Chapter 6
CHAPTER SIX
Sophia
Isink into the chair, my legs still shaking from having a gun pointed at my face.
Luna.
Of course I know about her and Lorenzo. Mother whispered the story once during one of her bad nights, morphine making her tongue loose. "Your cousin Luna broke that Sartori boy's heart. Stay away from both families, Sophia. Nothing good comes from mixing Torrino and Sartori blood."
My fingers trace patterns on the wooden table.
Luna terrified me as a child. She had this way of looking at people like she was searching their weaknesses.
At family gatherings, she'd smile with her mouth but her eyes stayed cold.
The other cousins adored her—she was beautiful, brilliant, could speak four languages by the time she turned twenty-two.
But I'd watch her practice knife tricks in Uncle Francesco's garden, flipping the blade between her fingers while humming Italian lullabies.
She'd catch me watching sometimes. "Little Sophia," she'd say, her voice silk over steel. "Always hiding in corners. What are you so afraid of?"
Everything about you, I'd think but never say.
The way Lorenzo shut Nico down makes my chest tight with questions. His whole body changed when Nico started to speak about her. Whatever happened between them runs deeper than a simple breakup. The kind of wound that never quite heals right.
I press my palms against my eyes.
The door swings open. Lorenzo enters carrying a plate piled with more food and a steaming cup of coffee. His jaw stays tight, that muscle jumping like he's grinding his teeth. He sets everything down with controlled precision, but his knuckles are white.
"Eat." The word comes out rough.
I wrap my fingers around the coffee mug, letting the heat seep into my cold hands. "I know about you and Luna."
His entire body goes rigid. Those warm brown eyes turn to black ice, and for a second, I see the man who runs half of Chicago's underworld. Not the one who makes eggs and checks on scared girls.
"My mother told me," I continue, keeping my voice steady even though my pulse hammers. "Years ago. She said Luna broke your heart."
"I'm not talking about her." His voice cuts through the kitchen air like a blade through silk.
The finality in those five words makes my stomach drop. Of course he won't discuss Luna with me. I'm just some desperate girl who showed up at his door, trading family secrets for protection. Nothing more.
"I'm not here to break you." The words tumble out before I can stop them.
Lorenzo turns then, really looks at me.
"Even if you wanted to, there's nothing left to break." His mouth curves into quite a smile. "Besides, you're a kid."
That word again.
Kid.
Heat floods my face. My fingers tighten around the coffee mug until my knuckles ache.
"Stop calling me that."
"What?" He leans against the counter, arms crossed. "Kid?"
Before my brain catches up with my hand, I grab a slice of bread from the plate and hurl it at his face.
It hits him square in the forehead with a soft thwap before falling to the floor.
Silence.
Lorenzo doesn't move. Doesn't blink. Just stares at me with his dark eyes while breadcrumbs dust his perfect hair.
The shock on his face would be funny if I wasn't suddenly terrified of what I just did.
I threw food at a man who kills people for disrespect.
At the only person standing between me and Daniil.
"You're annoying." My voice comes out smaller than intended, but I lift my chin anyway.
He continues staring. No anger crosses his features, no rage darkens his eyes. Just... surprise? Like nobody's dared to be this ridiculous in his presence.
Without a word, Lorenzo pushes off where he stands. He walks to the door. His hand pauses on the handle.
I wait for him to say something. To threaten me. To throw me out. To do anything except just leave.
But he does exactly that. The door closes with a quiet click. The lock turns.
I'm alone again.
My hands shake as I set down the coffee mug. What the hell did I just do? I threw bread at Lorenzo Sartori. Bread. At a mafia underboss who's protecting me out of some twisted sense of obligation.
A laugh bubbles up from somewhere deep in my chest. Not a happy sound. More like hysteria trying to escape. I press my palm over my mouth to muffle it, but my shoulders shake anyway.
God, the look on his face. Like his brain couldn't process what happened. Like nobody in his violent, controlled world had ever done something so stupidly normal as throwing an object during an argument.
I sink back into the chair, the laugh dying into something softer.
A smile tugs at my lips even as shame heats my cheeks. I should apologize. Should be grateful, not throwing food at the man keeping me alive.
But for one ridiculous moment, I felt normal. Not terrified. Not calculating survival odds. Just... normal. Angry and petty and human.
I pick up the bread from the floor, my smile lingering despite everything.
Lorenzo
I close the door behind me and lean against it for a second.
She threw bread at me.
Bread.
I have to press my fist against my mouth to stop the sound trying to escape. Not anger. Something else entirely. Something that wants to bubble up from my chest like champagne fizz.
What the hell?
If anyone else had done that—thrown anything at my face—they'd be missing fingers right now. Minimum. I've broken men's jaws for less disrespect. Put bullets in kneecaps for looking at me wrong.
But I just stood there. Frozen. Watching this slip of a girl glare at me like I'm the annoying one. Like she has any right to be indignant when I'm risking everything keeping her here.
The urge to laugh gets stronger. I push off the door and head downstairs before I do something stupid like go back in there.
Dante waits at the bottom of the stairs, espresso in hand. His eyes track over my face, and one eyebrow lifts.
"You're about to laugh?"
