Don Take Your Love To The Deep Sea Chapter 01
In the fifth year of my boyfriend Gabriel Salvatti’s political alliance engagement to my best friend, Serena Cavallo, she got pregnant with his child.
Five years earlier, Gabriel had thrown himself from the second-floor balcony of the Salvatti estate, shattering his leg, just to make one thing clear to his parents.
“I will only ever marry Chloe Moretti. No one else.”
That same night, Serena stayed with me at the Moretti safehouse, crying by my side until dawn.
“Don’t worry, Chloe,” she’d whispered, never leaving my side. “The moment Gabe takes the Don’s seat from his father, I’ll give him back to you. I’ll keep an eye on him. I won’t let him hurt you.”
Everyone on the East Coast said I was the luckiest girl alive. I had a boyfriend willing to defy his own Family for me, and a best friend who treated me like Family.
I thought I had everything I could ever want.
But now, in the fifth year of their engagement, I stood in the living room of the Newport house Gabriel had bought me and handed him Serena’s positive pregnancy test.
“We’re broken up,” I said.
Gabriel didn’t flinch. He let out a dry, mocking laugh.
“Serena is my fiancée, Chloe. Isn’t it normal for her to be pregnant?”
Before I could react, he grabbed my hand and snapped my ring finger back. I gasped as the bone gave. He ripped the engagement ring off my finger and tossed it into the trash beside the sofa.
“Stop using these pathetic little breakup stunts to get my attention. It’s getting old.”
I looked down at my hand, trembling as I pulled it away from his grip. The pain was blinding, but I didn’t scream.
For five years, I had screamed. I had cried until my throat was raw. All my pain had ever done was give him and Serena more oxygen. Every tear I shed only drew them closer.
I looked up. My voice came out steadier than I expected.
“Gabriel. You told me to wait. I waited five years for this.”
“I’m done wasting my life on you. It’s over.”
He didn’t even look at me. He walked past me into the living room and saw my packed suitcases lined up by the door. He leaned back against the sofa and gave me a look of pure derision.
“Quite the performance. But let’s be honest with each other for once. You are a Moretti girl who spent five years living off the Salvatti name.
This house. That car in the drive. The clothes on your back. The doctor who takes your calls at three in the morning.
Every last piece of it belongs to my Family. Taking any of it walking out that door would be theft.”
He tilted his head. His eyes were cold.
“Be honest, Chloe. Can you even survive a day outside the Salvatti umbrella?”
He was certain I would stay. He was used to me folding. Used to me swallowing his excuses.
He always claimed he owed Serena. He acted as if her presence in our lives was some great sacrifice on her part. And so, over and over, he moved the line for her.
“Serena is only doing this alliance so we can be together,” he used to tell me. “She’s giving up her best years for us. We can’t be cruel to her.”
That kindness had turned into passionate hugs. Then careful kisses. Then her in his bed.
Every time I found the photos, the ones that felt like a serrated knife dragged through my chest, he would come crawling back. Once, he’d knelt at my feet and pressed a blade to his own stomach until he bled onto the hardwood.
“I just wanted to show her what it felt like to be loved, Chloe. I was just compensating her. I swear, it’s the last time. Please. Don’t think I’m dirty.”
I believed him. I let his blood stain my dress and I forgave him.
Then came the videos. Each one worse than the last.
I had reached my limit. I’d fought him, hit him, put him in the ER once in a fit of rage. I had said it’s over a thousand times.
And over those five years, his reaction had shifted from desperate terror to cold indifference.
I walked to the suitcases, opened the largest one, and pulled out only my passport and my legal documents. My real ones, the ones outside the Salvatti network.
“The rest is yours. You can keep it. I don’t want a single reminder of you.”
I looked him dead in the eye.
“And Gabriel. There isn’t a person on this earth I can’t live without. Especially not you.”
