Chapter 18 - Sofia
Iwatch him sleep and enumerate all the ways I’ve betrayed my family.
Morning light filters through bulletproof glass, painting Alexei's face in soft grays.
His breathing is deep, even. The exhaustion from last night, from everything we did to each other, has finally caught up with him.
The sheet pools at his waist, revealing the scratches I left on his chest. Evidence of my complete surrender.
The list keeps growing in my mind, each item another blade between my ribs:
I deleted intel that could save Rosetti lives. The Kuzmins meeting, security details, everything Nico needs to protect our operations. Gone with three taps of my finger.
I lied to Nico. In that parking garage just days ago, I looked him in the eye and pretended everything was fine. Then again on the phone yesterday.
I'm sleeping with the man who kidnapped me. Not just sleeping, but choosing him, craving him, waking up wet from dreams of his hands on my body.
I told him about the deleted intel. Confessed my treason while his cum was still dripping down my thighs.
And worst of all: I woke up in his arms this morning and my first thought was that I could stay here forever.
My chest constricts. I slip from the bed, careful not to wake him. His white shirt lies crumpled on the floor where he threw it last night. I pull it on, the cotton soft against my bare skin, his scent surrounding me.
Standing at the window, I stare out at the compound grounds. Somewhere out there, my family is planning. Marco running operations from his penthouse. Nico probably awake already, that sixth sense of his prickling, telling him something's wrong with his sister.
What am I becoming?
I was raised to be a weapon. The family's secret blade, honed to perfection.
Every skill, every instinct trained to protect the Rosettis.
My knife is under the mattress where I've taken to hiding it these past few nights.
Close enough to reach if needed, but not strapped to my thigh like it would be if I still felt like the enemy's captive.
Too comfortable. Too safe. Too fucking stupid.
Marco would never forgive this. Would see it as the ultimate betrayal of our father's memory.
Nico would… God, Nico knows something's wrong. He heard it in my voice on the phone. The slight catch when I lied, the pause before I said everything was fine.
"You're thinking too loud."
I turn. Alexei's awake, propped on one elbow, watching me with those pale eyes that see too much. Hair mussed from sleep, the morning softness making him look younger. Almost vulnerable. My pussy clenches at the sight. Even now, even drowning in guilt, my body wants him.
"How long have you been awake?"
"Long enough to watch you spiral." He sits up fully, the sheet sliding lower, revealing the trail of dark hair that disappears beneath cotton. My mouth goes dry. "Whatever you're torturing yourself about, it can wait an hour."
"It can't. It really can't."
"Sofia." His voice goes gentle in a way that undoes me. "Come back to bed."
I should resist. Should maintain some distance, some barrier between us. But my feet move without permission, carrying me back to him, back to the heat of his body that makes me forget I'm supposed to be cold.
I settle beside him, letting him pull me against his chest. His heartbeat thuds steady under my ear, his fingers threading through my hair.
No heat, no desperation. Just being. But even this simple contact makes my nipples tighten beneath his shirt, makes wetness gather between my thighs.
My body doesn't understand the difference between comfort and desire anymore. Not with him.
"I don't know who I am anymore," I admit, the words tearing from my throat.
"What do you mean?"
"I was so certain before. I knew exactly who I was, what I wanted. Now I look in the mirror and I don't recognize myself." My voice cracks. "I see someone who gets wet when her captor walks into a room. Someone who lies to the one person she swore never to lie to."
His chest rises with a deep breath, and I feel his cock twitch against my hip. Even my confession of being aroused by him affects him. "I know the feeling."
We lie in silence for a moment before he speaks again. "Tell me something. About your family. Something real."
I tense, every muscle going rigid. "Why?"
"Because I only know the Rosettis as enemies. I want to know them as the people who made you."
It's such an unexpected request. Such a human one.
"What do you want to know?"
"Who are you closest to?"
"Nico." The name comes without hesitation, burns on my tongue like betrayal. "He's the one who trained me. After the massacre."
"Trained you?"
"Everything. Combat, weapons, how to read a room, how to kill without hesitation.
" My throat tightens with memory, thick with unshed tears.
"I was fifteen, terrified, having nightmares every night after what happened.
Our father dead, Dante tortured into silence.
