Chapter 4 Sofia
The darkness presses against the windows with invisible weight. I've been tracking the camera's pattern for hours—twenty seconds of blind spot every three minutes. More than enough time for someone trained in shadows.
My Chanel clutch sits innocent on the vanity where I left it.
The guards who searched it found nothing—designer lipstick, compact mirror, tissues.
They don't notice the false lining, the way the stitching pulls just slightly wrong at one corner.
Amateur hour, really. Even my youngest and most innocent cousin from New York, Carmela, could spot the deception if she looked.
In the bathroom, door closed, I work the lining free.
The lockpick slides out—custom titanium alloy, thin as a credit card but infinitely more useful.
A gift from my hacker cousin Milo last Christmas, though he probably didn't imagine I'd be using it to escape from a Russian compound.
Thank you for the hardware, Milo. Thank you for the training, Nico.
I press my ear to the suite door. Silence. The guard rotation passed six minutes ago; I have another nine before they return. My pulse stays steady—this is what I was made for. Not sitting in a fake cage waiting to be broken.
The lock is sophisticated—electronic, with a manual override hidden beneath a nearly invisible panel. Forty seconds of careful manipulation, adjusting the angle, applying just the right pressure. The mechanism whispers rather than clicks, and I'm free.
The hallway stretches before me, lit only by emergency strips along the baseboards.
I slip off my shoes—barefoot now, the floorboards cool beneath my feet but silent, so perfectly silent.
Years of ballet trained me for this, moving on the balls of my feet, weight distributed perfectly, each step deliberate and soundless.
Mother never imagined her daughter's dance lessons would serve this purpose.
I map as I move. East wing first—empty guest quarters, dust motes dancing in moonlight through uncurtained windows. The air tastes stale, abandoned. Three doors, all locked, but the emptiness has a particular quality. No one's been here in months.
West wing next—immediately different. Cigarette smoke and gun oil lingering in the air, the distant murmur of voices, light bleeding under doors.
This is where life continues even at this hour.
His territory. The scent makes my skin prickle—danger and masculinity concentrated into an invisible warning.
Behind one door, I spot it—a weapons cache behind a false panel, visible through a cracked door. I recognize the setup immediately. Same configuration we use. Are all mafia families this predictably paranoid, or did he study us that carefully?
The stairs beckon. Down leads to the main living area and, down again, cold air and the smell of bleach—the basement he threatened me with. My throat throbs at the memory of his touch, a collar I can't remove. Up leads to darkness and possibility.
I choose up, counting each step, memorizing the ones that creak.
The third floor feels different—more lived-in, more dangerous. A door stands slightly ajar halfway down the corridor, blue light spilling across the marble like water. I approach slowly, listening for breathing, for movement, for any sign of occupation.
Nothing.
I ease the door wider, just enough to slip through sideways.
The surveillance room opens before me—walls lined with monitors showing every corner of the compound.
My trained eye counts quickly: sixteen screens, four angles per screen, comprehensive coverage.
Professional setup, military-grade equipment.
But it's not the technology that stops my breath.
The corkboard covers half the far wall, and it's covered in photos. Dozens of them. No—more. Maybe fifty. Maybe a hundred.
All of me.
My legs move without conscious thought, carrying me closer. The images blur together at first—a kaleidoscope of my own face staring back from different angles, different days, different versions of myself I didn't know were being watched.
There—me at the opera three months ago, emerald dress catching the light as I laugh at something Marco said. I remember that night. We'd just closed the Detroit deal. I'd felt untouchable.
Another—leaving my favorite coffee shop, sunglasses on, phone pressed to my ear. The angle suggests the photographer was across the street, probably in a car. Patient. Waiting. Hunting.
Here—dancing at Emma and Alessandro's wedding, spinning with Nico, my head thrown back in genuine joy. One of the few times I'd let my guard completely down. But someone was watching even then.
Running at dawn in the park, earbuds in, ponytail swinging. I do that route three times a week. Have for years. How many times was he there, invisible, studying me like prey he's planning to devour?
The dates written in the corners make my stomach clench.
The oldest photos date back three years.
