“Thanks, Matteo, but you don’t need to care for me. I just need to sleep it off. Maybe it would be best if you sleep in the guest room tonight?”
He paused. “Is that what you want?”
I didn’t answer him. No, it wasn’t what I wanted, but I did need some alone time. Which was crazy, because two hours ago, I would have done anything to not be sleeping alone tonight.
Now I just had too much to think about.
“You would tell me if something was wrong, wouldn’t you?”
“Yes,” I said without hesitation. I knew it was a lie. I wanted to tell him the truth, but the repercussions would just be too great. Telling Matteo what Gio had asked me to do was out of the question, because if I did, then he would also have to know that we had a child together.
A beautiful little girl.
Lifting my eyes, I reached for his face, letting my fingers slide down his cheek. “Yes, I would tell you.”
There was a decision to be made. Either I could be brave and tell Matteo the truth, or I could kill him.
Those were my options.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Matteo
The convenience of Sophia getting a headache just after being alone with her up-to-no-good brother wasn’t lost on me, and neither was the sad, almost panicked look on her face when I asked her if anything was wrong, but I didn’t push it.
She was hiding something from me that was clear, but backing her into a corner wasn’t going to help matters. I would just have to dig deeper into her time in London. There were still massive holes in her life that I hadn’t been able to fill. Whole months, where there was no sign of her, and something was telling me that those months were the key to it all.
Leaving her alone when she was in the same apartment as me was next to impossible, but if I went to her, then I would ask her again, and she would lie to me again, and that would just make me angry.
Instead, I left her in her bed and went to my office. Gio had been here for hours, according to the call I had received from Luka that had me rushing back. That was hours where they could have spoken about what they were up to.
The cameras, discreetly placed in each room, would tell me exactly what they had discussed.
Not that I really thought they would discuss anything critical. Gio was many things, and I wouldn’t call him a clever man, but he wasn’t purely stupid either.
As expected, I found nothing. There was a little tension at first, but then they began talking about their childhood, and the mood had shifted. It was all like that right up until he had left, and then something had happened. He had whispered something in her ear that the camera’s audio couldn’t pick up, and she had paled like he had threatened her life.
Could that be it?
No, I knew that if Gio was threatening her life, Sophia would tell me. She wouldn’t want to, but she would because she knew I would protect her.
So it was something else. Something in her past that was causing her to be so hot and cold.
Closing the laptop and locking the office door behind me, I went to the bedroom only to find her curled up on her side and fast asleep.
Standing in the doorway, I stared. Even fast asleep, she still had that unreadable look on her face. Like even her dreams were haunted by worries.
Padding across the room, I brushed her hair back from her face. “I’m going to pop out, feel better soon, princess.” Without thinking about it, I brushed my lips against her forehead. “I love—" I froze before I could say the words out loud. Even if she was asleep and couldn’t hear me, I couldn’t bring myself to say them.
She didn’t even stir. A small snorting snore was the only answer I got. But it wasn’t the answer I needed, and I wouldn’t find that here. I needed to go deeper, and that would mean asking around in enemy territory.
In Gio’s territory.
And that came with its own dangers, but they were dangers I was willing to take if it meant I found out the truth.
Two hours and three bars later, I found myself in the dingiest, most rotten-smelling gentleman’s club that I had ever set foot in.
It wasn’t that the place was filthy, but it was. It was the blatant corruptness of the place. Sexual acts went on in plain sight, and I was sure I saw some girls that were clearly underage being led into a back room.