The whole family shattered. I wanted to hide, to disappear, but Nico wouldn't let me. "
"Why not?"
"He was nineteen, just back from his first tour.
He had his own demons. I'd hear him screaming at night, down the hall, reliving whatever hell he'd seen overseas.
But every morning, 5 AM, he'd be in the gym.
Waiting for me. He said I'd never feel safe until I could protect myself.
So he made me dangerous instead of damaged. "
"And that's why you're close?"
"No." My voice drops to barely a whisper.
"I was sixteen. A year after the massacre.
The nightmares were still bad. I'd wake up screaming in Russian, words I didn't understand.
Everyone thought I was losing my mind. Marco was making calls to facilities in Switzerland, places that deal with trauma, with fractured minds. "
Alexei's hand stills in my hair, his whole body going alert.
"Nico came to my room one night. Sat on the edge of my bed while I shook and sobbed.
And he said…" My voice catches, tears finally spilling.
"He said, 'Sof, I don't care what's broken in you.
I don't care what you remember or what you can't. You're my sister, and I'll never let anyone take you away. '"
The memory creates a hollow ache behind my ribs.
"I was crying, couldn't stop. My whole body shaking like I was coming apart. And he held me and said, 'Let's make a deal. You and me. We never lie to each other. No matter what. Everyone else can get the masks, the performance, the bullshit. But between us, only truth.'"
"You made a pact," Alexei says quietly, his thumb stroking my cheek, catching tears.
"A sacred promise. I've never lied to Nico. Not once in nine years. He's the only person who knows all of me. The weapon he forged, the nightmares that still wake me at 3 AM, the parts I hide from everyone else."
"Until now."
The words land like stones in my chest, crushing something vital. "Until now. I've lied to him twice in the past few days. I hear his voice on the phone and I lie. He asked me what's wrong and I said nothing. He asked if you were hurting me and I said no."
Alexei opens his mouth to defend himself, but no words come out.
"The worst part is, he knows. Nico always knows when something's wrong with me. He can hear it in my breathing, in the space between words. He's probably lying awake right now, running through scenarios, trying to figure out what I'm hiding."
I can't deny it. The proof is in the way my hands tremble, in the nausea that rises when I think about facing Nico.
"What will you tell him?"
"I don't know." I press my face into my captor's chest, breathing him in, that amber-and-smoke scent that's rewriting my DNA. "I don't know."
Later, we're both dressed. Me in his shirt and soft pants I found in a drawer, him in casual clothes I've never seen him wear. Dark jeans, a gray henley that clings to his chest. The domesticity of it creates a dangerous warmth in my belly, makes me imagine mornings that will never exist.
He leads me to the bonsai on his dresser, the one he tends every morning with careful precision.
"Did Mikhail own this one too?" I ask.
"No," he says, voice soft with memory. "This one, I started myself. It's only ten years old."
"Show me."
He moves behind me, his chest pressing against my back, his arms coming around me to guide my hands to the tiny branches.
The full-body contact makes my breath catch.
I can feel every inch of him. The hard planes of his chest, the way his cock starts to harden against my ass.
My body responds instantly, nipples tightening, pussy growing wet.
Even this innocent moment becomes charged between us.
"You don't cut randomly. You look at the shape it wants to become, then help it get there." His breath stirs my hair, his lips so close to my ear I shiver. "Patience. That's the whole thing. You can't force it."
"What happens if you force it?"
"It dies. Or grows wrong. Twisted, stunted." His lips brush my ear, making my thighs clench. "Some damage can't be undone."
I think about my own damage. The memories I can't access. The parts of myself I've lost. The promise to Nico I've shattered into pieces.
"But it can grow around the damage," he continues, his hands adjusting my grip on the small shears, his touch making my skin burn. "See this scar here? Someone cut wrong years ago. The tree incorporated it. Made it part of the shape."
"That's what we do," I murmur, hyperaware of his erection pressing against me. "We grow around our damage."
"If we're lucky."
We stand there, his arms around me, both of us focused on this fragile thing that connects him to his dead brother. But I can't stop noticing how perfectly I fit against him, how my body molds to his like we were carved from the same stone.
This is dangerous. This domestic sweetness, this careful tending of growing things. This is how I lose myself completely.