I would have been twenty-two then—when I started taking over certain family operations.
When I became more than just the protected Rosetti princess.
He didn't start watching me as a child. He waited until I became…
what? A woman? A threat? A prize worth taking?
One photo in particular draws me closer—me at my bedroom window in our estate, staring out at the gardens.
Three AM, based on the timestamp. Just another night.
Another nightmare about Mikhail had undoubtedly torn me from sleep, left me gasping and guilty.
I'd stood at that window often, trying to shake the feeling of blood on my hands that would never wash clean.
He was watching. Even then. Even in my most private moment of grief.
Another image stops my heart—me at fifteen, days before Mikhail died. Young, innocent, untouched by the blood that would soon stain us all. Did Alexei add this photo later, looking for signs of the girl who knew his brother?
My chest tightens as understanding crashes over me. This isn't revenge—it's obsession. Raw, consuming, terrifying obsession that makes my skin prickle.
Years of surveillance, of careful documentation. Learning my routines, my habits, my unguarded moments. Some of these photos serve no strategic purpose—just me existing, thinking, living my life unaware of the eyes tracking my every move.
My mind fractures into a thousand questions, each one more terrifying than the last. How many times did I smile, thinking I was alone? How many private moments has he collected like trophies?
I'm horrified. Disturbed to my core.
But beneath the revulsion, something else pulses.
Dark. Dangerous. A recognition I don't want to name.
The arousal that coils low in my belly makes me hate myself.
Bile rises in my throat even as heat pools between my thighs.
What kind of broken person gets wet from being stalked?
My mother would be horrified. My brothers would lock me away to protect me from myself.
But here in the dark, with his obsession laid bare on the walls, my body betrays every moral lesson I've ever learned.
He chose me. Out of all the ways to take his revenge, all the family members he could target—he chose me. Spent years studying me, learning me, wanting… what? To understand me? To possess me? To destroy me?
The surveillance room smells like stale coffee and electronic heat, but underneath—his cologne. Amber and smoke. He sits here, watching me, surrounded by his own scent like a predator's den.
Footsteps in the corridor—two sets, heavy boots on marble. No time to reach the door. I duck behind the bank of servers in the corner, pressing myself flat against the wall, making myself small and still. My breathing stops completely.
The door swings open. Two guards enter, speaking Russian.
The words flow over me, and I understand fragments—another thing I've never let myself examine too closely.
The ease of it disturbs me less than it should.
Why do I know this language? Why does it feel as natural as breathing?
The questions pile up with all the others I can't answer about that night eleven years ago.
"You hear about Sergei?" the first guard asks, settling into the chair at the monitors.
"Fuck. Yeah." A low whistle. "Jaw wired shut. They're flying in a specialist from Moscow for his eye."
My stomach tightens.
"Idiot. You'd think after five years he'd know better than to run his mouth."
"What'd he even say?"
A pause. The creak of a chair. "Something about the Rosetti girl. What he'd do if he got ten minutes alone with her." Another pause. "Said it in the mess hall. Didn't see the boss come in."
"Blyad." The second guard's voice drops. "And Gregor? I heard he's on the Siberia run now."
"Until spring. If he survives."
"What'd he do?"
"Brought her dinner. Apparently looked at her too long when she took the tray."
Silence. Then: "She must be worth something. Ransom? Trade?"
The first guard snorts. "You've seen him in here. Three, four AM, just… watching her screen. Not checking security. Just her. For hours."
"So what, we pretend she doesn't exist?"
"You want to end up like Sergei? Yeah. She doesn't exist. She's furniture. You look at the floor when you're near her, and you forget she has a face."
They continue talking, but my mind has gone white with this new information. Sergei—brutalized for suggesting they hurt me. Another guard essentially exiled for looking too long.
He isn't just keeping me captive. He's protecting me. Violently. From his own men.
The guards finally leave, their conversation drifting to other topics. I stay frozen for another full minute, processing what I've learned.
The man who wraps his hand around my throat, who forces me to eat from his fingers like a pet, who promises to break me in his basement—that same man is breaking his own soldiers' bones for threatening me.