Chapter 18 Sofia
SOFIA
It didn’t seem right to go to Andre’s room and get in his bed without him there. He hadn’t come home yet from some meeting at Giardino’s, an upscale restaurant downtown.
The awful side effects that accompanied the experience of talking to my uncle clung to me. Anxiety ate away at me. I was irritated and dismayed about being controlled and trapped. Frustrated and sad about how he wouldn’t let me help my cousin.
I was hopeless.
Helpless.
Heartbroken.
Because he could always distract me and improve my mood, I wanted to be available to Andre as soon as he returned.
Staying in my old maid’s room didn’t make sense anymore.
Instead, I went to numb my mind with TV.
In the big lounge, I turned on some weird reality show competition thing with bakers and cake challenges. It was Esmeralda’s favorite.
Was.
It used to be her favorite.
Since her asshole of an uncle had moved her to the basement, she didn’t have her usual entertainment setup that I’d made for her. She had no TV at all down there from what I saw in the few video calls we risked.
I hate you.
Grinding my teeth together, I was too mad to invest in the show I had on mute.
This fury for my uncle was a palpable force that would consume me completely if I couldn’t figure out how to fight him.
How to get Esmeralda out of his grip, wipe out any leverage he had over me, and live my life as I saw fit.
To the fullest for once, not being used as a pawn or sheltered in his shitty house.
I wanted to make it so my cousin could live the remainder of her life to the fullest too, however many days she had left.
God. Why does this have to be so hard?
Life was too cruel. Loss was inevitable, but this much was hard to bear. First my parents were gone—the same day as Esmeralda’s. I still wasn’t convinced Uncle Roberto hadn’t had them conveniently killed so he could rule the family as he saw fit.
Then that terrible news that Esmeralda was sick, doomed to suffer and die too soon.
Andre was the only good I’d managed to hold on to in my life, but even he wasn’t a guarantee.
He wouldn’t want anything to do with me if he were to find out I was a Giovanni.
Because of that fear, I knew this affair we were sharing together—in his bed, in his home—couldn’t last. I couldn’t hide who I was forever.
That was nonsense. Sooner or later, my uncle would force me back home to use me for something else.
Probably to clean and cook for him, like an indentured servant again.
The door to the elevator whooshed open. If I’d had the volume up on the TV, I would’ve missed it. I’d been sitting here impatient for Andre to come home, though. Perking up and getting off the couch, I turned toward the foyer where the elevator led to.
“Andre—” A gasp replaced whatever other part of a greeting I might have wanted to tell him.
The sight of him limping inside stunned me. Blood dripped on his cheek. His suit was cut up, disheveled, dirtied, and worn. As he strode toward me, a sober anger burning in his flinty glare, the scents of gunpowder and smoke wafted from him.
“My God.” I swallowed down the bitterness of shock.
This was far from the first time I’d seen a man wounded and injured. It wasn’t the initial time I’d seen him worse for wear. It hardly mattered because I hated the idea of Andre Orlov ever in pain.
“Come to the clinic with me,” Oleg said, exiting the elevator after him.
His face was stern with a rigid and gruff expression as well.
As he reached out for his boss’s arm, Andre gave him his back.
As if he were locked into tunnel vision, Andre stared at me and continued to approach.
He held his hand up, dismissively, at his right-hand man. “Sofia can help me.”
“Of course. Yes, I will help you. Andre, what happened?” I hurried toward him, my heart aching at the mere concept of his being wounded.
Why?
You said it was just a meeting. To talk. He shouldn’t be coming home like this after a simple, friendly talk.
“What the fuck does it look like?” Oleg snapped at me. “He was—”
Andre stopped short to turn and scowl at him. “Don’t talk to her like that. Go. Go clean yourself up,” he ordered sharply before coming toward me.
“Maybe you should come to the bathroom instead,” I suggested, guiding him there. “I didn’t mean to ask such a stupid question,” I said apologetically. “I can tell you were hurt. I only wanted to know if you were shot. Stabbed. Where you’re bleeding…”
He took my hand and squeezed it as I spotted him on the way to his room. He was walking. Breathing without too much distress. Internal injuries were always a concern, hence why I wanted to assess how he’d been wounded.
“I went to Giardino’s to speak with the Rossis. As soon as we arrived, the fucking cops showed up.”
I furrowed my brow, picking apart what he’d shared.
I never asked for details. The less I knew, the safer I felt.
It seemed a lot like cowardly ignorance, a bliss of ignorance that I wanted to hide behind.
If I didn’t know anything that my uncle would want as intel, then I wouldn’t have anything to share with him and Andre wouldn’t be hurt.
But he had been hurt.
And I was a fool if I thought I could maintain this imbalance—half-assing this spy assignment to spare Andre, all so I could stay near him.
“I don’t need to know. I don’t want to know about all that you… do.” I cringed as he entered his room with me, worried. “I only wanted to know how you were hurt. If we’re looking at a through-and-through or—”
“No.” He slumped onto the same chair in his master bathroom, leaning back as he tried to pry off his torn jacket.
“I wasn’t hit like that. I don’t think they were targeting me.
” He grunted as I joined him in pulling off his clothes to find the wounds.
“They swarmed and showed up for the Rossis, but we were stuck there in the crossfire.”
“The Rossi Family?” I asked as I focused on grabbing towels and wetting them to cover his wounds.
He was right. He didn’t bear evidence of direct gunshot wounds, but he’d suffered enough.
Grazings marked his skin. None looked deep, but I had to make sure he wasn’t covering up a worse injury, being the overly tough guy he was.
“Yeah.” He closed his eyes, resting his head back against the wall. “It’s their place that was targeted.”
“I didn’t realize the Rossis owned that restaurant.
” Uncle Roberto never treated me like a soldier.
