Before the Council Named Me Donna Chapter 05

Before the Council Named Me Donna Chapter 05

The morning after Elena’s clinic appointment, Matteo sat in the private suite of the Palm Beach house, staring at the sapphire bracelet he had chosen from a discreet dealer before dawn.

It was not an apology. Not exactly. Elena hated empty gifts, and Matteo knew that better than anyone, so he had asked for something she could respect: an Art Deco sapphire piece with a damaged clasp, rare enough to interest her and flawed enough to give her hands something to fix.

He took a photo and sent it.

Don’t be angry. I saw this and thought of you.

The message did not deliver.

Matteo stared at the screen until the red warning appeared beneath it, and for a second, he did not understand what he was seeing. He called her, but the line went straight to voicemail.

Only then did his stomach tighten.

Vanessa came in from the terrace wrapped in one of the house robes, her hair loose, her smile lazy.

“Still trying to reach your wife?”

Matteo’s hand closed around the phone. “What did you send her?”

Vanessa paused, then laughed softly. “So she finally blocked you.””

His eyes lifted to hers.

The woman in front of him looked nothing like the girl he had chased at eighteen, or maybe she had always been this way and he had been too young, too proud, too stupid to see it. Vanessa leaned against the doorway, unbothered by the mess she had made, and glanced at the bracelet in his hand.

“For me?”

“No.”

Her smile sharpened. “Of course not. You always did like giving women symbols after you’d already humiliated them.”

Matteo stood.

“Did you send her the photo?”

Vanessa did not deny it. “She deserved to know what kind of man she married.”

“Nothing happened.”

“Enough happened.” She crossed the room and touched the empty place on his hand where his signet should have been. “You took this off for me, Matteo. You gave me Donna access. You let me sit beside you in that room. If Elena has any pride, she understood perfectly.”

Every word landed because every word was true.

Matteo stepped away from her. “I’m going back to New York.”

Vanessa’s expression barely changed. “Go. Chase her. Beg. It might even be entertaining.”

That indifference chilled him more than anger would have. He had lied to Elena, postponed the ceremony, and let Vanessa stand where his wife should have stood, and Vanessa looked as though all of it had been a game she was already bored of playing.

By noon, Matteo was on his jet back to New York.

He spent the flight calling Elena from different lines, then her studio, then the Rossi house, then the De Luca security office. No one gave him an answer that made sense. Her studio calendar had been wiped clean, her access logs had gone dark, and the penthouse security feed showed her leaving with two suitcases before dawn.

Two suitcases.

Not a scene.

Not a threat.

A departure.

When Matteo reached the penthouse, he opened the door with Elena’s name already on his tongue, but the rooms answered with silence. Her restoration tools were gone from the east studio, the drawers were empty, and the faint smell of the oil she used on old enamel had already begun to fade.

On his desk, inside its velvet case, lay the obsidian brooch.

Beside it was a sealed envelope from a Rossi attorney.

Matteo opened it with hands that did not feel like his own.

Notice of separation from the De Luca alliance.

His vision blurred for a moment.

She had not asked for an explanation. She had not demanded a public apology, a new ceremony date, or his promise that Vanessa meant nothing.

She had simply left.

Matteo called the Rossi house himself.

Elena’s mother answered, polite and wary. “Matteo?”

“Is Elena with you?”

There was a pause. “No. Why?”

He forced his voice steady. “We had an argument. I need to speak with her.”

“If my daughter wanted you to know where she was, I assume she would have told you.”

The line went dead.

Matteo stood in the middle of the penthouse, the separation notice in one hand and the empty brooch case in the other, while the truth settled in too late.