No Sloppy Seconds Chapter 05
8:59 PM.
The heavy iron doors of the Bunker’s Grand Hall swing open.
Cold candlelight cuts through the dark.
Chicago mafia bosses, New York top hitmen, and West Coast kingpins are all waiting in silence for the new mob queen to step out.
Silas stands at the altar in a flawless black tuxedo.
He adjusts his cufflinks with smooth, arrogant grace. Always in control.
He checks his watch.
“She’s late,” his cousin mutters beside him. “Is the princess really throwing a fit tonight?”
Silas sneers. A cold, mocking smirk touches his lips. “Just a bratty little drama. She thinks I’ll chase her.”
He raises his chin, his voice icy and dead certain.
“She has nowhere else to go. The Moretti family is dead broke. Three minutes. She’ll walk through that door and sign the blood pact on her knees.”
9:00 PM on the dot.
The side door slams open.
A hotel server bursts in, drenched in sweat, almost slipping on the slick marble floor.
“Mr… Mr. Valenti!” The server’s voice shakes so bad it pierces the dead silence.
“Where is she?” Silas frowns, eyes instantly sharp as knives. “Is she throwing a tantrum at the back door?”
The server doesn’t dare speak.
With trembling hands, he holds up a black velvet tray.
Right in the middle sits a platinum diamond ring, glinting cold under the lights.
It carries the crest of the Valenti cartel-the ultimate mark of the syndicate’s queen. The very promise he put on her finger years ago.
The room goes dead quiet.
Silas stares at the ring. His breath hitches. The smirk freezes on his face.
“Where did you get this?” His voice drops to sub-zero, dripping with murder.
“Miss Cleo… left it on the nightstand.” The server shrinks back. “She changed an hour ago. She took the private exit. She’s… she’s gone, sir.”
Silas’s hand hangs in midair, trembling violently for the first time in his life. He snatches the ring. The sharp metal digs deep into his palm, burning like hot lead.
She stripped off her crown. She threw his sacred promise away like trash. And she walked out.
Panic hits his chest like a freight train. His arrogant mask shatters completely, and his heart hammers against his
ribs.
No. This isn’t happening! Cleo wouldn’t leave. She’s loved him for seven whole years! She was supposed to wait at the back door, suck up her tears, take her punishment, and let him hold her and make it up to her tonight!
“Find her!” Silas snaps his head up, eyes bloodshot, roaring like a maniac. “Lock down the airports! Block the docks! Seal every highway in California! Bring my wife back to me! Right fucking now!”
A hundred miles away, an unmarked black SUV tears down the pitch-black interstate.
I sit in the back, watching streetlights blur past. The phone in my hand won’t stop vibrating. I slide the screen open, and a notification pops up-Gia’s latest update.
I hit play. Blaring, chaotic music blasts out. Empty champagne bottles litter a luxury suite as a gang of mobsters throws a wild party. Right in the center, Gia wears my wedding veil, laughing like a maniac.
And in her hands… is my 18th-century antique crown.
My stomach twists into a tight knot. That crown is a century-old Moretti heirloom, and right in the center sits a flawless, one-of-a-kind aquamarine. The second I see that gem, a three-year-old pain rears up like a venomous snake, coiling tight around my heart.
Three years ago. A rainy night in Chicago.
I collapsed on the cold marble floor of my apartment, my white dress soaked in blood. I used every last drop of strength to call Silas, but it wasn’t his voice on the phone. It was Gia, laughing cruel and loud: “Stop acting! Silas is at the track with me tonight. He doesn’t have time for you!” Then she hung up on me.
I lay in that pool of blood for three straight hours. I lost our baby.
I’ll never forget when Silas flew back from his European meeting and rushed to the hospital. The most feared kingpin in North America fell to his knees by my bed, sobbing like a madman. He pulled me to his chest, soaking my clothes with his tears, swearing to give me the whole damn world to make it up to me.
He pulled every string to win that royal aquamarine at an auction, personally setting it into my family crown.
That day, he dropped to one knee, looking at me with eyes so deep I thought I’d drown in them. “Cleo, forgive me. This gem is my life. From now on, every time you bow your head, the entire Syndicate will hold you up.”
I believed him. I thought it was his blood oath to make things right.
And now?
In the video, Gia screams, “Let’s get wild tonight, boys!” She winds her arm back and smashes the heirloom crown straight onto the floor!
A sharp crack echoes as the delicate platinum filigree snaps. The aquamarine-his vow of “forever”-shatters into tiny pieces. The thugs roar in wild cheers, dumping cake and leftover booze onto the crushed pieces, stomping them flat with heavy leather boots.
My hands shake so bad I can barely hold the phone. I bite my lip until I taste copper, a single scalding tear rolling down, which I wipe away with a vengeance.
His love back then was real. But his arrogance and disrespect today are just as real. He thought after putting me on a pedestal, he could trample my dignity just to spoil another woman. He thought a lazy “You’re still the boss’s wife” could wipe away all my humiliation.
This late, condescending love? I don’t want it anymore.
Text messages flood my screen in a frenzy. Silas is going insane, blowing up my phone with dozens of missed calls. I scroll through them, stone-faced.
[WHERE ARE YOU?!]
[Cleo, answer the damn phone!]
[Everyone is waiting in the hall! Stop this stupid game right now!]
Then, the final text flashes:
[Don’t be so ungrateful. It’s just an antique! That gem was a gift from me in the first place! None of your relatives even showed up today-Gia had to call her own crew just to pack your bridal party!]
I read the text twice.
I thought I’d be furious, but a strange, eerie calm washes over me instead.
No tears. No screaming. Just a flick of my thumb as I quietly shut down the phone.
He, and everything about him, means nothing to me now.
