You Chose Her, Now Call Me Queen

I sat in a room waiting for my fiancé to set our wedding date, but instead, I received a video of him bleeding in a clinic. He wasn't there for me; he was paying the price for a blood-diamond purse he’d bought for a Mafia Princess named Lucia.

I had spent five years living in the shadow of his underground fights, constantly fearing the day he’d come home in a body bag. Today, he’d emptied our wedding fund to buy Lucia an armored car, leaving me with nothing but the chilling realization that I was merely a placeholder.

When I confronted him, he dismissed my pain, swearing it was just a debt of honor. He laughed off my threats to leave, convinced that my heart was too soft to ever truly walk away.

I watched as he prioritized Lucia's shrill demands over our future, his arrogance blind to the fact that my patience had finally turned to ash. I had survived his brawls and his lies, but I was done being collateral in a game I never asked to play.

How many times could I forgive a man who traded my life for another woman’s vanity? Why had I stayed so long, waiting for a man who didn't even know how to protect his own future?

I walked into the Syndicate clinic, not to nurse his wounds, but to reclaim my passport. I didn't look back as I signed the papers to disappear into a high-security black site in Iceland. I was finished with Ciro, the soldier who fought for everyone except the woman waiting for him in the dark.