Chapter 28 Luca
She thinks I'm asleep.
I've been lying perfectly still for the past twenty minutes, listening to her breathing change from the deep rhythm of sleep to the careful, controlled pattern of someone trying not to wake their bedmate.
When she slips out of bed, her movements are too practiced, too quiet. This isn't a woman getting up for water or to use the bathroom. This is someone who's trying to sneak out.
I wait until I hear the soft click of the bathroom door, then the rustle of clothes being pulled from somewhere they shouldn't be. Not from the closet where her expensive dresses hang. From somewhere else entirely.
When the bathroom door opens again, I catch a glimpse through barely cracked eyelids. Worn jeans, scuffed boots, that same jacket from this afternoon. She moves like a shadow toward the suite door, and I wait two minutes before following.
The service corridors are dimly lit at this hour, but I know these routes now. I've had Paolo map every entrance and exit in this hotel. She navigates them like someone familiar with avoiding security cameras, slipping through blind spots with expertise.
I follow at a distance as she emerges onto the Prague streets. She moves with purpose through the late-night crowds, no hesitation, no checking street signs. This isn't a late-night stroll for someone who can’t sleep. This is someone going exactly where they need to be.
The hostel district again.
My jaw clenches as we approach the same neighborhood where she met that tattooed bastard this afternoon. Paolo's team confirmed the man has been drinking heavily all night with friends at a bar three blocks away, but maybe they arranged to meet somewhere else.
Maybe—
She stops on the sidewalk. I duck into a doorway as she approaches the entrance of the same hostel she visited earlier. But instead of going inside, she waits. Looking around, checking the shadows.
That's when I see her.
Another woman emerges from beside the building. Same height, same build, same way of moving. But her hair is different—shorter, darker. And when she turns toward the light from the street lamp, everything finally clicks into place.
It's Sofia's face.
Exactly Sofia's face.
The woman I've been living with, sleeping with, steps forward and the two identical faces catch the light. They're talking urgently, their body language familiar.
Sisters.
No, not sisters…twins.
Everything—every inconsistency, every moment where she seemed like a stranger, every skill she shouldn't have, every lie that didn't quite fit—suddenly makes perfect, terrible sense.
My suspicions have been right all along.
The woman I married isn't Sofia Arcari.
Sofia Arcari is standing right there, and she's not the woman in my bed.
I watch, transfixed, as they embrace. A desperate, clinging hug that speaks of fear and love and goodbye. They're both crying, and consoling each other. I can see it even from this distance even if I can’t hear their conversation.
The real Sofia pulls back first, wiping her eyes, and heads toward the hostel entrance. My wife—whatever the fuck her name really is—watches her go, then turns to walk back toward the hotel district.
Back to me who she believes is still asleep in our bed.
I wait until the real Sofia disappears inside the building, then I step out of the shadows to follow behind my wife.
She makes it two blocks before I call out to her.
"Going somewhere, Sofia?"
She stops but doesn't turn around immediately. When she does, there's no surprise on her face. No attempt at denial or deflection.
She knew this moment would come.
She’s always known.
"Just getting some air," she says.
"In a hostel district? In the middle of the night? Dressed like someone trying very hard not to be recognized?"
I move closer, studying this face I thought I knew. How did I miss it? How did I not see that this woman was a completely different person?
"Look at me."
She complies, and in the streetlight, I can see the resignation in her eyes. The weight of carrying a lie that's finally too heavy to bear.
"How long have you known?" she asks.
"Ten minutes. I saw you with her. Just now. Your sister." I step closer, fury and fascination warring in my chest. "My wife has a twin sister. Isn’t that an interesting twist?"
She doesn't try to deny it.
"Yes," she says simply.
"Yes, what?"
"Yes, I have a twin sister. Yes, I'm not Sofia. Yes, I've been lying to you since our wedding day."
The blunt confession is unexpected. Not because I didn't already know. The evidence has been building for weeks, but because hearing her say it out loud makes it real.
I married a stranger.
I've been falling for a woman who doesn't exist.
"Get in the car," I tell her, surprised by how calm my voice sounds. "We're going back to the hotel. And you're going to tell me everything."
Paolo appears from the shadows where he's been waiting, and I see her eyes widen slightly. She hadn't known about the backup.
"Boss?" Paolo's voice is carefully neutral, but I can hear the questions underneath.
"Take us back to the hotel. Make sure we're not disturbed."
The ride passes in silence. She sits perfectly still in the backseat, staring out the window at Prague's darkened streets. No more attempts at conversation or explanation. She's done pretending.
And I'm trying to process the magnitude of what I've just discovered.
The woman beside me orchestrated the most elaborate deception I've ever encountered. She walked into my family, into my bed, into my life, and convinced everyone—including me—that she was someone else entirely.
The question that's burning in my mind isn't how she did it.
It's why.
Why did the real Sofia go along with the deception?
And what the fuck I'm supposed to do about it now?
Because despite everything—despite the lies and the deception and the growing certainty that nothing about our marriage is what I thought it was—the idea of losing her makes something twist violently inside me.
I don't know who she really is.
But I know I'm not ready to let her go.