All Chapters of After Eighteen Broken Promises: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

The next morning, before the fog had even lifted over New York, I started packing.Most of the expensive dresses in my closet were there to match Dominic's social events. I didn't touch a single one. I only folded a few sharp black shirts into my suitcase.Halfway through packing, I heard footsteps in the hallway.Dominic pushed the door open. He was still wearing his black suit, exhaustion written between his brows.But when he got close, that heavy, sickly sweet, aggressive perfume smell exploded in the air like an invisible slap across my face.That was Mia's scent.Dominic used to always say he had scent allergies. He wouldn't let me use anything with fragrance in the house.To accommodate him, for eight years I'd only bought unscented skincare products.Now it was clear, I thought. His so-called "allergy" was just selective targeting. Against me."Mia sobered up too late last night. She kept complaining about her wound hurting. I got a hotel room to stay with her. Didn't come home

St. Mary's Hospital in Manhattan, private room.The smell of disinfectant mixed with sickly sweet perfume. It was giving me a headache.Dominic sat by the bed, clumsily peeling an apple.Mia dangled her bandaged ankle in front of him, her voice all cutesy. "Dom~ Thank you for staying with me. I saw a necklace in a magazine today. It's only five million dollars. Will you buy it for me?"Dominic's hand froze mid-peel. An inexplicable irritation pressed on his chest.This month, she'd already burned through a billion dollars of family money.A thought suddenly flashed through his mind. Elena never did this. Even when he was at his lowest, she'd only quietly helped him balance every single account.He was about to say something when his phone suddenly vibrated like crazy.He swiped the screen open. His whole body went rigid, like he'd been nailed to the chair. The half-peeled apple dropped to the floor and rolled into the shadows, covered in dust.On the screen was my last text message.Hi

Dominic sat in the leather seat of his private jet. The cabin was deathly silent except for the low rumble of the engines.He clutched a stack of crumpled documents. His knuckles were white from gripping so hard.They were the registration forms from City Hall. And a property transfer memo the lawyers had drafted overnight.He pulled out his fountain pen and wrote his name in the signature box he'd left blank for three whole years. He pressed down so hard he nearly tore through the paper. The sound of the pen scratching across the page was especially harsh in the quiet cabin.He should've written these three characters three years ago at St. Patrick's Cathedral. But he'd dragged it out for seventeen times because of the so-called "bigger picture" and "training the new recruit."This stroke felt like he was nailing three years of debt into the paper. But the other half of the page was empty. Just blank space where Elena's signature should've been."Faster." Dominic didn't look up. His v

That night, I stood by the massive floor-to-ceiling window with a glass of wine, overlooking the Seine at night.The streetlights below glowed yellow. I saw Dominic curled up in the shadows at the corner, like an abandoned stone statue.The rain tore violently at his expensive tailored suit. But he seemed oblivious. He just stared motionlessly at my window with its warm light.He stood in the rain like that all night. Let the cold eat away at him.I watched that once all-powerful figure blur in the rain. I felt nothing. If anything, I found it ironic.For eight years, I'd waited for him countless times on New York streets late at night. Waited for him to leave Mia's apartment. Waited for him to leave those noisy drinking parties.Back then, the rain was so much colder than this.Without expression, I reached out and pulled the heavy curtains completely shut.Dominic. Paris rain is cold. That's eight years you owe me.Suffer through it slowly. For the rest of this life, I'll never look

But I didn't care at all. I poured all my energy into expanding the medical project's territory.Starting from Paris, my network spread like a spider's web to London, Berlin, Zurich.I was no longer the shadow who balanced books for others. I'd become the judge on this chain of interests.In the third year, the project expanded back to New York.When I landed at JFK, the sunlight was blinding. I took off my sunglasses and looked at the skyline I hadn't seen in so long.My best friend Sophia leaned against a red Ferrari, waving hard at me.After I got in the car, Sophia hit the gas.The car was going fast. She kept stealing glances at me in the rearview mirror."Just say it." I leaned back in the seat with my eyes closed."Dominic's dead."I opened my eyes. My gaze swept over the rapidly receding street scene outside. Inside, I felt perfectly calm. Not a ripple."Two years ago, he was ambushed on his way back to New York from Paris." Sophia's voice mixed with the engine noise. "They pla