Chapter 7

December 31st. The final page of the calendar I'd been silently tearing away.

I took my time with the ritual — foundation blended until it looked like bare skin, liner drawn sharp enough to cut. I chose a black silk dress that hit just below the knee, draped Dominic's cashmere coat over my shoulders. Without my usual armor of dark blazers and concealed holsters, the woman in the mirror looked like someone I barely recognized. Softer. Almost civilian.

I stood beneath the lights at Rockefeller Center, waiting. Afternoon bled into dusk. Dusk thickened into night. The ice rink below churned with skaters, their laughter rising and dissolving in the frozen air like breath.

Dominic never came.

My phone screen dimmed and flared, flared and dimmed. Finally, after a silence that stretched long enough to strangle, I pressed his number.

It rang until the voicemail picked up. I called again. This time he answered — voice ragged, distracted, half-swallowed by background noise.

"Sera, Valentina collapsed at the warehouse. Some kind of reaction — I'm at Mount Sinai with her. I'll get there as soon as I can—"

The line went dead.

My stomach dropped through the floor. My thumb, moving on its own, opened Instagram.

Valentina had posted six minutes ago.

The photo showed her in black lace, draped across a leather chaise in what I recognized as the back room of one of the family's private clubs. A champagne coupe dangled from her fingers. Beside her on the cushion — an unopened box of Trojans and a man's watch I'd know anywhere, because I'd chosen it myself.

Ringing in the New Year exactly where I belong. ? #HisQueen #Position82

My vision whited out. Then, from somewhere deep and cracked, a laugh clawed its way up my throat. I stood there laughing in the middle of Rockefeller Plaza — laughing until my ribs ached and my eyes burned and passing strangers gave me a wide berth.

How many lies, Dominic? How many times did you look me in the eye and lie?

The city blazed around me. Manhattan on New Year's Eve — a spectacle designed to make loneliness feel cinematic. I steadied my trembling hand and raised my phone toward the skyline. If Dominic wasn't here to take my picture, I'd take my own. From now on, I was the only witness my life required.

I walked south along Fifth Avenue, photographing storefronts and streetlights the way a soldier photographs a place they know they'll never return to.

At ten, Dominic called again. "Sera, it's taking longer than I thought. Find somewhere warm. I'll be there."

I watched couples pressed together on the sidewalk, sharing warmth I hadn't felt in months. My knuckles ached from gripping the phone. "How much longer do you expect me to stand here?"

"Before midnight. I swear — I'll be there before midnight. We'll take your photos, ring it in together."

He was with her right now. Probably still warm from her. And here he was, making promises with the same mouth.

I stared into the river of headlights streaming down the avenue. "I'll wait until twelve," I said quietly. "Not a minute past."

Midnight would be our farewell. If he failed to show, he'd never lay eyes on me again.

I hung up and leaned against the stone balustrade outside St. Patrick's, watching the city heave and glitter around me.

Eleven o'clock. Eleven-thirty. Eleven fifty-eight.

Times Square roared two blocks east, the countdown thundering through the streets. Around me, strangers grabbed each other and screamed the final seconds into the sky. Fireworks cracked open overhead, showering gold across a thousand upturned faces, and everywhere — everywhere — people kissed.

Dominic never appeared.

On my phone, Valentina had posted again.

Position 83 and counting. Manhattan's skyline has nothing on our view tonight. ?

Fireworks reflected off my screen, painting her words in flashes of gold and white. I locked the phone. Slipped it into my coat pocket. My heartbeat was so even it almost frightened me — the calm that comes not from peace, but from a decision already made.

Wind sliced across my cheeks. I didn't flinch. I stood there until the crowds thinned and the streets quieted and the last drunken revelers stumbled toward cabs, and then I hailed one of my own.

Settling into the backseat, my phone vibrated. Not Dominic. A message in an encrypted Signal thread — the new West Coast crew.

Welcome to Seattle, Boss. ? Happy New Year, Serafina.

I drew a long breath and typed back: Happy New Year. Looking forward to what we build together.

Then I opened Dominic's contact, stared at it for three seconds, and blocked every number, every channel, every thread that connected his world to mine.

Back at the penthouse, I moved with the efficiency of someone who'd rehearsed this exit a hundred times. I folded the cashmere coat and laid it across the arm of the sofa — the last artifact of his generosity I'd allow to touch my skin.

From the kitchen drawer I pulled a notepad and wrote in steady, unhurried script:

Dominic — I'm gone. Give Valentina my regards. I'm sure you two will be very happy destroying what's left of each other.

I placed the note on the counter where he set his keys every night, centered it precisely, and turned my back on five years without a single glance over my shoulder. The suitcase wheels hissed against the marble foyer. The elevator doors closed. The lobby was empty. The street was dark.

Dawn broke pale and silver over Teterboro Airport.

I changed in the private terminal's washroom — shedding the silk dress, pulling on tailored black trousers, a fitted blazer, and pinning the twin Moretti crests to my lapels. The gold serpents caught the fluorescent light as I studied myself in the mirror. No softness now. No stranger. Just Serafina Moretti, territory boss, looking exactly like the woman she'd spent five years pretending she didn't want to become.

Outside, a chartered Gulfstream idled on the tarmac, fuselage gleaming in the early light. Enzo's parting gift — or perhaps his investment. With that family, there was never much difference.

I climbed the stairs, settled into the cabin, and buckled the harness across my chest. Through the oval window, Manhattan's skyline rose in the distance, gray and remote as a memory already fading.

The pilot's voice crackled through the intercom. "Clearance received. Ready when you are, Ms. Moretti."

"Take us up," I said.

The engines surged. The jet lunged forward, gathered speed, and lifted — climbing fast and steep through a sky streaked with the first coral light of a new year.

I pressed my palm against the cold glass and watched New York fall away beneath me.

From today, my empire lay west. And the man I'd left behind would never find his way into it.