"Don't." I say.
"Wasn't going to say anything." He takes a sip of his espresso, but I catch the corner of his mouth twitching. "Though if you're having fun, perhaps we should discuss your approach."
"She's twenty years old."
"So you keep saying." Dante follows me to my office. "Like you're trying to convince yourself."
I drop into my chair, already reaching for the whiskey. Too early, but I need something to wash away the image of Sophia's face when she realized what she'd done. That mix of terror and defiance and almost like fucking amusement.
"Brief me on today." I pour a glass of whiskey, ignoring Dante's look.
He settles into the chair across from my desk, pulling out his phone. "The Torrino shipment from last night needs addressing. Pietro wants blood, but if we move now, Francesco will know we have inside information."
"Which leads back to her."
"Precisely." Dante scrolls through his notes. "I suggest we wait. Let Francesco think his theft went unnoticed while we verify everything on that flash drive. If even half of what she claims is true—"
My phone vibrates against the desk. Vittoria's name lights up the screen.
"One second." I answer on the second ring. "What's wrong?"
"Why does something have to be wrong?" My sister's voice carries that particular tone that means she's bored and looking for trouble. "Can't I call my favorite brother?"
"You tell all of us that."
"Only when I want something." At least she's honest. "Come to dinner with me tonight. That new place in River North you mentioned."
I glance at Dante, who's pretending not to listen. "I'm busy, Vittoria."
"You're always busy. Come on, Lorenzo. Ava's in one of her moods again—won't leave her room, won't talk to anyone. I'm going crazy in this house."
Ava. Riccardo's widow barely speaks since the funeral. Vittoria's been trying to pull her back to life for weeks now, but grief doesn't follow anyone's timeline.
"Ask Nico."
"Nico would terrify the waitstaff." She sighs. "Please? Just dinner. Two hours. You can brood over your whiskey while I talk about anything except dead brothers and territory wars."
The exhaustion in her voice cuts through my refusal. She's twenty-three, should be finishing her master's degree, dating inappropriate men I'd have to threaten. Instead, she's trapped in our world of blood and vengeance, trying to hold what's left of our family together.
"Fine. Eight o'clock."
"Seven. And wear something that doesn't scream 'I kill people for a living.'"
She hangs up before I can respond.
"Is she okay?" Dante asks, and for a second I think he means Sophia. Then I realize—Vittoria.
I set the whiskey down harder than necessary. "She's twenty-three years old, Dante. She lost her father when she was a kid. Giuseppe was everything to her. Her hero, her protector, the one who called her his little princess and meant it."
Dante stays silent, letting me talk. He knows when to push and when to listen.
"Then Riccardo stepped in." My throat tightens at his name. "For her entire life, he was her second father. She adored him, and God knows he spoiled her worse than Giuseppe ever did. Every school play, every graduation, every birthday. Riccardo was there. Making up for the father she lost."
I stand, needing to move. The office feels too small suddenly.
"Now he's dead too. Shot at Bruno's wedding like some common soldier, not the Don of Chicago. And Vittoria watched it happen. Watched the blood spread across his shirt while the rest of us tried to stop what couldn't be stopped."
"Lorenzo—"
"Ava's like a sister to her." I cut him off, pacing to the window. "They were planning Ava and Riccardo's anniversary party together. Shopping for dresses, arguing about flowers. Normal things. Things that let Vittoria pretend for a few hours that we're not who we are."
We all need some moments pretending we're normal people.
"But Ava can't help her now because Ava lost her fucking husband. She's drowning in her own grief, locked in that room with Riccardo's clothes still hanging in the closet. Vittoria brings her food that goes untouched, sits outside her door talking to silence."
"And your mother? I mean, she's not close to you all now that you're facing hell."
A bitter laugh escapes. "Our mother is hiding in Italy, pretending distance can cure grief.
She buried her husband, then her eldest son.
She sends Vittoria texts about the weather in Sicily and recipes for sauce, like cooking will fix everything.
Like she's not abandoning her only daughter when she needs her most."
Dante shifts in his chair. "Vittoria's strong."
"She shouldn't have to be." The words come out sharper than intended. "She should be in graduate school, complaining about professors and deadlines. She should be living in some apartment with roommates who don't know what our last name means."
I turn from the window. Dante watches me with that careful expression he gets when I'm too close to an edge.
"Instead, she's playing therapist to a grieving widow. Trying to hold together what's left of this family while Pietro starts wars and Nico questions everything and Bruno—" I stop. We don't talk about that. Not yet.
"She manages the family's entire digital security system," I continue. "Monitors our communications, tracks our shipments, keeps us three steps ahead of the FBI's cyber division. Twenty-three years old and she's already seen more death than most soldiers."
"She chose to be next to you all, Lorenzo. She had the choice to live normal but she chose this life instead."
"No." The word cracks like a gunshot. "She was born into it. There's a difference. We all were, but at least we got to be children first. Vittoria lost that early when she watched her father's casket lower into the ground."
I sink back into my chair, suddenly exhausted.
"So no, Dante. I don't think she's fucking okay. I think she's drowning just like the rest of us, but she's too busy trying to save everyone else to admit it."
Dante nods slowly.