Chapter 23
Xavier
“ How could they do this to you ?”
Courtney says what every soul here is thinking.
It wasn’t surprising when Mimi and I heard Sophie start to confide in her. Honestly, I’d hoped for it. Courtney always managed to reveal the deep, endless layers of my wife that she wouldn’t let me reach.
Mimi stayed back when I told her to, holding up my hand by the door so I could quietly listen, hear every struggle Sophie unloaded. Each one, worse than the next.
It took me a year to leave that airport, to accept he couldn’t come.
There wasn’t anyone else.
Not when I saw him everywhere I went.
Eavesdropping was clearly the wrong move because now I’m just standing here, gripping the threshold, unable to move even as Mimi slides by me, rubbing my back in sympathy.
I keep hearing it.
The baby.
I lost it, Courtney. It was painful… So painful .
It happened at night. I tried. I tried to bear through it. I was too scared to go to a hospital ? —
I'm shattered, unable to breathe just imagining it: her in a dark apartment, crying… alone. I'm immediately convinced this will become a new nightmare that fills my dreams, another torment I’ll have to learn to live with.
The boys are comforting Courtney, lightening the mood despite her endless tears. Every joke from their mouths aims to soothe Sophie, keep her here with us, and far away from those memories.
My soul feels as roughly calloused as my hands, worn with exhaustion. Yet, I push myself out of the room, clearing my eyes, easing the throbbing in my chest, focusing on stopping her shaking… not my own.
Will this whiplash ever cease? Will I live with it forever?
I can’t fathom bringing her to the manor tonight. Neither of us is ready for it, although she would never admit it. We can address all that tomorrow. For now, I guide her into the family penthouse, with the entirety of New York City stretching out behind us—elevated above the city of lights.
Sophie walks through the foyer, facing this reminder of our past head-on. Less enthusiastic, I beeline for the kitchen, seeking something to distract me from what I just overheard.
“Drink?” I rasp, already pouring aged whiskey over ice.
My temple throbs, my fingers massaging pressure into the ache as I guzzle the liquid fire.
“What happened to your mother?”
Get your shit together . “Brain tumor. She was gone in a matter of weeks.”
I wish I could convey what losing my mother so suddenly did to me, but my response escapes through clenched teeth.
My eyes find Sophie by the fireplace, holding the funeral announcement.
A deeper glance into the room reveals expressive details of my mother’s final days: a hospital identification band I couldn’t bring myself to throw away, a partially knitted blanket still draped over the rocking chair by the floor-length window, forever unfinished, and the note she wrote in perfect penmanship on the coffee table.
Mio figilo,
You are my one true joy.
Smile. Life is too short not to.
“I'm sorry,” Sophie says quietly.
She probably doesn’t think I answer. That’s how low my voice has deepened—nearly non-existent. “It’s fine.”
How many times have I told myself that over the past four years… How many times?
Leaving the malt that could get me rip-roaring drunk, that could ease every uncomfortable ache within me, I join her in the living room, needing sobriety to get out what comes next.
“Your mother is in California. Santa Barbara.”
Sophie doesn’t react, her eyes perusing the familiar space. “She always did like the sun.” Silence fills the room momentarily before she finds the courage to ask, “Did she ever call?”
I wish I could lie and craft another family for her, one less evil. “No. Neither did Vito.”
“Did Victoria ever call you?”
“No.”
“It’s all the same,” she says, sounding as numb as I feel.
She’s been emotionless since she unburdened her traumas onto Courtney. I'm unsure whether it’s exhaustion or something else, as I watch her vacant gaze drift to the panel of windows, staring out at the sleepless city.
Her heartache expels everything else. My battles.
My own ravaged heart. My world narrows, honing in on sparing her anything else, even one more moment trapped in that bottomless abyss.
She is my salvation, the sole being on this Earth that has the power to exorcize these terrors tearing at me from within.
I must be that for her, even when I'm just as low.
“Come with me.”
“Where are we going?”
My hand slides into hers. “To the beginning.”
The Met at night consists mainly of dimly lit corridors, where darkness envelops the artwork, creating moving shadows on the marble sculptures and displayed artifacts. In every room, spotlights highlight the pieces, serving as our only navigational aid through the gallery.
This was once Sophie’s favorite escape, back when we first got married. My father never granted me enough time to experience this with her, assigning draining duties during the day and club surveying at night.
