Chapter 32
Sofia
I don’t give Alessandro a hard time about needing a cigarette as he leaves me alone in the living room. The fact that he wants to quit for me and the baby alone is so sweet, and I know that’s a difficult habit to break.
I flip through the various streaming services, wondering if there’s a movie that both of us will like.
That’s one of the least compatible aspects of our relationship.
I’m the wimp that can’t handle any blood or violence in movies, and he’s a guy who would rather throw himself out the window than watch a rom-com or children’s movie.
I can feel a devilish smile forming as my hand finds my belly.
Soon enough, when this little one is old enough to be influenced and traumatized by the screen, I will always win this battle.
Now that I know for sure that I’m pregnant, and now that Alessandro knows too, it’s all starting to feel real to me.
We’re going to have a baby. Me and Alessandro.
The man I despised and wanted to poison so I could go home.
A wave of guilt hits me at the thought of home.
I’ve really neglected to reach out to my family now that everything is okay between the two of us.
It’s a horrible thing for me to do, leaving them hanging and wondering if I was suffering or not.
But I didn’t want their judgment.
I just knew that if I suddenly seemed happy, they wouldn’t believe it, which would cast doubt on my relationship with Alessandro. And they put me in this position in the first place, goddamn it.
So, if they’re sweating a bit while I’m living a life of domestic bliss as a mafia queen, so be it.
My mind fixates so much on my family that I almost don’t bat an eye when my brother, Max, stands in front of me in the living room. He’s wearing black tactical gear, gun drawn. His eyes narrow as he looks me up and down.
“Stai facendo qui?” I hiss.
He raises his eyebrows at me and shakes his head.
Then I realize I spoke to him in Italian, so I switch to English, the words feeling foreign after all this time.
“What are you doing here?” I try again.
“I thought I was rescuing you. But you’re…
you’re… fine? I thought they were keeping you in the fucking dungeon.
” He takes a few steps forward, scanning his surroundings no doubt to make sure he will not be ambushed as if I’d allow that, then reaches down and grabs my wrist, inspecting my hand. “He didn’t cut your fingers off?”
“What?” I snap. Then my heart sinks as that triggers a memory. Alessandro briefly mentioned something related to my fingers, the time we had sex in the gym. But so much happened between us immediately afterwards that I forgot, and besides, I assumed it was an empty threat.
“We heard from an inside guy that we had nothing to worry about, so we stopped paying up and fucked with Alessandro a bit. Then we receive a box of fingers, that we thought were yours, and then it’s radio-silent from Alessandro.
We thought you were…” Max looks away, noticing the phone on the table.
He hisses with rage. “I’m relieved that you’re okay.
But… fuck, Sofia! You have free rein of this place?
There’s a phone right there. You haven’t called in weeks! ”
Weeks? Has it really been that long? He must be exaggerating. Okay, maybe technically two weeks. But definitely not three.
He squats down so that we’re eye-level. “He messed with your head, didn’t he? Manipulated you. I’m going to fucking kill him.”
My mouth goes dry, and I don’t know what to say. “I… I’ve been meaning to call, but we just got back from a trip a moment ago. We took one of his boats to Greece.”
“You went on a cruise?” he shouts, looking around before lowering his voice back to a hiss.
“Nick and I have been sneaking around this labyrinth of a castle all day looking for you, but it’s been empty.
I mean, we collected the teeth from the incinerator, for fuck’s sake, so that we could bring them home and take them to the family dentist to see if any of them belonged to you.
Is that even possible for a dentist to figure out?
Who knows? We’ve been trying to problem-solve this situation in silence only to find out that you’re living life like a princess. ”
“It was horrible initially, right after the wedding.”
His jaw tenses, and I know he’s picturing putting a bullet in Alessandro or something even more graphic than that.
“But not that horrible. I was nervous and miserable at times, but he never hurt me. Anyway… we eventually started to get along, and now we’re in love with a child on the way.”
That was too abridged. Too abridged. But I’m trying to get my words out as quickly as possible so he knows what the current situation is.
His face goes pale as he slowly nods his head like I have a plant growing out the top of it. He must think that Alessandro emotionally tortured me to get me to act like this, and he will not think differently until he sees us together.
“Everything is fine, Max. Let’s go find him and talk everything through. Are you hungry? You said Nick is here too?”
As the last words slip past my lips, the sound of a gunshot explodes from upstairs.
“Oh, shit,” Max mutters under his breath.
My cousin, Nick, sprints down the main staircase away from the gunshot.
