Chapter 10
Garrett asked to speak to me alone.
I refused.
Not because I feared him.
Because privacy had become one of his favorite tools.
We spoke in the council room with Rafe—my security chief—outside the door and no Evelyn.
Garrett hated that.
“She has nothing to do with us.”
I looked at him.
“Your mother planned our marriage as a correction to my leadership.”
He rubbed his face.
“She had opinions.”
“You had meetings.”
“I made mistakes.”
“One?”
His jaw tightened.
“No.”
Better.
I waited.
He looked older without the tuxedo.
No ring.
No audience.
“I did love you.”
I believed him.
That made things harder, not easier.
“I know.”
His eyes changed.
“You do?”
“Yes.”
He looked almost hopeful.
I killed that carefully.
“Love does not make everything built around it acceptable.”
Silence.
He looked toward the table.
“I got tired of being introduced as Alessia Carbone’s husband.”
There.
Finally.
Not politics.
Not tradition.
Humiliation.
His.
“I had a name before you.”
“Yes.”
“A position.”
“Yes.”
“Then I married you and every room measured me by how close I stood to you.”
I understood.
Truly.
That did not excuse him.
“So you decided to make my mother feel lower.”
His face tightened.
“That wasn’t—”
“Yes.”
I cut him off.
“You needed someone beneath you.”
Silence.
He looked away.
That was the truth he had been avoiding.
Evelyn gave him ideology.
Capos gave him opportunity.
But the cruelty toward Miriam served something personal.
Garrett wanted to feel bigger in my house.
My mother became the easiest person to push downward.
“I never planned to hurt her.”
“You kicked her.”
“I lost control.”
“No.”
I leaned forward.
“You said ‘trash belongs on the floor.’”
His face changed.
“That was not loss of control.”
Pause.
“That was belief.”
He closed his eyes.
Good.
Then he tried the last thing.
“What about what we had?”
I looked at the pale mark on my finger where the wedding ring used to sit.
“We had something real.”
His eyes filled.
I continued.
“You also built something rotten inside it.”
Both truths.
May you like
I would not lie about the love just to make leaving easier.
And I would not use love to make staying possible.