That changes today.
When I walked into the convenience store for a bottle of wine and some plastic cups, Sophie was waiting in the car.
She didn’t hear my call to Dario to post men outside the museum.
Nor did she hear me call in this favor, insisting my soldatos are stationed in the security booth, the only ones with access to our route within the walls.
The attendant doesn’t know he’ll be stalked on this brief break to ensure he doesn’t make any unnecessary calls or movements.
Although it’s impossible with the life I lead, I want her to believe for one more night, at least, that we’re alone—that we aren’t being followed or watched.
I slow my steps to observe her walk, noticing how the mini dress she wore at the beach this morning sways against the backs of her thighs, caressing her soft skin as intimately as I wish to.
Transfixed, I'm certain there’s no masterpiece showcased here that could possibly rival her; nothing of any significance that would make looking away from her worth it.
I can still taste her.
An entire day has passed, and I'm still dreaming of the insides of her thighs, her breasts heaving as she struggles for breath, her pouty mouth falling open for more.
Even the more subtle, refined movements I’ve memorized.
The contours of her ribcage as I twisted her beneath me, the curve of her pale shoulder as I rocked into her from behind, appreciating the route my lips coursed to reach her mouth.
The winded whimper that left her when my fingers dug into her chin, urging her head back to my waiting mouth, so damn eager to consume.
Cazzo . I’m stiff just thinking of it.
Casting my eyes from the cream fabric of her dress, I redirect my focus, suppressing those desires. As damn tricky as it is, that’s not what this is. That’s not why I brought her here.
“You kept your promise,” Sophie finally says from across the room, staring at an impressionist painting of a water lily pond—a Monet, by the looks of it.
“You remember?”
Her eyes are as still as that painting. “Everything.”
The Hellenistic floors starkly contrast the leather of my shoes as I stroll the gallery’s perimeter. There’s no music, no chatter, no other soul here but us. It’s precisely what I wanted.
“I'm a regular here lately,” I reveal.
There’s finally a hint of a smile. “Is that so?”
“Mm. I'm a donor. That means you are, too.”
“Me?”
“Yes.”
She’s grinning. It’s working .
If she looked close enough, she’d see my chest swell with pride to be able to do that for her still—after all I’ve made her suffer. “We can come whenever we want.”
“I see what you’re doing.”
“What?”
“I know a bribe when I hear it.”
My teeth catch the inside of my cheek, stifling a million emotions all at once. “Is it working?”
Glued to the opposite boundary of the room, becoming as uninterested in the artwork as I am, each step she takes brings her a little closer. “You don’t need to bribe me on this. On us. Ever.”
Fucking hell.
Restraint is damn near impossible.
Years ago, something like that out of her mouth would’ve ignited a frenzy, an absolute riot within me that would’ve had her writhing on these pristine floors in seconds. That fire still rages just as bright now, but I must confine the blazes.
The hate I have for my father and for this organization has matured over the years, making the importance of revenge as vital as anything else.
The price of the war I'm waging is that. That in moments like these, when I shouldn’t hesitate to take my wife and devote myself to her pleasure—to my own—I'm holding back, scared I’ll hurt her, concerned I’ll do something wrong, anxious she won’t love the man I’ve become when I'm not pretending.
“Your mask is down,” she says.
I’ve stopped walking, framed by a painting of a woman on a lawn chair. “I have a mask?”
“Ninety-nine percent of the time, yes.”
“And this is that one percent?”
“Yes.”
I drop my gaze, pure instinct when observed this closely, while my insides crush in on me. Don’t let her see it.
She doesn’t protest as I break from my path, striding out of the quickly enclosing space .
In the brief time it takes her to join me in the Petrie Court, I’ve gathered myself and banished the storm.
This room is darker than the others due to the ceiling and glass walls, drawing in the stillness of the stars. A cloudless sky unveils the moon, casting brilliance on the pedestaled Cypriot sculptures surrounding us.
“I wish you could be honest with me,” she says.
“I poured my heart out to you this morning.”
She nods. “Yes, you told me how hard our lives are going to become. You told me how you will make me happy through it all… You didn’t tell me how I can make you happy.”
“You’re here. End of story.”
“I'm here, and there’s still a giant hole in your chest.”
She’s as damn infuriating as ever. Her and that observing. “Sophie.”
“It’s just us here. We’re alone. Stop holding back.”