I let out a scream, but Max muffles it quickly. My knees buckle.
Nick killed him.
Alessandro’s dead.
“No, no, no, no, no…” I sob and bury my face in my hands as Max prevents me from falling to the floor. “No, please! You didn’t do that. He can’t be…”
Max supports my entire weight as I hang against him. This can’t be happening. He can’t be…
“We need to get the fuck out of here,” Nick says.
“You got him?” Max asks, his voice sounding unsure.
“No.” I look up at Nick to see him pointing up the stairs. “There is some weird shit going on up there. Let’s go.”
“Wait!” I scream. “Is he alive?”
Max grabs my arm and helps pull me up to my feet.
Nick seems so lost in the moment that he doesn’t answer my question. “Alessandro’s siblings walked past the room I was hiding in. Next thing I know is that they’re boning—”
“Is Alessandro okay!?” I cut him off.
Nick hesitates, looking up towards the stairs. “He was when I ran away, but his sister had a gun pointed at him. The brother looks pretty fucking dead to me, though.”
“We need to help him,” I plead.
“What!?” Nick snaps, looking me up and down and realizing that I’m physically fine. “What the fuck is going on?”
“They’re in love, and she’s pregnant.” Max’s voice is monotone.
Nick paces around as if he’s losing his mind, rubbing his face with his gloved hand.
Alessandro and Elena are shouting back-and-forth upstairs. They’re screaming over each other to the point where I can’t make out what they’re fighting about. But Nick said that Elena and Vincenzo were having sex?
I can’t even wrap my head around that, so I can’t imagine what Alessandro is feeling right now. “I need to go help him.” I take a few steps towards the staircase.
“Like hell you are,” Max grabs my arm, preventing me from moving any further.
“Let. Go. Of. Me.”
I try jerking my arm away, but there’s no give.
“There are two possibilities,” Max says as I continue to flail my arm against his grip.
“Either you’re as loved up as you say you are and that man up there will not want his pregnant wife anywhere near his batshit crazy sister with a gun.
Or. Alessandro manipulated you into thinking that you’re in love.
In either case, you are staying far, far away from whatever is happening up there. ”
More shouting continues from upstairs, and I can’t make out if they’re making any progress as Max drags me out of our wing.
I fight him as hard as I fought Alessandro on our wedding day, and just like it was that afternoon, all I land are some annoying blows on Max’s shins, but there’s no chance of escape.
We’re halfway through the castle when he finally sets me down and pauses at my incessant chanting of ‘let me go’ and ‘put me down.’
He looks to his left and his right as Nick scratches his head. “Know where we are?” Nick asks as if I weren’t here.
“Yeah, I’m just taking a break from carrying her. We keep going this way, then we’ll pass the courtyard and then… I don’t know, man. I recognize where we are, though.” He nods at the statue next to us. “It’s the hallway with the naked dude in it.”
There are dozens of hallways with this type of statue in them. A smile spreads across my face. If they want to talk like I’m not here, there’s no need to help them out.
“No,” Nick says. “This is one of many statues. This one has the micro-penis, but we need to find the one with its nose busted off to get to the courtyard next…”
“Micro-penis?”
Nick raises his eyebrows and smirks.
Max rolls his eyes. “He’s smaller than I am. I’m just saying, I think calling that a micro-penis is offensive to the average dude.”
“Hmm.” Nick crosses his arms. “You know, I think there was one that was less-endowed somewhere that I’m getting this confused with. One of them has three testicles too.”
“Were you just running around and judging the statue penises rather than helping me find Sofia?!”
“It was a coping mechanism!”
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Max snickers.
The ridiculousness of this conversation made me realize how much I missed home, and I can’t help but laugh right alongside Max. He notices this and gently elbows me in the arm. “Glad you’re okay, Soph.”
“Yes, I’m fine.” I force myself to stop laughing, the seriousness of Alessandro’s situation coming back to me. “Now can we go back?”
“No. There were gunshots. Can you at least tell us how to get out of this place so we can talk things through outside?”
I sigh. “Do you guys promise not to drag me into a car and immediately drive away? You’re willing to talk things over outside?”
“Sure,” Max says.
“Pinky promise.” Nick shrugs.
“Fine.” I point in the other direction. “It’s quicker if we backtrack, then take a right, then we…” I start walking. “Just follow me.”
I’m tired of kicking Max, anyway. I trust that they’ll slow down and listen once we’re outside, and if not, I’ll start raising hell again.