---- Chapter 21 Katarina POV: A year after | left New York, my friend Sophie told me the news. She'd read it in an obscure financial paper. Alessandro De Luca had liquidated his assets and stepped down as the Underboss. The empire was now in his cousin's hands. | listened to the story, and it felt like hearing about a stranger. The man she described-broken, alone, renouncing his power-had no connection to the cold, arrogant husband | remembered. There was no triumph, no satisfaction. There was just... nothing. A quiet turning of a page. The end of a book | had finished long ago. My gallery was thriving. My life in Paris was full. It was small and quiet and intensely my own. | was no longer a caged canary; | was just Kat. My relationship with Julian grew slowly, organically. It was built on a foundation of shared laughter over glasses of wine, late-night talks about art, and a profound, unspoken respect. It was healthy. It was calm. It was everything my old life was not. One evening, sitting on my small balcony as the sun set over the rooftops, | told him everything. The De Luca family, the ---- lies, Aria, the escape. | laid out all the ugly, broken pieces of my past. He listened without interrupting. When | was finished, he took my hand. "None of that was your fault, Kat," he said, his voice firm and gentle. "He was a weak man, blinded by power. You were just trying to survive." His words, so simple and so certain, broke the final chain. The shame, the feeling that | had somehow been complicit in my own humiliation, finally dissolved. A warmth, a profound sense of release, washed through me. | was free. "Hey," he said, his eyes twinkling. "There's a retrospective of old Truffaut films at the Cinémathéque. Want to go tomorrow?" | felt a blush creep up my neck. | felt shy, and young, and giddy. It was a feeling | thought had died in me. "I'd love to," | said, my smile feeling more real than it had in a decade. There was a new beginning budding in my heart. A quiet, hopeful love for this kind, gentle man who had shown me what it felt like to be seen, not just possessed. My Vows of Silence had ended not with a bang, but with a quiet promise of a new life. A new love. A future that was mine to paint, in any color | chose. And Julian, with his harmonica and his steady, warm presence, felt like the beginning of a masterpiece. Discover our latest featured short drama reel. Watch now and enjoy the story!