"Roberto is dead," he fills me in without hesitation.
For a moment, the words don’t compute.
He reaches across the table, his warm hands close around mine, holding them firmly, grounding me while my mind catches up. "There will be headlines," he adds, stillwatching me carefully, as though I might shatter or explode.
I blink. Once. Twice. Again.
He’s dead.
Roberto is dead.
There’s no burst of triumph. No sting of sadness. No heavy hollowness in my chest. There’s just…is.Like stating a fact about the weather. I search for something to feel, something to hang this on, but my mind is a tornado, spinning fragments, sharp edges that don’t fit together. And then, randomly, the thought lands: this is the third day since Raffael brought me here.
He took his time with him.
The realization doesn’t bother me. Not at all.
If anything, I think… maybe that’s how it should have been—one day for each life that bastard stole from me. The first year, he stole my innocence, the next, my voice, and in the third, my trust in men. He made me live under his reign of terror for three long years.
"What headlines?" I ask when I can be sure my voice won't crack.
His mouth curves into something that’s not quite a smile. "The ugly kind," he fills me in.
I lift a brow. "The ugly kind?"
He gives a little shrug, and his thumb brushes over the back of my hand. "I might have… overdone it a little." There’s no apology in his tone, but his eyes stay fixed on me, assessing, weighing whether I can handle the details.
"I can," I tell him, surprising myself with how steady I sound.
His gaze holds mine for a beat longer, then he leans back. "Eleven people. That’s how many I killed at your house. Every single one of them knew. Every single one of them let it happen."
I nod once, no flinch, no gasp. Just… absorbing. Faces flash in front of my vision. Pacco, Louisa, Sergeij. He told me a few days ago that they were dead, and still, even now, I can't bring any emotions for them forward. Pacco and Lennard deserved whatever they got; Louisa and Sergeij? I don't know. It's not like they were ever nice to me, but I guess that's no reason to be killed.
"They knew, and they didn't do anything," he reiterates to make sure I don't feel bad or guilty. Not to defend his actions, because I don't think he feels the need to. Raffael is what I always knew he was, a cold-hearted killer. He's not any different from all the men I've grown up with. Killing might shock other people, but not me. For me, it's a fact of life.
I nod.
"Roberto," he continues, "I delivered his body to the front doors of a police station this morning, just dropped him there like the trash he was." His jaw ticks, but hisvoice doesn’t rise. "They’ll take a little time to identify him. But as soon as they do…"
"As soon as they do?" I prompt when he pauses.
"They’ll be looking for you," he says simply.
The words hang there, heavy, but strangely not frightening. He’s telling me the truth—every piece of it—and I appreciate it.
"I want you to know you have choices here, Sophia," he says, his voice takes on the steady cadence he uses when he needs me to really hear him. "We can make it look like you were kidnapped, too, and managed to escape."
I keep my eyes on him, waiting.
"I can take you out of the country," he continues. "New passport, new name, somewhere nobody would ever think to look."
"Or…?" I ask, tilting my head.
His gaze holds mine; something unreadable flickers in his eyes. "Or you can stay here. With me." He pauses, making sure I understand the weight of that choice. "Everybody who knew you flew back from LA with Roberto is dead. I can have divorce papers drawn up, and we can say you were in Nevada when it happened."
I blink at him. "Nevada?"
"Getting married," he says. And for the first time since this conversation started, his composure shifts—just alittle. His jaw flexes like he’s bracing for my reaction, and there’s a flicker of insecurity I didn’t expect to see in him.