I didn’t know much, but I was aware of the name.
Rossis and Giovannis did not mix. If a sting was arranged or anyone was ambushed at a Rossi property, my first guess was that my uncle was involved.
His hatred for the rival Italian syndicate was almost as hot as the hatred he held for the Orlovs.
Uncle Roberto didn’t like anyone and never cared to try to be friendly or cooperative.
“Yeah,” Andre grunted as I wiped at his wounds.
“Someone had to have known about this fucking meeting, but I don’t know how.” He opened his eyes to slits, watching me as I cleaned off his cuts and compressed the ones that bled yet.
Ignoring the intensity of his gaze on me, I knew this wasn’t the time to relish his attention like usual.
Clinical and referring to the training I’d had so far, I concentrated on making sure nothing serious was going on here.
He’d been in a fight, obviously, as he was prone to.
But my unofficial prognosis was that he’d live.
“Oleg thinks we still have a fucking mole here. That someone from our end knew about this meeting.” He exhaled a long breath, exhausted.
“A mole?” Fear squeezed my heart. It was already battered enough.
Between the anger at my uncle, the sadness for my cousin, and now this worry about Andre being targeted by anyone, I felt like I was breaking apart.
I’d hold on. I’d keep it together for this man.
But the wear and tear of this dilemma weighed on me more acutely than ever before.
I didn’t want him hurt. I wanted to spare his life, spare his father and trouble, and spare his friends and brothers any danger. I didn’t wish any hell on Claire, Natalie, or Anya.
Dammit.
Damn it all.
My bleeding heart would forever be my curse, but I didn’t know how else to be. This was who I was, wanting everyone to get along and thrive even though I’d been raised to expect the opposite under my uncle’s guidance.
“You killed that man, though,” I said, referring to the night we’d met.
“Yes. And before him, another spy was killed. Someone who was hacking into my systems.”
Emilio. He must be talking about Emilio. No guilt or remorse came to me. That was how clearly I wanted to choose Andre, not the Giovanni name. This was how far I’d fallen for him and how deeply I was a traitor to my own blood.
But not Esmeralda.
I couldn’t forsake her, either. She was an innocent in this messy life as much as I was.
Choosing Andre meant that I was dismissing her.
I can’t.
But what else can I do?
If I joined Andre’s side in this violent life, if I swore my loyalty and reserved my care for him, it would be that much harder for me to care for Esmeralda for the rest of her life.
Andre had the means to help me. I damn well knew he could afford any hospice.
At the same time, I couldn’t ask. I couldn’t expect that of him.
To ask him to help my Giovanni cousin would be asking him to go to war for me.
Me.
The former maid he fell in lust for.
“Oleg’s convinced someone is spying, and I worry that he might be right.
” He growled, sitting up as I cleared off the blood from his last cut on his side.
“The Rossis wouldn’t have been sloppy. Their security—on their turf—was tight.
Someone had to have known about this meeting tonight, and that leak came from here.
From my end.” He hung his head and I winced.
But it didn’t come from… me.
“That fucking Giovanni bastard is still getting intel from me somehow,” he growled.
“Giovanni?” I asked, backing up as he pushed to stand from the chair.
I wasn’t hurt to hear him use my surname like that. I’d lost any respect for my family since the day I suspected Uncle Roberto had killed off his siblings.
“Yes. Only fucking Giovanni would want to set up the Rossis like this,” he replied.
“Not you?” I asked, worried. I couldn’t hide it. I cared too much.
He sighed and softened his expression, cupping my chin before kissing me. “It had to have been an attack on the Rossis, not me.”
But how can you know? I followed the connection of how he assumed my uncle was behind this attack, but I didn’t see how.
I’d heard Andre and Oleg mention that restaurant in passing.
I didn’t know it was a Rossi place, or that he was going to talk to that family.
I was ignorant and unable to give my uncle a head’s up about it, if I had even been motivated to, which I wasn’t.
I’d never forgive myself if I actually put Andre in danger.
He took my hand and led me to the shower. “Let me clean up.”
I nodded.
“Come with me,” he urged gently as he pulled my shirt up.
I let out a deep breath, willing to comfort him and help him however he needed me. My mind was a mess of dread, though.
How could Uncle Roberto have known about this meeting, though?
I’m supposed to be the mole, the spy here. And I’m not pulling it off.
So how did he know about this meeting?
The riddle would have to remain unsolved. Joining Andre in the shower, accepting his soft kisses down my neck as he held me close, I realized that he had something else on his agenda than discussing tonight’s incident.
Stuck with the worries, though, I couldn’t get all the way into the mood for shower sex.
I can’t keep this up.
I can’t live a double life like this.
But I couldn’t give up on Esmeralda.
Resting my head against Andre’s hard chest as he embraced me, with the hot water running over us, I wondered if I could get Esmeralda away from my uncle on my own.
Maybe if I lied to my uncle and gave him a diversion, to get him preoccupied with a ploy where he could think he’d be able to take out the Orlovs, I could sneak in and get her out.
One of the cooks there might take pity on me and help me.
I could move Esmeralda to the cheapest hospice that Claire told me about.
And then I could stay here, with Andre. Forsake my uncle. Disown him.
Officially and finally cutting ties with Uncle Roberto would be the final closure, the terminal act of turning traitor.
But I would do it.
To spare Andre any more suffering and being targeted.
Hell, I’d help him fight my uncle to end him.
But how can I know that you’ll want to?
I closed my eyes and stroked my hand over his strong back, wishing I could know.
We fit together—physically. The desire that burned between us had yet to fade or sizzle out. But that was just sex. A fling. A naughty, forbidden affair.
Andre and I hadn’t founded this affair on anything I could trust for anything more than feeling good at the moment.
We lacked a permanent tether, a meaningful one I could believe in.
Like… love.