“Where is Sophie in all this?” The question scrapes out of me.
Matti and Tommy exchange a look.
“What?” I demand.
“Not sure.” Matti’s voice is careful. “Her father orchestrates a hit on you at a party she’s attending. You escape, and where do you end up? Hiding out at her place. At least you’re not fucking her.”
When I don’t answer, Tommy and Matti exchange a look.
“Right, Vin?” Tommy reiterates.
The world tilts.
“That’s convenient,” Tommy says softly. “Really fucking convenient.”
“She offered her place,” I hear myself say, my voice sounding distant. “She volunteered.”
“After Siena told her not to,” Matti points out. “Siena was screaming at her not to let you stay there, remember? But Sophie insisted.”
The memories replay in my head like a nightmare: Sophie’s sweet smile, her soft touch, the way she looks at me, feeds me, fucks me. Multiple nights, something I haven’t done since—
Since Valentina. My stomach drops through the concrete. “Fuck.” The word is barely a whisper.
This is Valentina all over again. My father’s cock in her mouth while she pretended to love me. The public humiliation. The lesson I learned the hard way about trusting women, about letting anyone close enough to destroy you from the inside out.
I haven’t let a woman spend the night since, haven’t fucked the same pussy twice, haven’t let anyone in. Until Sophie. Sweet, soft, safe Sophie with her big brown eyes and her perfect food and her wet pussy that I’ve been drowning in like a fucking addict.
“It’s unlikely,” Matti says quickly, reading the expression on my face. “Sophie’s not like that. She’s genuinely good—”
“That’s what I thought about Valentina too.” My voice is steel. “Everyone loved Valentina. Everyone thought she was perfect for me.”
“This is different—”
“Is it?” I crush my cigarette under my heel. “Her father tries to kill me, I end up at her house, in her bed, eating her food, fucking her every night like some domesticated piece of shitwhile she plays the perfect little hostess. You don’t think that’s a setup?”
“If it were a setup, you’d already be dead,” Tommy argues. “If she wanted you gone, she could have slit your throat or called Daddy to come finish the job.”
“Unless she’s playing the long game,” I counter. “Building trust. Getting me comfortable so she can feed intel back to her father. And Aurelio.”
Every conversation we’ve had replays in my head: me talking about my brothers, about the war, about Lucia and the house I grew up in, about my plans for the future. I told her things I shouldn’t have. Fuck.
FUCK.
“You’re overthinking this,” Matti says, but there’s doubt creeping into his voice now too. “I know Sophie. Siena knows her. She’s not capable of—”
“You didn’t know Valentina was fucking my father until we walked in on it,” I remind him coldly. “Women are good at hiding shit, especially when someone like Aurelio is pulling the strings.”
My phone buzzes. A text from Sophie:
Can’t wait to see
you tonight. I’m
making something
special.
She follows up the text with a heart emoji. A fucking heart emoji. I stare at it until the screen blurs.
