Chapter 4

Ava POV:

That fleeting moment of memory meant nothing. I knew that. It was just a ghost, a glitch in his carefully constructed lie.

As Maya and I wait for a cab outside, the sound of a familiar, throaty laugh drifts from a nearby alley. I glance over, my stomach turning to ice.

It's Ethan and Chloe, pressed against the brick wall. His hands are under her short dress, her moans echoing in the narrow space. This was another violation of Omertà. The code wasn't just about not snitching to the cops. It was about discretion. Honor. Not behaving like a common street thug in an alleyway, especially not with your side piece when your fiancée is right there. He wasn't just being a cheating asshole; he was embarrassing the family name, showing a weakness and lack of control that his enemies would pounce on.

The sight fills me with a cold, clean disgust. There's no jealousy left, only a profound sense of revulsion.

Just as our cab pulls up, Ethan's black sedan screeches to a halt beside it. He stumbles out of the alley, buttoning his shirt, his face flushed. Chloe is right behind him, a smug look on her face.

"Need a ride?" he asks, his voice casual, as if I hadn't just witnessed him defiling our future in the most humiliating way possible.

Against my better judgment, and Maya's silent, furious glare, I say yes. I don't know why. Maybe I needed one last, final push. One more look into the abyss before I jumped.

The car ride is thick with tension. Chloe, smug in the passenger seat, talks about her new brand partnership-a venture I know is funded by Reed family money from their illegal operations. Ethan keeps glancing at me in the rearview mirror, trying to gauge my reaction. He even has the audacity to ask me about our past.

"So," he says, his voice light. "What were we like?"

Before I can answer, the world explodes.

He yanks the wheel hard. The car swerves, tires screaming, and collides with a parked truck with a deafening crunch of metal. It wasn't an accident. It was a message. A demonstration for a rival family, and we were the props. My head slams against the window. Pain, sharp and blinding, shoots through my arm. The world goes blurry.

Through the ringing in my ears, I hear sirens. The flashing lights of an ambulance paint the scene in stark, terrifying strobes. Ethan's Soldiers are already there, materializing from the shadows like wraiths. His absolute power on full display.

A paramedic leans into the car. "Who's hurt worst?"

I can taste blood. "My arm," I manage to say. "I think it's broken. And my head..."

But Ethan is already pointing at Chloe, who is sobbing hysterically about a scratch on her leg.

"Her," he says, his voice cold and commanding. "Take her first. She needs to go now."

He is choosing his Associate, his piece on the side, over his fiancée, the future mother of the heir. He is doing it in front of his men, in front of strangers. It's the ultimate public humiliation, a declaration of my worthlessness.

They pull Chloe from the car, strapping her onto a gurney as she continues to wail.

I'm left alone in the twisted metal, the pain in my arm a dull throb compared to the cold, dead knot forming in my soul. They've abandoned me. The family has abandoned me.

As the ambulance pulls away, its siren wailing into the night, I know with chilling certainty that whatever was left between Ethan and me is now officially over.

It's dead. Buried in the wreckage of this car.