After she drew a deep breath, she shook her head and lowered her gaze. But again, she was strong enough to face me and continue.
I knew there had to be more.
“The night when you came home, that first night, I went into your office to find something that would look like what he wanted. I didn’t intend to stay here long. I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to do this at all.”
“Why—” I cut myself off, growling and pacing away.
Wrong question.
She wouldn’t have had any say. Any power. If she was the daughter of one of Roberto’s siblings, she was on her own. It was rumored that Roberto killed off his brother and sister to have more power, and if that was true, it seemed that this detail of her past wasn’t a lie. She had no parents. Roberto Giovanni was a devious sadist, and he wouldn’t give Sofia an option for what she wanted to do in her life.
But I had no room in my heart to take pity on her.
I could recognize how her situation might have come to be, but that didn’t absolve her of wrongdoing, for fuck’s sake.
“Why?” She repeated my question.
I spun to glower at her. At the crestfallen acceptance in her sorrowful gaze, I knew. I didn’t have to ask. Iknew.
“Your cousin,” I answered for her.
I wasn’t completely wrong about her. She wasn’t a bad person. She had a good soul. All that compassion and altruism wasn’t a front. The only way Roberto Giovanni could’ve twisted her to do his bidding was if he held any leverage over her. And he did.
She nodded and wiped the tears from her cheeks. “My cousin. Esmeralda is still stuck at his house. She’s too weak to do anything for herself. He threatened to withhold all her treatment and medication unless I came here to spy for him.”
Goddammit. Fucking hell!
“So, I had no choice. I don’t want her to suffer or be in pain for however much more time she has. She’s of no use to him, but he knows how much I care. He forced me to come here and spy or else she’d suffer. I didn’t know you then. I didn’t know any of your family. And if I had, if I could’ve known… it was still a lost cause. I never could have saved her.”
Hardening my heart to her sob story, I watched her for any sign of further deception. “Is she dead?”
She lifted her head and scowled. “No. Not yet. And I’ve been trying to save up and arrange for her to be moved to another facility so he can’t hurt her anymore.”
I crossed my arms, hating how badly I wanted to rush to her and hold her. She’d come here to spy. She was only ever in my life to harm me and my family.
“I didn’t know that you and I… that it could be like that.”
“Spare me the drama,” I bit out. I didn’t want to hear her commentary on how we’d been so stupid as to dance around this illusion of so-called love. I felt used. Duped. Betrayed.
“I didn’t spy.” She wiped her eyes again, seeming intent on being as factual as possible. “I tried, at first. I didn’t even know what I was looking for, and your office was so messy and…” She shrugged. “That first night, I snuck in there and was hoping I could take one picture of some kind of an important-looking document, and that would be it. I could go back to being his cook and housekeeper and take care of Esmeralda. But I didn’t find anything. That man came in and was spying himself, looking for a map. Then you showed up and shot him and I couldn’t stand to see you in pain.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
She shrugged halfheartedly. “Believe what you will. I know more than ever that my bleeding heart will be my biggest weakness and downfall.”
“I believe that you came here for no other reason than to deceive me. To give intel to my enemy.”
She nodded. “And that’s true. That’s why I came here. But I didn’t succeed. You didn’t leave anything important out. And after you and I…” She winced. “After we got closer, I didn’t want to spy for him. I was trapped between two enemies, and I knew I would fail my cousin, but I didn’t want him to have anything over you. Because I started to care. I sent him stupidreceipts. I sent him a copy of a plumbing inspection for one of the nightclubs. There wasn’t anything for me to spy on even if I wanted to.”
Rage and heartbreak rattled through me. Listening to her speak like this, I felt like I couldn’t think or see straight anymore.
She was sent here to spy on me.
She was only here as a liar.
Worst of all, I had to accept the sobering realization that my father had been right all along. Oleg, too.
Love had blinded me, if that was what this was supposed to be. My chest hurt. My soul was crushed. If this wasn’t love, I didn’t want to know the real love. This was bad enough.
