Kimberly sat in the dim light of her apartment, staring at the half-empty glass of water in her hand. Her reflection in the surface of the liquid looked blurred, distorted, fragile. The more she stared at it, the more the thought pressed down on her: Niccolo cannot be happy without me.No matter how much he pretended, no matter who he surrounded himself with, his joy belonged to her. To accept otherwise was to accept defeat, and Kimberly had never been a woman who accepted defeat.She clenched the glass tighter, anger buzzing through her veins.For over three years she had been with him, through his poverty, through the endless nights when he had nothing to give her. He couldn’t buy her expensive clothes, he couldn’t drive her around in flashy cars, he couldn’t even promise her security. But she had stayed.Yes, she had been unfaithful. Yes, Gregory had tempted her with the kind of life Niccolo couldn’t dream of offering back then. But at least she had stayed. She had endured Lyla’s t

The silence of the past two days weighed heavily on Niccolo. His phone lay on the nightstand, screen dim but filled with unanswered calls and unread messages from Ariana. Each notification that flashed only tightened the knot in his chest. He hadn’t deleted them but he open them either. He refused to read a single one.When he closed his eyes at night, he sometimes saw her face, pale with shock when he told her it was over. Other times, he heard her voice in his head, dripping with condescension as she told Selene she could buy her freedom with money. That was the memory that stayed longest. That was the memory that burned.Selene had tried more than once to speak to him about it. She wasn’t foolish, she knew the storm he carried inside. But Niccolo had cut her off every time. Just the right before, after dinner, she sat next to him in bed staring at him. “What is it?” He asked. “Nothing. It's just, I didn't think you could get this mad at someone. You're always so kind and gentle.”

Niccolo leaned back in his chair, arms crossed, watching Jenna as she stirred the untouched coffee in front of her. He had thought about this moment in his mind a dozen times, and now that it was happening, he felt nothing —no guilt, no hesitation, just a strange impatience gnawing at him.“Jenna,” he said flatly, his tone clipped. “I don’t need you anymore, so let's not see each other again.”The words landed like shards of glass.Jenna blinked twice, her lips parting in disbelief. She leaned forward slightly, her eyes searching his face, desperate to find some trace of humor or regret. “Wait… what? Are you serious?”Niccolo let out a long sigh, rolling his eyes as though her question were absurd. He pushed his chair back, the scrape of wood against tile sharp in the quiet cafe. “Of course I’m serious.”He rose to leave, but Jenna’s trembling hand shot out and clutched at his sleeve. Her grip was desperate, her voice breaking. “Please, Niccolo… if I did something wrong, just tell me.

The room carried an air of stillness when Niccolo stepped inside, the kind of quiet that weighed on the chest. He could feel a dozen eyes on him, but his focus locked immediately on the frail yet dignified woman seated at the center of the parlor. Her hair, streaked with white, was pulled back into a neat bun, and her gaze lingered on him with such sharpness it almost cut.Joy. His grandmother’s sister.For a heartbeat, he felt as if the floor beneath him had shifted.The young woman who had let him in, Cora, hovered by the doorway, watching him with curiosity. Her golden brown eyes had startled him when she first opened the door, eyes that seemed to tug at something deep inside him. But now his attention was entirely on Joy, who was slowly rising from her seat with the help of one of the young men beside her.Her lips parted, and her eyes glistened. “God help me, I thought I’d never see his face again.”The room stirred with murmurs. The young men sitting nearby exchanged glances. On

The rain had washed the city clean by morning, leaving the streets glittering under pale sunlight. Niccolo sat in his living room, a stack of folders spread across the glass table before him. Beside him, the mayor’s lawyer, a lean man named Crawford, he adjusted his glasses, flipping through documents with meticulous care.“I’ve traced the ownership of your father’s forty percent of the Blue Estate,” Crawford said at last, closing one file and sliding it forward. Niccolo stopped him with a raise of his hand. “Are you sure it's okay for you discuss this with me behind the mayor's back?”“It's alright. I already informed him and he said he has a meeting. I'll fill him in later.”“Alright then.”“Right, so as I was saying, It’s currently being controlled by a single man. I’ve already filed a court summons, but…” he hesitated, choosing his words carefully, “…the man refuses to appear in court unless he speaks to you personally.”Niccolo leaned back in his chair, arms crossing. His sharp