Once, these hands had been my ticket out. My value. The only thing that made Isabella Mancini more than just a pawn in an alliance marriage. Now they were nothing but dead weight wrapped in gauze.
"Could you help me get a new phone? I need to contact—"
The authorities, I almost said. But what law existed for women like me? What cop would take a statement against the Volpe Syndicate?
Before I could finish, the door slammed open with a bang that echoed off the walls like a warning shot.
Nico had arrived.
He filled the doorway the way he filled every room—with the cold, suffocating presence of a man born to command. His expression was taut and grim, jaw set like marble, eyes the color of a winter storm. But when he saw me—covered in bandages, IV drip threading into my arm, face hollow from a night of unmedicated hell—he paused.
Something flickered across his features.
Surprise, perhaps.
Or a slight softening, so brief I might have imagined it.
His lips parted.
Still, no words came.
Of course not. The selective mutism that had plagued him since Massima's departure three years ago hadn't lifted for his wife. It never had. I was not the woman who held the key to his voice.
He grabbed a notepad and pen from the bedside table—the same way he'd communicated with me throughout our entire blood-bound union—and scrawled a few lines in his sharp, elegant hand.
"I didn't know you were hurt this badly last night. I'll contact specialists through our European network for your hand."
I let out a cold laugh.
The sound scraped against my throat like broken glass.
"No need." My voice was steady, even as something inside me crumbled. "I'll fix my own hand myself."
His brow furrowed slightly—a crack in the mask. Clearly displeased with my response. The Young Don of the Volpe Family was not accustomed to refusal.
I wanted to ask about the dissolution.
About the blood oath I'd shattered when I signed those papers.
But then I thought better of it. What was the point? He'd made his choice the moment he left me bleeding on that floor.
He pulled a checkbook from inside his tailored suit jacket—Brioni, I noted distantly, the kind of fabric that cost more than most soldiers earned in a month—wrote down a figure, and placed it on the table between us.
"This is compensation. I hope you won't blame Massima."
The moment I saw her name, my whole body began to tremble uncontrollably.
Massima.
Massima.