The Billionaire Who Lost His Sun

I was arranging lilies for my engagement party when the hospital called. A dog bite, they said.

My fiancé, Salvatore Moretti, was supposed to be in Chicago on business. But he answered my frantic call from a ski slope in Aspen, with the sound of my best friend, Sofia, laughing in the background.

He told me not to worry, that my mother’s injury was just a scratch. But when I got to the hospital, I learned it was Sofia’s unvaccinated Doberman that had attacked my diabetic mother. I texted Sal that her kidneys were failing, that they might have to amputate.

His only reply: “Sofia is hysterical. She feels terrible. Calm her down for me, okay?”

Hours later, Sofia posted a photo of Sal kissing her on a ski lift. The next call I got was from the doctor, telling me my mother’s heart had stopped.

She died alone, while the man who swore to protect me was on a romantic vacation with the woman whose dog killed her. The rage inside me wasn't hot; it turned into a block of ice.

I didn't drive back to the penthouse he gave me. I went to my mother’s empty house and made a call I hadn't made in fifteen years. To my estranged father, a man whose name was a ghost story in Salvatore’s world: Don Matteo Costello.

“I’m coming home,” I told him.

My vendetta wouldn’t be one of blood. It would be one of erasure. I would dismantle my life here and disappear so completely, it would be as if I had never existed.