Chapter 3

I spent the rest of the day completing the handover and didn't finish until evening.

Marco came into my office and placed an opera ticket on my desk.

"You know the Don. He doesn't know how to apologize, and he doesn't always think things through. But he does care about you."

"You've wanted him to take you to La Traviata for years. He had the best seats in the house reserved for tonight."

"Eight o'clock. Meet him outside the opera house. Please be there, Sofia."

I stared at the ticket for a long moment.

It was Raffaele's version of an olive branch. I knew that. I also knew it was meant to make up for what he'd done.

In the end, I accepted it. After all, he owed me that much.

At eight o'clock, I arrived outside the opera house. Raffaele was waiting alone at the bottom of the steps in a long black coat.

But when we entered the private box, I found Gianna already seated inside.

When I stopped in the doorway, Raffaele offered an easy explanation.

"Gianna has wanted to see this opera since she was a child. There happened to be an extra seat."

I said nothing and took my place.

In seven years together, I had asked him countless times to take me to an opera so we could feel like an ordinary couple for one evening.

Every time, he would stroke my hair and soothe me with the same excuses.

"I'm the head of the Moretti family. Appearing in public makes me a target. What if someone hurts you to get to me?"

"I'm only trying to keep you safe."

Yet ever since Gianna came home, he had accompanied her to horse races and galas. He had even rented an entire private island for her birthday.

His old assurances echoed in my mind, each one mocking me for ever believing him.

Halfway through the opera, Gianna suddenly clutched her chest. Her face went pale as she leaned toward Raffaele.

"Raffaele, I can't catch my breath. Will you take me home?"

He was on his feet at once.

"Gianna isn't feeling well. I'll take her out through the side entrance. Have the driver bring you home when the performance is over."

He didn't ask what I wanted. He simply escorted Gianna out of the box.

I stayed in my seat and watched the rest of the opera in silence.

I would no longer let a man who didn't love me make me miserable or afraid. Whatever love and time I had left belonged to me.

After the performance, I went to a private hospital.

The pain from the cancer was coming more often, and ordinary painkillers no longer touched it.

As a doctor administered a stronger injection, the television mounted on the wall played the evening news.

Raffaele was shown escorting a lady out of the opera house.

He had called in more than a dozen armored vehicles and shut down an entire street so no reporter could photograph her face.

The headline read: MORETTI DON LOCKS DOWN CITY STREET TO PROTECT SECRET LOVER.

I drifted off before the story ended. Somewhere through the medication, I felt my phone vibrating over and over in my pocket.

It was after midnight when I finally made it home.

From a distance, I saw a tall figure standing outside the door.

Raffaele.

For years, whenever family business kept him out late, I had waited outside conference rooms with hot soup and a change of clothes.

Sometimes I stayed there all night.

He never appreciated it. He said I wasted too much energy on things that didn't matter, that I didn't behave like a proper adviser to the family.

I never imagined the day would come when Raffaele would be the one waiting for me to come home.