MY MAFIA HUSBAND TOASTED THE WOMAN HE LOVED AT OUR ANNIVERSARY DINNER… HE THOUGHT I’D BEG, BUT HIS DEAD MOTHER HAD ALREADY GIVEN ME THE ONE THING THAT COULD BURY HIM. THE MOMENT MY BRUISED FACE APPEARED, EVERYONE’S EYES TURNED TOWARDS THE MUSCULAR BODY OF……

They let you leave one life and enter another.

My phone buzzed.

Gabriel.

Dinner still on? he texted.

I smiled before I could stop myself.

Yes, I typed back. But somewhere with terrible dessert. I’m trying to preserve my standards.

His reply came instantly.

Impossible task. See you in twenty.

I slipped the phone away and looked once more at the river.

Dominic had wanted me to beg.

He had wanted tears, bargaining, collapse, the public spectacle of a woman reduced.

Instead, he handed me a map to the truth and assumed I would be too broken to read it.

That was his final mistake.

The city moved around me, restless and alive, lights coming on one by one in windows high above the dark water.

Homes, I thought.

Not houses.

Not assets.

Not leverage.

Homes.

Then I put Rosa’s token back in my pocket, turned from the railing, and walked toward the life I had built with my own hands.