Jocelyn’s POV
The suitcase lands on our bed with a thud that sounds like punctuation.
I'm methodical about it. Mia's clothes first—practical sets, not the designer pieces Zayden keeps buying. Jeans that can get dirty, t-shirts that survive playground wars, her favorite tiger plush, the one she's had since before remission.
My hands don't shake, which is surprising.
Three dresser drawers emptied, their contents folded with precision I don't feel. Toiletries from the bathroom. Mia's medications—the maintenance doses she'll need for years, bottles lined up like soldiers preparing for deployment.
I'm reaching for my own clothes when I hear him in the doorway.
"What are you doing?"
The question is stupid, obvious, but Zayden asks it anyway, standing there in shirtsleeves and denial, like maybe if he doesn't acknowledge what he's seeing, it won't be real.
I don't stop packing. "What does it look like?"
"Jocelyn, let’s—"
"How long?" I turn to face him. "How long was your father laundering money for the Carusos?"
His jaw tightens. "Twenty years. Maybe longer."
"And you knew."
"Not at first." He steps into the room. "I found out after he died. Going through his files, the offshore accounts, the construction deals that didn't add up. By then it was too late to fix it without exposing everything."
"So you just... what? Kept doing business with them?"
"I extracted us. Slowly. Over five years." His hands clench at his sides. "Selling off Brooklyn properties, restructuring contracts, moving operations to clean partnerships. But Dante doesn't let go easily. The Giuliana situation—that was my father's last deal with them. His way of securing my silence about what he'd built."
I grab another stack of clothes, shove them into the suitcase harder than necessary. "Your father pimped you out to a mob boss."
"He called it a strategic alliance."
"He called it leverage." The anger breaks through my precision. "He used you the same way you used those women. Turned relationships into transactions, made family into collateral."
Zayden moves closer. I step back, hand raised.
"Don't. I can't… I can't have you near me right now."
"Where will you go?"
"Anywhere that isn't here." I zip one suitcase closed and start filling another. "Helena's. A hotel. Doesn't matter."
"What about Eli?"
The question stops me. My hands go still on a sweater I don't remember grabbing.
"What about him?"
"He's staying here. With me." Zayden's voice is steady, final. "Natasha signed over custody. Legally, he's mine."
"You think I'd take him from you?" The accusation hits like a slap. "You think I'm that cruel?"
"I think you're angry. Rightfully, but Eli just lost his mother and found stability here. Taking Mia away…"
"Is protecting my daughter from whatever fresh hell the Carusos are planning!" My voice cracks. "You read that message, you saw those photos. Dante is threatening our children because you can't face your past."
"I'm facing it now."
"Eleven years too late!" The suitcase slams shut. "You had eleven years to tell me about Giuliana, about Dante, about your father's crimes. Instead, you married me, brought me into this house, made me believe we were building something real."
"I was trying to protect…"
"You could have been so much more." The words come out raw, almost grieving. "If you hadn't let everyone else dictate your life—your father, Dante, your own fear. You could have been the man I thought I married."
"Don’t say that…"
"I fell in love with someone who doesn't exist." The words come out quiet, devastating. "The man I married wouldn't have six secret children. Wouldn't have mob ties. Wouldn't stand here asking me to trust him after proving I never should have."
Zayden's face goes pale. "You're saying you don't love me anymore."
"I'm saying I don't know who you are." I grab my suitcase handles. "And I can't raise my daughter in a house with a man I don't recognize."
"What about Eli?" His voice breaks. "What do I tell him when he asks where you are?"
The question lands like a knife between my ribs.
Because despite everything—despite the lies and the NDAs and the criminal enterprise his family built—Eli is still an eight-year-old boy who just lost his mother and found something like family here.
"Tell him the truth." I move toward the door. "That his father's choices have consequences, and sometimes those consequences hurt people who don't deserve it."
"Don't do this. Please."
"I'm not doing anything." I stop in the doorway, meet his eyes. "You did this. Every choice, every lie, every check you wrote to make problems disappear. This is what it looks like when the bill comes due."
I'm halfway down the hallway when his voice follows me.
"I love you."
Three words. Too little, too late.
"I know," I say without turning around. "That's what makes this so much worse."
***
Helena's waiting in the driveway when I pull up at eleven PM. She takes one look at my face and pulls me into a hug that breaks something I've been holding together through pure willpower.
"I've got the guest room ready," she whispers. "And coffee. So much coffee."
Mia's already asleep in the backseat, exhausted from the confusion of being pulled from her room with minimal explanation. I carry her inside, tuck her into Helena's guest bed, kiss her forehead while she mumbles something about tigers.
Then I go back downstairs and let myself fall apart.
"He has six other children," I tell Helena between sobs. "Six. And a daughter with the mob that might not even exist. And his father was a criminal, and I didn't know any of it."
Helena pours wine, hands me a glass. She sits beside me on the couch.
"What are you going to do?"
"I don't know." The admission feels like failure. "Divorce him. Protect Mia. Figure out how to explain this to a six-year-old without destroying her image of her father."
"And Eli?"
The question makes my chest tight. "He stays with Zayden. It's better that way, cleaner."
"You don't believe that."
"I have to believe it." I drain the wine glass. "Because if I let myself think about that kid losing another parent figure in the same month, I'll drive straight back there and pretend everything's fine just to keep him from more trauma."
My phone buzzes. Zayden.
‘Eli's asking for you. Can you at least say goodnight?’
Helena reads it over my shoulder. "What do you want to do?"
I stare at the message. At the manipulation wrapped in genuine concern. At the reminder that leaving Zayden means leaving Eli, and leaving Eli means becoming one more adult who abandoned him.
"I want to not care," I whisper. "I want to protect my daughter and walk away clean."
"But?"
"But that kid drew me into his dream family." My voice breaks. "And I can't stop seeing his face when he realizes I left too."
The phone buzzes again.
‘Please. He's had a panic attack and won't calm down. He needs to hear your voice.’
I close my eyes, take a breath that feels like drowning.
‘Put him on,’ I text back.
I stare at the screen and try not to think about an eight-year-old boy who keeps losing people.
About how I just became one more adult who walked away, and how much easier this would be if I didn't care.