Chapter 10 - Sofia
Security is tighter now. Guards doubled. Cameras monitored constantly, or so he thinks.
Tonight, I move.
The lockpick slides from my hair—titanium alloy, thin as a credit card, warm from my body heat.
Milo's gift feels like salvation between my fingers.
My bare feet make no sound on the cold marble, each step calculated, weight distributed the way Nico taught me.
The floors are ice against my skin, numbing, but I embrace the discomfort.
It keeps me sharp, keeps me from thinking about how Alexei's hands felt hot enough to brand.
Through corridors I've memorized, past the sleeping guard. Different one than before—I note the rotation change, file it away. His snores smell like vodka. The service entrance alarm disables with a trick Nico taught me years ago, fingertips finding the right pressure points on the keypad.
I grab a guard's jacket from a hook—leather and cigarette smoke, too big but necessary—pull it over my cotton dress. The weight of it reminds me of Alexei's hands on my shoulders after yesterday's sparring, possessive and claiming.
Into the cold Chicago night. The concrete bites into my bare feet, sharp and numbing.
My breath clouds in the air, and I taste exhaust and distant rain.
Sirens wail somewhere south—another night in the city that never really sleeps.
Each step away from the compound feels like betrayal. Each step feels like freedom.
My body throbs with the memory of his fingers inside me, the way he played me like an instrument only he knew how to tune. Even now, even escaping, I'm wet thinking about it.
A parking garage, one mile from the compound.
I make it in twelve minutes, sticking to shadows that smell like piss, avoiding cameras that sweep predictable arcs.
My feet are completely numb now, leaving bloody prints on rougher patches of concrete.
Level three, northwest corner. Flickering fluorescents cast everything in a sickly green.
A black SUV, lights off, engine ticking as it cools.
I approach from the blind spot—force of habit. The oil-stained concrete is slick under my frozen feet. I tap the trunk twice, pause, tap once. Our old signal from when he trained me, when I was twelve and thought knowing seventeen ways to kill a man made me powerful.
The driver's door opens with a soft click.
Nico unfolds from the seat like a weapon being drawn. Six-two, lean muscle that speaks of function over form, dark hair buzzed military-short. He moves with lethal economy, every gesture deliberate. The middle brother. The one who turned me into this—weapon, spy, survivor.
"You look like shit," he says, his eyes already searching for wounds I'm not showing.
"Love you too."
He pulls me into a hug—brief, fierce, his arms careful around me like I might shatter. He smells like gun oil and the cinnamon mints he chews since quitting smoking. When he releases me, his tactical assessment continues. "Any injuries?"
My throat burns with phantom pressure, remembering Alexei's grip. "I'm fine, Nico."
"That's not what I asked."
"I'm handling it."
His jaw tightens, the muscle jumping. I can see the restraint it takes for him not to throw me in the SUV and drive straight back to the compound.
To go in guns blazing and paint the walls with Russian blood.
But that's not the mission. I made him promise—intelligence first, extraction only if I call for it.
He hands me a burner phone—a new one that still has that fresh electronics smell. "Marco's losing his mind. Wants to storm the compound."
"Marco always wants to storm something."
"Dante's the one holding him back. Says to trust you." Nico's eyes meet mine, hazel in this light, steady as a sniper's aim. "I trust you. But I need to know you're okay. Really okay."
His fingers were inside me, Nico. I came apart in his arms and wanted more.
The words die unspoken, turn to ash on my tongue. Instead, I pull the folded paper from inside my dress—notes made on toilet paper with eyeliner, written in a code only we know. The paper is damp with sweat, my sweat, from being pressed against my skin during the escape.
"He took me to a Russian gala. I mapped the room.
" My voice stays steady even as my body remembers Alexei breaking Tork's fingers for touching me.
"Volkov's allies. The Petrovs are solid—old money, old loyalty.
Caviar breath and ancient grudges. But the Kuzmin bratva is shaky.
I watched Viktor Kuzmin talking on his phone all night, stepping away from Alexei, avoiding eye contact like a beaten dog. "
Nico takes the paper, scans it with eyes that process tactical data like other people breathe. His expression sharpens—the soldier engaging. "You think the Kuzmins are looking to flip?"
"I think they're hedging. Volkov's been focused on his vendetta against us. The other families are getting restless. If we could approach Kuzmin quietly…"
"Turn one of his allies." The smile that curves his mouth is sharp as any blade.
"Or at least neutralize them."
I don't mention the Barone information. The trap is too obvious—I recognized it immediately as false bait, felt Alexei watching me read it, waiting to see if I'd take it. The way his fingers drummed against the desk, patient as a spider.
"What aren't you telling me?" Nico studies me with eyes that have seen too much, done worse.
The parking garage is too quiet. Just the distant hum of ventilation and the tick of cooling engines. Somewhere, a rat scurries through garbage. The silence stretches until I can hear my own heartbeat, too fast, too revealing.
"The Barones," I say carefully, tasting each word before releasing it. "Alexei fed me information about them moving against us. Weapons shipment, three weeks."
Nico goes absolutely still. The kind of stillness that comes before violence. "And?"
