The room seemed to tilt on its axis. I gripped the edge of the desk, my knuckles turning white.
Sophie was pregnant. With my child.
The realization hit me like a physical blow. The timing matched our encounter in my office, that first time when I'd taken her on my desk in a moment of uncontrolled passion. I hadn't used protection. Neither of us had been thinking clearly.
And now she carried my child. My heir. My vulnerability.
I collapsed into my chair, the photographs scattered before me. This changed everything. Antonio wasn't just threatening Sophie now—he was threatening my unborn child. A child Sophie hadn't even told me about.
The hurt of that realization was quickly overwhelmed by a surge of protective rage so intense it left me breathless. I thought of Falco's hands on her, his fists connecting with her face, her body. He'd beaten a pregnant woman. My pregnant woman.
I was glad I'd killed him. If anything, his death had been too quick.
I paced the halls of my estate, restless energy making sleep impossible. The house felt alive with Sophie in it—during those hours when she'd been missing, the emptiness had been suffocating.
I found myself outside her door, pressing my palm against the solid wood. The memory of her tied to that chair, bloodied but defiant,burned through me. The desperation that had driven me to risk everything for her—it was unlike anything I'd experienced before.
I wasn't planning for when this ended anymore. I was planning how to keep her. She'd become my obsession, my weakness, my everything.
Livia's death had taught me that love was a liability in my world. But Sophie… losing her would end me. Let Antonio come. She was mine now. And the child she carried—my child—was mine too.
The security alert on my phone pulled me from my thoughts. I checked the screen and frowned. Motion detected at the perimeter. I pulled up the security feed and spotted it immediately—a small drone hovering just beyond the property line.
"Enzo," I barked into my phone. "We've got surveillance at the northwest corner. Take it down."
"On it, boss."
I made my way to the security room, where multiple screens displayed feeds from cameras positioned around the estate. As I watched, Enzo appeared on one screen, rifle in hand. A single shot, and the drone dropped from the sky.
"Got it," Enzo's voice came through my phone. "Want me to retrieve it?"
"No. It might be rigged. Mark the location, and we'll send the bomb squad later."
I scanned the other security feeds, my eyes narrowing as I spotted a black SUV parked on the road beyond my property. It hadn't been there yesterday.
"Enzo, we've got a vehicle on the east access road. Run the plates."
While Enzo worked on that, I continued scanning the feeds. There—another vehicle, this one a nondescript sedan, parked within sight of the main gate.
We were being watched. Antonio was making his move, setting up surveillance, gathering intelligence. Planning his attack.
The realization should have filled me with dread. Instead, a cold calm settled over me. This was familiar territory—strategy, tactics, the chess game of power. I knew how to do this. I'd been doing it my entire life.
But the stakes had never been higher.
When Enzo returned to the security room, his expression was grim. "Both vehicles are rentals, boss. Paid for with cash, fake IDs. Definitely professional."
I nodded, unsurprised. "Double the guard rotation. I want men on the perimeter at all times. And get the tech team to sweep for bugs—the whole estate, top to bottom."
"You think we've been compromised?"
I gestured to the screens. "I know we have. The question is how badly."
Enzo hesitated, then asked the question I knew was coming. "Is this about the girl? She still Antonio's woman?"
"She's not Antonio's," I snapped, the words coming out harsher than I intended. "She's mine."
Enzo's eyebrows rose slightly, but he was too professional to comment further. "What's our play here, Boss? We staying defensive or taking the fight to him?"
