My Online Lover Was the Mafia Boss Who Fired Me Chapter 06
My phone slipped out of my hand and hit the concrete.
I didn’t grab it right away.
I just leaned against the cold fire exit wall, staring up at the flickering light overhead.
I couldn’t even tell if I was crying or laughing.
How could it be him?
How dare it be him?
Three months of text threads started flooding into my head unbidden.
[Did you miss me today?]
[You wearing that lingerie I liked?]
[When we meet, I’m gonna touch you myself.]
Those words used to keep me up all night, giddy and warm.
Now every single one of them had Elio’s face attached.
I saw him sitting at the head of the conference table.
Staring at me with those gray eyes.
Saying I made him sick.
My phone buzzed again.
[Like the photo?]
I picked it up.
I pulled up Nox’s profile.
Hit delete contact.
The confirmation prompt popped up.
I didn’t hesitate.
Then I blocked his account.
The chat history was still there.
The photos were still there.
All the lines that used to make my heart race were still there.
I deleted them starting from the very first.
The first time he asked if I was single.
The first time he said my eyes were pretty.
The champagne rose I sent him for Valentine’s Day.
The bouquet got delivered to the private PO box he gave me.
The card only had one line.
[Hope someone treats you gently too.]
When he got it, he sent me a ridiculously long text out of the blue.
He said it was the first time anyone had ever sent him flowers.
Said he kept the card in the top drawer of his office desk.
Said when we met, he’d put it back in my palm, then kiss every one of my fingers.
I deleted them one by one.
All that was left was the two shirtless photos.
I stared at that bullet wound for a few seconds.
Hit delete.
Everything that man had left me didn’t even fill a whole folder on my phone.
I got back to my rental, turned on my computer, and sent HR an official resignation letter.
Elio already fired me, but I didn’t accept the severance
the family offered, and I wasn’t signing the NDA Dario had drawn up.
I demanded the company keep all the server logs for the South Harbor report.
After I sent the email, I shut down my computer.
Packed my bag.
The next morning, I got in a taxi.
The driver glanced at me in the rearview.
Probably spooked by how puffy my eyes were from crying, so he didn’t ask any questions. Just said-
“Where to?”
I gave him the address of my new rental.
The car pulled up onto the expressway.
Chicago’s lights blurred through the rain.
I pressed my forehead to the cold window.
How could one person give me heaven and hell at the same time?
How could he whisper the sweetest things to me at night, then destroy me with the cruelest words by day?
Those three months falling for Nox were the happiest
I’d ever been in my whole life.
But looking back now?
Every single one of those nights felt like a joke someone had set up months in advance.
What I didn’t know was
Right as my taxi pulled away from the Valtieri building, Elio was standing in front of the
floor–to–ceiling window, dialing the number that would never connect over and over.
His phone screen showed my gray moon profile picture.
Underneath it, just one line.
[This contact has enabled friend verification.]