"It's false. A trap. He's testing to see if I have outside contact."
"How do you know?"
"Because he wanted me to know. He practically gift-wrapped it.
" I shake my head, remembering the way he slid the file across his desk, those pale eyes tracking every micro-expression.
"Alexei Volkov doesn't give away advantages.
If that information were real, he'd use it himself—let us walk into an ambush.
The fact that he handed it to me means it's bait. Amateur bait."
Nico exhales slowly. "Smart of you to spot it."
"I learned from the best."
"You learned from Dante. I just taught you how to kill people."
The joke falls flat between us, weighed down by truth.
We have a few more minutes before the risk becomes too great. I shouldn't waste them, but…
"How are you, Nico? Really?"
He shrugs, the motion controlled like everything about him. "Same as always. Keeping Marco from starting wars. Keeping Luca from finishing them. Watching Dante pretend he's fine when he's not."
"And you?"
"I'm fine."
"That's not an answer."
He huffs a laugh—surprised out of him, rusty from disuse. "Using my own words against me."
"Tommy is coming to visit next month," he says, deflecting smoothly. "Bringing his sister. You remember, from my unit?"
"The one who wouldn't stop asking about you in his letters?"
"She was asking about the family. The business."
"Nico." I catch the way his ears flush red in the fluorescent light. "She was asking about you."
He looks away, suddenly fascinated by a water stain on the concrete ceiling. The tips of his ears burn brighter, and something in my chest warms seeing my lethal brother undone by the mention of a woman.
I file it away for later teasing—if there is a later. If this ever ends.
"I should go. Before they notice."
Nico catches my arm, his grip firm but careful. "Sof. If it gets bad—if you need extraction—you call. I don't care what Marco says, I don't care about the mission. You call, and I come get you."
"I know."
"Promise me."
I think about the basement, the knife at my throat, Alexei's voice saying today, Sofia Rosetti dies. I think about how I didn't call then, how my body wanted him even with death hanging between us.
"I promise," I lie, the words tasting like mud.
The journey back takes a different route—standard protocol, never use the same path twice.
My feet are beyond numb now, leaving smears of blood on the concrete that will be washed away by morning rain.
The guard's jacket flaps around me, too big, carrying the ghost scents of its owner—cheap cologne and cheaper cigarettes.
Chicago breathes around me, unaware and uncaring. The city sounds different at night—more honest, more dangerous. Every shadow could hide someone watching. Every sound could be footsteps following. My body stays alert, trained, even as my mind circles back to the compound. To him.
There's my girl.
The memory of his voice during our sparring session floods through me, and my body answers before I can stop it, wetness pooling between my thighs. Even now, even after feeding my brother intelligence to damn him, I want him.
The compound looms ahead, a fortress pretending to be civilized. My escape route is still clear—the service door's red light blinks steadily. I'm almost to my room when footsteps echo down the corridor. I freeze, every muscle locking.
A guard rounds the corner, flashlight sweeping. I press into a doorway, becoming shadow, becoming nothing. My heart hammers so hard I'm sure he'll hear it. He passes within two feet of me. His breath reeks of garlic. The beam of his light catches the edge of my bare foot, pauses.
Moves on.
I wait thirty seconds that feel like thirty years. Then I move, quick and silent. Into my room. Door locked with trembling fingers. Guard's jacket shoved deep into the wardrobe. Lockpick tucked back into my hair, the metal warm from my grip.
Safe. For now.
I lie in bed, staring at the ceiling, but something twists in my chest like a blade between ribs.
The intel I passed—the Kuzmins' weakness—feels like I've given away something precious.
Not strategic information. Something personal.
The way Alexei's hands shake almost imperceptibly when he prunes his bonsai, thinking of Mikhail.
The grief that lives in his eyes when he doesn't know I'm watching.
Every piece of intelligence feels like I'm carving away pieces of him. Of us. Of whatever this thing between us is becoming.
He's the enemy. I know that. My family's enemy. Mikhail's brother, seeking vengeance for blood we spilled.
But my body doesn't understand enemies. It only understands the memory of his fingers inside me, his voice commanding me to come, the way he broke Tork's fingers for daring to touch what Alexei had claimed as his. The possessiveness makes me ache.
I close my eyes, and immediately I'm back in that study at the gala, his fingers buried inside me, his voice rough with need. My hand drifts between my thighs before I catch myself, fingers already seeking the wetness I know is there.
This is what he's done to me—turned me into someone who gets wet from betraying him. Someone whose body craves the enemy's touch more than safety, more than freedom, more than family loyalty.
There's my girl.
The words echo in the darkness, proud and possessive and everything I shouldn't want. When I finally showed him what I could do in that training room, when our bodies collided in violent grace, when he grinned with blood on his teeth—that was the moment everything changed.
I'm a weapon. Nico made me that.
I'm a spy. My family needs me to be that.
I'm a sister. That will never change.
I'm a liar. Getting better at it every day.
But in the dark, with Alexei's voice echoing in my head and my body aching for his touch, I'm not sure which one is real anymore.
Or if the real me is something else entirely—a woman falling for the man who should destroy her, who wants to destroy her family, who makes destruction feel like coming home.