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Dante asked for a divorce o
n his eyes, and told me
," he wept. "God has f
ng me "broken" because I hadn't
I paid for, and his mother mocked me as a "dry v
he truth I had bur
slid the file across the desk:
s the st
ia Don. I took the blame. I drank his mother's vile herbal p
for a "miracle" that was
ivorce papers
any, put on a blood-red dress, and
come to
ector and show the entire underworld exa
pte
the divorce papers, and that simple, dismissive ge
the most feared man in the city, drumme
the warmth that used to make my knees weak. "She
talking ab
ing about h
cument that would end e
ty vellum, the kind used for tr
d, marriage
cause I had failed the one d
given hi
ed up
didn't
ar, a skill I acquired living in the shadow
d, shifting
n his charcoal suit, t
he rot benea
pt in the safe behind th
hat made him scream in
reality he was terrif
, his tone softening just enough to be cruel. "
ru
*Ome
le
y silence fo
ide while his mother
bal concoctions she forced d
he truth to prote
d wrapper because he found someone else
ned m
Viti
page, severing it from my identity
paper away the mo
't look
ure, relief washing ove
ne," he w
, buttoning
yed s
the shards of my dignity be
e have to file this today. The christening is nex
o marry her
se me before the
my legs feel
d since I was nineteen out in
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