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I don’t want whatever she’s selling, but I take it anyway and plug it into my laptop. The screen lights up.
Grainy footage plays, timestamped from earlier that day. A hotel room. A very much alive Vincent Martinelli sits at a desk. Across from him is Sophia.
Every muscle tenses.
They’re talking. I can’t hear clearly over the static, but the body language conveys plenty. Him leaning close. Her shaking her head, then nodding afterward.
“How’d you get this?”
Izzy narrates from behind me. “Russians planted it. I think they found out Sophia was about to meet her father and bugged the place. They’ve been following her, and she led them straight to him.” She pauses, her jaw tight. “Gabi’s been sitting on this for hours. Wanted to use it against you at the right moment. I pulled it from his files before he could.”
She doesn’t need to explain why. Izzy and Gabi share blood but not loyalty. She’s tolerated him because the family demanded it, but she’s never liked the way he leads. Never trusted his judgment.
The image freezes on Sophia’s face, her tears glinting and her mouth forming please. I can’t breathe.
She didn’t know. He tricked her.
But Izzy keeps going. “She’s the reason Vincent died before you got there. The reason the Volkovs were waiting.”
“Stop.”
She doesn’t. “There’s more.” Another file opens, revealing documents, photographs, and transcripts with Dante’s name in bold. The FBI reports name Sophia as the informant who helped identify Dante as part of the gang. She’s the whistleblower? The spark that ignited the fire that got my brother killed?
My heart stops. Just stops.
The ground tilts. Every scar aches at once.
No. Not her. Not Sophia.
But the evidence is right here. Black ink on white paper. Official.
My knees buckle. I catch myself on the desk as bile rises in my throat.
Dante’s face flashes through my mind. The prison cell. The call that came too late. His death dressed up as a suicide, and me with no one left to hold accountable.
And she…
She caused that tragedy?
“You expect me to believe this?”
Izzy meets my stare without flinching. “You don’t have to. The Benedetti council already does. Gabi signed off an hour ago. Her protection’s revoked.”
The meaning seeps in like venom. If Gabi and the Capos find her now, she dies. As Vincent’s daughter, they’ll make an example of her. My hands clench into fists, squeezing the rings. My nails bite into my skin. The laptop screen flickers, Sophia’s face still frozen mid-breath.
“Maybe she didn’t mean to,” Izzy says quietly, “but the result’s the same.”
“Get out.”
My voice is ice, my every muscle coiled tight as I tremble with the effort to not explode.
“Enzo…”
“Get. The fuck. Out.” My roar thunders through the air.
She rears back, studying me like a cornered wild animal. Then she nods, pivots, and walks away. Her heels click, fading down the hall.
After she leaves, the silence feels alive. Pulsing. Mocking.
