Chapter 16 Sofia
SOFIA
Andre began to resume more duties. Still taking it easy, and going nice and slow, he stepped back into more of what he did for his family.
Meetings. Calls. Reviewing emails. He was the one who orchestrated the structure of deals, more of an administrative role for his father, but he wasn’t in the office.
It should’ve made my new role as his office assistant more hectic too. But it didn’t. He left the building more often now, mostly with Oleg as his bodyguard and backup.
I wasn’t at a loss for anything to do, though. Renee was friendlier, and I’d assist her with the general upkeep of the house. When I wasn’t with her, I fell more into what seemed like my vocation—nursing.
Claire often asked me to come to their building. If not to help in the clinic with minor things, then just to talk and spend time with her and the others.
Anya seemed like the best friend I never realized I’d been missing out on. Close to my age, yet younger, she had started to look up to me in such a way that I could loosen up and just be.
Natalie was busiest, with Maisie and her pregnancy as it progressed, but she was around too.
One afternoon, I jolted at the sharp orderly tone in Claire’s voice as she called me. I answered my phone and frowned, paused in playing cards with Renee since it was a slow day.
“I need your assistance now.”
With that one, curt statement, Claire sounded exactly like what I expected an ER physician would sound like in a crisis.
I hurried over, ready to assist with some bloodied men who’d been hit with a drive-by.
Any time I was near more of the Orlov force, my nervousness worsened.
Uncle Roberto kept me so sheltered that I was never “out” there.
The chances of any Orlov soldier recognizing me was nil, yet being amid the “enemy” was an unsettling feeling.
Helping them with their wounds wasn’t weird, though. My bleeding heart didn’t discriminate. If I could help, I would.
Anya, Daria, Claire, and I, plus a couple of guards who’d begun to take training to help out in this clinic, all teamed up to compress the wounds and assess the injuries. Claire managed the imaging, and since I had the most practice, I headed up the step of stitching the lacerations.
Later, once it all calmed down, Claire approached me. “You’ve missed your calling.”
I accepted the iced coffee she handed me. “If I drink this so late in the afternoon, I’ll never sleep tonight.”
She arched a brow. “Oh, Andre’s not keeping you up anyway?” She winked, proving she could be playful and teasing too.
I blushed and sipped the cool, sugary drink, a luxury I had never been able to get used to when living with my uncle.
Live for both of us. That was what my cousin wished for me. I’d do that even with this little thing as a drink.
“You’re skilled, Sofia.” Claire nodded once in approval. “I can’t understand why you’d be a maid, or assistant, rather than working as a nurse or tech.”
Because my uncle never lets me out of the house for long. Because my uncle needs to use me for whatever he sees fit. Because I am a Giovanni and expected to serve him, no one else.
“I’d like to, someday,” I replied. It was the truth, but saying I wanted to look forward to actually being a certified nurse was more like stating a whimsical pipedream of mine. Not a real goal I could achieve.
That night, I left the clinic and returned to Andre’s building.
He was still gone and would be out late with Oleg for a meeting.
He’d texted as much already. Without him there, I could slip into his office and take more photos for my uncle.
But there was no point. Nothing incriminating was there.
It was mostly sorted and organized now, all the really old papers in piles and ready for storage.
Besides, as I rode the elevator up to Andre’s floor, I didn’t want to. I didn’t have it in me to be that hypocritical—to spy and give my uncle stolen intel on the same day that I spent hours stitching up and helping the Orlov soldiers.
Torn in two—again—I furrowed and headed toward the kitchen to prepare a light dinner for myself. Even Renee wasn’t here, having plans to finish a mystery novel she’d started that week.
With a salad and half of a sandwich I’d saved as a leftover from the day before, I sat at the counter and ate my meal alone. I was never really alone here. Guards patrolled. Cameras watched.
Under the guilt and shame of being here as a fraud and spy, though, my feelings never left me alone either. I was starting to hate myself for being forced here in such a duplicitous manner.
The Orlovs weren’t bad, not like my uncle was.
My phone buzzed with an incoming text.
Speak of the devil.
I scowled as I chewed, reading the notification line of the message. My uncle was summoning me, and I despised the control he still held over me.
His order was to call him, now, so with a heavy sigh, I disposed of my uneaten food and set the dishes in the sink. My appetite was gone, anyway, with the reminder that Roberto Giovanni owned me.
Passing the bouquet of flowers that Andre had ordered to be delivered here for me, I smiled wistfully and returned to the maid’s room that didn’t feel like mine anymore.
I’d practically moved into Andre’s master suite.
The new clothes he’d gotten for me were in there.
I had a side of the bed, a preferred pillow.
No matter how good it felt to belong with him in that room, I couldn’t take a call with his rival there.
In the old room, I sat on the edge of the small bed and exhaled a long breath before dialing my uncle’s fake number.
“What the fuck are you even doing there?” he demanded as an answer. Never pausing to give me a chance to reply, he pitched a long, winding ramble. Ranting at me. Belittling me. Accusing me of being good for absolutely nothing, not even this “favor” of getting him some intel.
I’d been sending him little scraps of whatever I could.
Meaningless things. Most days, I wasn’t even in the office with Andre.
I was too busy being his girlfriend instead, or he was out of the building.
A couple of times, I’d made up stupid little things to text him, misleading him, hopefully, because that was better than outright betraying Andre.
I already was betraying him, but I tried to walk a fine line on the balance of doing no harm but appeasing the man who decided the fate of my cousin.
“I told you before,” I replied tiredly when he ordered me to give him an actually detailed report for once and not waste his time. “There isn’t anything to find and give you. No notes. No paperwork.”
“Then look harder, you stupid bitch.” He grunted a cruel laugh. “Or else she’s going to suffer.”
I narrowed my eyes, funneling my anger at him into a clear wrath. “You already are making her suffer.”
He grunted, proving how indifferent he was about letting his dead sister’s daughter grow weaker.
“Why? Why do you have to put her through this? She doesn’t deserve it. She has done nothing to warrant your stopping her treatments and—”
“Exactly,” he growled. “She has done nothing. She isn’t worth anything to me.”
I covered my face with my hand. “Then let me come and remove her. I can find a more suitable place for her. Somewhere she can rest peacefully and not be a burden on you.”
“Burden?” He laughed meanly again. “How is she a burden when she’s just down there slowly dying?”
I gritted my teeth, loathing him for having such a heartless attitude. “Let me move her to a facility.”
“And why the fuck should I let you, huh? You’re not doing what I’m asking of you, so no, you stupid bitch, I’m not inclined to do anything you want to ask of me.”
He ended the call with that final note.
The dial tone changed.
Staring straight ahead and zoning out, I clutched my phone so hard that I could’ve cracked the case.
A single tear burned and leaked from my eye.