The court clerk's voice was flat, devoid of inflection—a man who had witnessed too many broken bonds to feel anything anymore. Perhaps among the countless cases that crossed his desk, this was merely the simplest. A woman walking away from one of the most powerful Families on the Eastern Seaboard. Just another file.
I drew a slow breath. My hands trembled against the phone, but I forced my voice steady.
"Understood."
I ended the call and hailed a car back to the property.
I stood at the entrance of the penthouse, letting my gaze drift across the space that had once belonged to us—the Italian marble floors, the antique furniture imported from Sicily, the grandfather clock that had witnessed three generations of Volpe men. All of it, cold now. Empty.
Then I began packing his things.
I wasn't planning to leave.
I was going to purge every trace of Nico Volpe from these walls.
"Signora Volpe, a delivery for you."
A knock at the door. A courier in a dark suit—one of the Family's men, no doubt.
He extended an envelope, cream-colored, expensive.
"I'm not Signora Volpe anymore."
I took the card and heard the words leave my mouth, foreign and final.