Page 11 of Beautiful Ruin

The taller of the two men starts toward our table. His pace is unhurried, but every step carries the same quiet authority I know my uncle’s men are trained to have. The second one hangs back by the entrance, his attention roaming the patio and the street beyond it, covering whatever reconnaissance it’s taken to find me.

When Giulia finally notices my expression, her brows pinch together. “Sofia? You okay?”

I don’t answer right away. Because what am I supposed to say? There are men who are going to be approaching our table who might belong to the family no one is supposed to ask me about? There is no version of that truth that is going to sound sane. Especially coming from someone pretending to have a completely boring life.

Ice shoots through my veins when the man stops next to the table. Up close, he looks even more wrong for this place. Mid-thirties, maybe, and tall as hell. The broad shoulders hidden under his black jacket make him look even more intimidating. My eyes drop down to his hip before he can brush the sides of his jacket closer to his body, latching onto the weapon strapped there.

“You need to come with me,” he says in Russian.

I breathe in slowly, painfully aware of the two sets of eyes fixed on me. Giulia and Matteo know I’m from Russia. That part has always been impossible to hide. No matter how many years I’ve spent here or how much Italy has softened the sharpest parts of my accent, some things still give me away.

Over the years, as I’ve folded myself into this sunlit life, my life in Russia has become something I use more in conversation than recalling from true memory. I think they’ve started to forget that my roots are not soft. They’ve grown used to this version of me, Sofia who studies late at night and laughs too hard at bad jokes and rolls her eyes at Matteo’s flirting.

Now it has been made painfully obvious again that there is another version of me underneath all this borrowed normality.

I make myself straighten in my chair before answering back in Russian. “May I ask why?”

The man inclines his head once. It is such a small gesture that looks respectful on the surface, but there’s nothing yielding about it. It’s acknowledgment, not deference to my status. “We need to speak with you. Privately.”

Matteo looks between us, confusion already tightening his features into a frown. He can’t understand the words, but he can hear enough of this man’s tone to know this isn’t a casual reunion. It’s obvious whatever is happening doesn’t belong to the version of me he knows.

“Is everything okay?” he asks.

His question comes in Italian, and for one stupid second I want to cling to the normalcy of it, explain away that this is some family emergency I need to attend to and will be right back or a misunderstanding that they have the wrong person.

I don’t answer him. Honestly, I’m not sure how.

How am I supposed to explain any of this when I barely understand it myself?

Sorry my hidden life has just walked into my life without warning. Sorry the part of me no one is supposed to know about has apparently decided to drag itself out into the open between cappuccinos and exam prep.

Instead, I slide my chair back carefully. The scrape of the legs against the floor is loud, harsh enough to turn a few heads at a nearby table before conversation resumes around us. I wince, my fingers brushing over my notes to smooth the curling pages when a soft breeze kicks up off the harbor because if I don’t do something normal right now, I might give away how badly I’m shaking.

I hate that impulse. That polished, feminine reflex to keep things tidy on the surface while the foundation beneath it has started to crumble apart. It’s useless in any setting, let alone this one. My fingertips linger a beat too long over the evidence of a life built on the illusion that politics was something I could study from a safe distance rather than drown in.

“I’ll be right back,” I tell my friends in Italian.

Giulia’s mouth parts immediately, an objection already forming on her tongue. I know her well enough to see it before she even speaks. She wants to ask who these men are, why they’re speaking to me like that, why my face has gone pale. She wants to make a scene if necessary because that’s how a friend like her protects those she cares about. Giulia has never had self-preservation instincts.

But something in my expression stops her from doing so.

Or maybe it’s the men themselves.

Their seriousness has a way of stealing words from even the mouthiest people.

Matteo closes his textbook slowly, his frown deepening even further. The caricature of Professor Rossi stares up at me from the page beside his hand, absurd and harmless, belonging to a version of my evening that no longer seems to exist. I have the strangest urge to laugh at the sight of it, or cry.

Maybe both.

Instead, I just look at the drawing for one suspended moment and feel the tight grip of grief prematurely washing over me.

My knees feel unsteady as I follow the man a few steps away from the table toward the patio. Out here, the harbor breeze is colder from where it sweeps directly from across the water. It slips beneath the hem of my dress and raises gooseflesh along my arms. Below us, the waves slap softly against the moorings.

The second guard shifts subtly to come around to the other side of the cafe, repositioning himself with practiced ease until he is standing at an angle that blocks the line of sight from my table. It isn’t enough to alarm anyone, just enough to create a barrier of privacy whether I asked for it or not.

The gesture confirms what I already know in my gut—this isn’t a courtesy call. My friends can still see the outline of me if they lean far enough, but not my face or the men’s expressions to read whatever is about to pass between us next.

I fold my arms loosely across my stomach, trying to hide the tremor in my hands and failing more than I’d like. “What happened?”