And he had never once looked at me the way he was looking at her now.
I forced myself to look away. The bile rose in my throat, but I swallowed it down. Mancini women did not break in public.
"Signorina Mancini? Are you still there?"
Marco was still talking. Something about flight arrangements. Security details. The Genovese territory protocols.
I hung up.
Paid the bill with cash—untraceable, the way I'd been taught. Grabbed my luggage. Walked out of the café with my spine straight and my face composed.
Then I crossed the street.
My heels clicked against the cobblestones with deliberate precision. Each step carried me closer to the table where my husband—my former husband—sat with the woman who had stolen my research, my reputation, and apparently, whatever remained of his capacity for human warmth.
I stopped directly in front of them.
The dissolution papers I had been clutching the entire way—I slammed them down on the table.
Hard.
The impact sent Massima's fresh-squeezed juice sloshing over the rim of its crystal glass. Nico's espresso followed, dark liquid spreading across the white linen like a bloodstain.
The coffee splashed onto Massima's cream-colored dress—a designer piece, no doubt purchased with Volpe money.
She gasped. Theatrical. Wounded.
The next second, Nico's hand shot out and seized my right wrist.
My damaged wrist.
The pain was immediate and blinding, radiating up through the network of poorly-healed bones and severed tendons. I bit the inside of my cheek hard enough to taste copper.
I would not give him the satisfaction of seeing me flinch.
His dark eyes met mine. Cold. Assessing. The same expression he wore when conducting Family business—when deciding whether a man would live or die based on his usefulness to the Volpe empire.
He didn't glance at the papers.
Didn't acknowledge what they represented.
Three years of marriage. A blood oath sworn before God and the Commission. An alliance between two Families that had cost my father political capital and my mother sleepless nights.
All of it reduced to a stack of legal documents soaking in spilled espresso.
A few seconds of silence stretched between us.
Then, as if deciding that confronting me wasn't worth the effort—as if I wasn't worth the effort—he released my wrist.
He walked around to Massima's side of the table.
Pulled napkins from the silver dispenser.