Page 145 of Rosetti Family New York
“I wanted you to hear it from me,” she says.
“Hear what?”
Her mouth presses into a tight line, the way it does when she’s about to deliver a killing blow. “Sorry.”
The word is heavy. Full. Final. It doesn’t feel like the end of something. It feels like the end of everything.
“Dom,” she finally says, and there’s something in her voice I almost don’t recognize. Vulnerability. “I didn’t want this to happen. I didn’t plan it. I gave him the location of the warehouse, but I thought after that I was out.” Her eyes dart to mine and then away again. “Baba planted that tracker in my coat, you know.”
“I see.” It’s all I can manage to get out.
“I wanted to say something else,” she says.
Her voice is low and shaky, and I think for a second it might break. She might break.
“Go ahead.”
Her hands twist in front of her, and that’s how I know she’s scared. Not of me. Of what she’s about to say.
“You were right,” she says. “About everything. About my father. About your family, how I had them round the wrong way.”
I can see a small tremble in her shoulders as she leans forward.
“Obviously”
I give her nothing else, even though watching her fall apart makes me want to reach across the table and stop this whole conversation.
She doesn’t look at me when she says it. Just studies the splintered edge of the table.
“If you want to end this,” she says, “you can. I won’t fight you. You can divorce me. Or annul it. Or whatever makes it easier.”
She takes a breath. The kind you take before you dive deep.
“You deserve someone who didn’t hand your empire over on a silver platter.”
I stare at her. Hard. Long.
She still doesn’t look up.
“You done?” I ask.
She blinks. “What?”
“I said—are you done?” I repeat patiently, leaning back in my chair. I don’t take my eyes off her.
She finally meets my eyes. And for the first time in weeks, I see her. Not the mask. Not the spy. Not the name she was born with.
Just Besiana. The woman I nearly lost.
I lean across the table slowly.
She doesn’t flinch. Brave girl.
“You want me to divorce you?” I ask, stopping inches from her. “You think I want out?”
A small pause. “I think I broke something,” she whispers, and it nearly shatters me.
I reach up and gently, deliberately, cup her jaw. Her eyes close like she’s bracing for pain.
