Page 121 of Jude

I gritted my teeth, the hairs on the back of my neck rising.

Ignazio inclined even closer and spoke in a conspiratorial whisper.

‘As a high-earning stripper in Milan’s mafiosi-run clubs.’

Shock followed by disbelief washed over me, but I kept my face a mask of stone.

‘You’re full of garbage, Ignazio. Sofia worked long, brutal shifts in factories and hospitals in Milan. She never set foot in any shady club.’

Ignazio scoffed.

‘As soon as I saw her face I recognized who she was.’

My frown deepened.

‘What are you talking about?’

‘You’re aware that your woman, Sofia Antonelli, is a former Italian actress. She’s known for her supporting roles in several hit soap operas, including La Tempesta dell’Amore and I Segreti del Mercato. I had a freakin’ crush on her in her breakthrough lead role as Valeria Rossi. A brilliant but penniless student with big dreams who enters a high-stakes underground poker circuit. She fuckin’ saved her family from bankruptcy in Le Carte del Destino. She played Mariana Soli, a mechanic forced to work for a snobbish, billionaire racing dynasty in Cuori d’Acciaio, Vite d’Oro. She was famous, fratè, until she disappeared a few years ago.’

A jolt punched me in the gut, and I stared at him, mouth agape.

‘You didn’t know?’

I shook my head.

‘Which is why the press will go mad for these photos when they hit the internet,’ Ignazio whispered.

He pulled a glossy manila envelope from the interior pocket of his denim jacket and slid it across the wood.

‘Former actress fallen into bad times and forced to shake her ass to make money. Worse, she’s now the wife of famous rockstar Jude Valenti. Social media will eat it up. Dario has people on the outside who are ready to blast these images to every tabloid, rock magazine, and press outlet in the United States. Unless you use your leverage to have the feds release them from lockup. Dario, Luisa, and their crew want out of jail, and you’re going to make it happen. Otherwise, your beautiful, former soap opera star wife becomes the biggest scandal in the music industry tomorrow morning.’

I flipped open the envelope, my thumbs gripping the edges of the photo paper, and my chest emptied of air.

The three glossy prints revealed a woman posing in a neon-soaked nightclub setting.

Her features were unmistakable.

Sofia.

Her gorgeous, long-lashed, amber eyes gazed straight into the lens.

However, they overflowed with a glazed, haunting expression.

Her clothes were scanty, just skinny, next-to-nothing lingerie on a nightclub runway.

The lighting matched the contours of her collarbones, the shadows casting a seamless, terrifying realism across her skin that made my vision blur.

A sickening, gut-wrenching slam of disgust dropped into my stomach as my mind fractured.

A blinding, white-hot fury followed, flaring deep in my core, choking out the tenderness I felt for her just moments ago on the elevator.

She had stood in my mother’s kitchen, looked me in the eye, and fabricated some sob story.

About working long, grueling shifts in a factory, to play on my sympathy.

She’d omitted a huge chunk of her life, passing herself off as some innocent woman caught up in the mafia, rather than a sophisticated actress who was adept at the con game and was probably playing me.

The vulnerable woman I thought I was protecting was a liar.