Chapter 15
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Sophia
The restaurant starts filling up around me. Couples slide into booths, laughing over wine. A group of businessmen takes the large table near the window. The noise builds, life happening all around me.
I've never felt more alone.
My body weighs a thousand pounds. Every muscle aches from the tension of facing Francesco, from pretending I'm brave when I'm terrified, from wanting Lorenzo so badly it physically hurts. I prop my elbow on the table and rest my head in my hand, too exhausted to care about proper posture.
"Good evening, miss." A waiter appears beside me, young and eager with a genuine smile. "What can I get for you tonight?"
I look up at him. He's maybe twenty-five, with kind brown eyes. He's just doing his job, being polite to a customer. Nothing more, nothing less.
Normal.
"What does everyone love here?" I feel exhausted. "Just... bring me whatever that is."
His smile widens, and it's real. Just a waiter pleased to help a customer.
"The chicken marsala is our most popular dish. Can't go wrong with that."
"Perfect."
"And to drink?"
"Water's fine."
He nods and heads toward the kitchen. I watch him go, watch him stop at another table to check on their meal, watch him joke with a coworker near the bar. Everything about him screams normal, and suddenly I'm drowning in memories of when my life was like that.
Before the cancer.
God, I used to be so normal.
Marina and I would spend hours at coffee shops, complaining about professors and planning weekend trips we'd never take.
We'd go to parties and flirt with guys whose biggest concern was passing their economics final.
We'd stay up too late watching terrible reality shows and eating ice cream straight from the container.
Sure, there was always a bodyguard somewhere. But Tony was good at his job. Staying far enough away that I could pretend he wasn't there. He'd sit at a different table in restaurants, follow at a distance when Marina and I went shopping. Most of my friends never even knew he existed.
I had a life. A real one. Classes and study groups and stupid college parties where the biggest danger was drinking too much cheap beer. I had plans. Graduate school, maybe law school, definitely something that would make Mom proud.
Now I'm sitting alone in a restaurant, engaged to a man who won't even eat dinner with me, hiding from an uncle who sold me like property.
The waiter returns with my water, setting it down with another easy smile.
"The marsala will be right out."
"Thank you."
I take a sip of water and watch the normal people living their normal lives. A woman laughs at something her date said. A father cuts up his daughter's pasta. Two friends clink glasses in a toast.
I used to be one of them. Now I'm something else entirely, and I don't even know what that is yet.
"No way."
The voice cuts through the restaurant noise like a knife through silk. I raise my eyes, and the world tilts sideways.
Marina stands three feet from my table, her mouth hanging open, her purse sliding off her shoulder. She's wearing the burgundy coat I helped her pick out last month. Her dark hair is pulled back in the messy bun she always wears for study sessions.
My brain can't process what I'm seeing. She's here. Marina is here, in Lorenzo's restaurant, staring at me like she's seen a ghost.
I rise from my chair on legs that don't feel like mine. The movement breaks whatever spell was holding her frozen. She rushes forward, nearly knocking over a waiter, and crashes into me with the force of a hurricane.
Her arms wrap around me tight, so tight I can barely breathe, and that's it.
That's the moment I collapse.
The sob tears out of me like something wild breaking free. Then another. And another. My knees buckle but Marina holds me up, holds me together as I fall apart completely.
"Shh, shh, it's okay." Her voice cracks. "I've got you. I've got you, Soph."
But I can't stop. A month of grief pours out of me in ugly, gasping sobs that hurt my ribs. My fingers dig into her coat like she might disappear if I let go.
"I thought—" Marina's crying too now, her tears warm against my neck. "When you didn't come back, when you didn't call, I thought something terrible happened. Your uncle said you ran away, but I knew that was bullshit. I knew you wouldn't just leave without telling me."
I try to speak but all that comes out is another broken sound. My whole body shakes. People must be staring but I don't care. Marina is here. My best friend, my normal life, my before. She's here and real and holding me while I shatter.
"Breathe, honey. You need to breathe." Marina pulls back just enough to cup my face in her hands. Her mascara runs in black rivers down her cheeks. "Look at me. In and out, okay? Match me."
She takes an exaggerated breath, then lets it out slow.
