The Dancer and the Don | ✔️

Chapter 16

Trying to get as many chapters out as I can before exams start :). This is going to be rough for me for exams, but we'll see! I hope you guys enjoy this chapter. Thanks for reading!

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 Fran couldn't believe her ears.

Granted, she couldn't believe a lot of the things she was hearing about her husband, but now he was asking her to leave? He had to be joking, and if he was, it was a cruel joke.

"You're kidding," was all she could mutter in response. Silence cleared the room of all noise and took Fran's breath away. He was serious?

"I'm sorry, Fran, I'll—"

"You'll what? You're kicking me out?"

"If you'd just let me finish—"

"You always finished early anyways." It was a low blow, but he'd been dealing her low blows for a long time now. She wasn't going to leave.

"Fran!" He scolded, his eyes narrowing and his hands clenching into fists. "I always made sure you finished first and you know it. Stay on topic."

"Oh, right, the topic of you kicking me out. Please continue," she scoffed and plopped herself down in one of his office chairs. He pushed his own chair back until it hit the wall. She frowned. Why was he moving further away?

"I can't do this anymore, Fran," he murmured quietly. If she looked closely at his face she could see what she thought were tear tracks on his cheeks. He noticed her staring and quickly rubbed his hands on them before scooting forward again.

"That's it? You're giving up on this? Us?" Fran was astounded. After all this, he was going to throw in the towel? Everything they'd worked for...gone? In the blink of an eye?

"You're not who I thought you were," Fran choked out.

Tony let out a humorless chuckle. "You've made that very clear, Fran, and I—"

"No. You don't get to talk right now," she groaned as a tear left her eye. Tony sat back in his chair and looked at her with watering eyes. She noted his entire body was tense and his eyebrows were furrowed so close together they might be considered a unibrow.

"After everything you have done to me, I sat down...by myself...and thought really hard about what I should do with us," she whispered. Her voice cracked mid-sentence and she found herself hating that she even had to do this.

"My brain kept telling me over and over to walk—no, to run away as fast as I possibly could. But I thought about our relationship, and I thought about how you'd been acting since we got married and since you revealed your true self to me, and they matched up," she let out a watery, sarcastic laugh. "And I made the dumbest decision I could have made."

"What was that?" He croaked from across the room.

She stared him in the eyes. "I gave you a second chance." His eyes clenched shut and his body began to shake with sobs as she continued her story.

"I told myself I would try to be accepting of who you really were, and as you took me to the bar or you told me more about what you do, I didn't run away. I have a question for you, Antonio," she snapped.

Tony couldn't even open his mouth for fear more than words would come out. He simply nodded for her to continue.

"What are you trying to do right now?" She questioned. He gave her a confused look.

"I'm trying to help—"

"Wrong. You're trying to run away, Tony. Do you see it? Do you recognize how I stayed, damn you, despite you quite literally ruining my life?" She was begging him for an answer, but he didn't have one.