at the opera, her fingers tucked in his tuxedo pocket where he usually kept his gun.
That’s when I started planning my exit.
The divorce papers were my final exam. James signed them without reading—too distracted by Vicky feeding him stolen glances and stolen kisses.
Now, standing in the mansion’s gilded foyer, I traced the notary’s embossed seal with my thumb. In a month, this paper would be my ticket to freedom.
No more gilded cages. No more pretending.
James could keep his empire. His violence. His Vicky.
I wanted my life back.