I try to copy her but my lungs won't cooperate.
Everything hurts. My chest, my throat, my eyes.
I've cried since Mom died, but not like this.
This is different. This is everything I've been holding back since the moment Francesco told me I was marrying Daniil.
"That's it. Good girl." Marina's thumbs wipe at my cheeks even though fresh tears replace them immediately.
"God, Sophia, where have you been? I've been going crazy.
I called everyone. I even went to your house.
" Her voice drops. "He said you were upset about your mom and took off.
But the way he said it... Soph, it scared me. "
I pull Marina down into the chair across from me, my hands still shaking as I grip hers across the table. The restaurant noise fades to background static. All that matters is she's here, real and solid and mine.
"How did you find me?" My voice sounds raw, scraped clean. "Marina, how are you here?"
She squeezes my fingers, her brow furrowing.
"That's the weird part. I got this call maybe two hours ago.
Some woman saying I'd been selected for a complimentary dinner at Rosso's.
Said they found me through my social media, that I'd posted about Italian food and they were doing this promotion for food lovers. "
My heart stutters. "But you—"
"I know, right?" She laughs, but it's shaky. "My Instagram is private. Like, completely private. Just friends and family. And yeah, I post food sometimes when we go out, but how would some fancy restaurant even find that?"
The waiter appears with my chicken marsala, hesitating when he sees Marina. "Should I bring another menu?"
"Please," I manage, though my appetite has vanished completely.
He nods and disappears. Marina watches him go, then turns back to me.
"I wasn't even going to come. Free dinner at some place I've never heard of?
From a random call? It screamed scam. But then.
.." She trails off, chewing her bottom lip the way she does when she's trying to figure something out.
"I don't know. Something just pulled me here.
Like I needed to be here. Does that sound crazy? "
No. It sounds like Lorenzo.
"When I walked in and saw you sitting here alone, I thought maybe you'd arranged it somehow. Like maybe you'd found a way to contact me without your uncle knowing." Her grip tightens. "But you didn't, did you? You look as shocked as I feel."
I shake my head slowly, my mind racing. Lorenzo left me here alone. Lorenzo who has access to everything through Vittoria's computer skills. Lorenzo who knows I've been drowning in isolation.
Did he really bring my best friend to me?
"Soph?" Marina's voice pulls me back. "What's going on? Where have you been? Your uncle's story doesn't make sense. You wouldn't just disappear."
I open my mouth, then close it. What can I possibly tell her? That I'm hiding with the Sartori family? That I'm engaged to Lorenzo as a business arrangement? That in forty-eight hours, if Francesco agrees, the whole city will know I'm marrying into their biggest rival family?
"I..." The words stick in my throat. "Marina, it's complicated."
"Complicated how?" She leans forward, lowering her voice. "Are you in trouble? Is it about your mom's medical bills? Because if you need money—"
"No." I almost laugh at the innocence of that suggestion. If only it were something as simple as debt. "It's not money."
"Then what? Sophia, you're scaring me. You look..." She studies my face, taking in details I probably don't want her to see. The exhaustion, the stress, the barely controlled panic that's been my constant companion. "You look terrified."
The waiter returns with a menu for Marina. She barely glances at it, ordering the first thing she sees just to make him go away.
"Talk to me," she pleads once we're alone again. "Whatever it is, we can figure it out together. That's what we do, remember? Team Sarina, taking on the world?"
Team Sarina. Our stupid nickname from freshman year when we thought college would be our biggest challenge. When we believed friendship could solve anything.
"I want to tell you everything." The words come out broken. "God, Marina, I want to tell you so badly. But I can't. Not yet. Not here."
"Why not?"
Because the truth would put you in danger. Because knowing what I know, where I am, who's protecting me—it would paint a target on your back. Because I've already lost my mother and I can't lose you too.
"Just... can we just sit here for a minute? Can we pretend everything's normal? And I promise that there will come a day that I'll tell you everything."
Lorenzo
I watch them through the security monitor in my office, the grainy black-and-white feed showing Sophia sobbing in her friend's arms. My chest tightens at the sight. She's been holding all that in, playing strong for me, for Pietro, for everyone.
"She showed." Dante's voice comes from behind me. He's leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed.