Chapter 20 #2
"Alberto is nineteen." Rafaella's voice pulls focus back.
"He's never hurt anyone. He doesn't even know who his father really was.
We told him Dad was in sales." A bitter laugh escapes her.
"Please. I'm not asking for money or recognition or anything else.
Just... get tested. If none of you match, I'll leave and never contact you again. "
"How do we know this isn't some elaborate con?" Nico speaks for the first time, analytical as always. "You show up with a sob story about a dying brother—"
"Here." Rafaella pulls papers from her purse, medical documents, test results, photos. "Alberto's medical records. Doctor's contact information. Call them yourself."
She sets a photo on Pietro's desk. A boy in a hospital bed, thin and pale, but with familiar features. Our father's nose. The Sartori jawline.
"He has six weeks without a transplant." Her voice drops to almost nothing. "I know you hate me. Hate my mother. Hate what we represent. But Alberto's innocent in all this. and I'm begging for your help."
Sophia
I find him on the roof an hour later.
Cigarette smoke curls into the night air.
"Didn't know you smoked." I settle beside him against the railing.
"Old habit." He doesn't look at me, focused on the sky. "Thought I'd quit."
"Your family hates you right now."
"I know."
"You kept a massive secret."
"To protect them."
"Or to control the information."
His head snaps toward me, the embers in his eyes igniting into a blaze. "Not everyone betrays for power, Sophia."
"I know that."
"Do you?" He kills the distance between us in one step. He cups my face, his palms cold from the night air, and backs me against the heavy steel of the access door until my world is nothing but him. "Because you look at me like you're waiting for me to betray you too."
The accusation hits its mark. I do wait for it. For the moment this illusion shatters.
"Aren't you?" My voice comes out smaller than intended. "This arrangement, these kisses, this pretense. Isn't it all a betrayal of what could be real?"
He flicks the cigarette over the edge, watches it fall into darkness. "You want real?"
"Yes."
"Real is that I think about you constantly." His thumbs stroke my cheeks, a touch so gentle it shatters the armor around my heart. "Real is that you're too young, too innocent, too good for this world."
"Lorenzo—"
"Real is that I'm going to want you anyway and hate myself for it."
"Then want me."
"I already do piccola."
My heart stops. The world tilts on its axis.
"What did you just say?"
Lorenzo's hands drop from my face. He steps back, putting distance between us that feels like miles. "You heard me."
"Say it again."
His jaw works, that muscle jumping the way it does when he's fighting for control. "I want you, Sophia. And I hate myself for it."
The words hang between us like shattered glass. Beautiful and dangerous.
"Why?" My voice cracks. "Why do you hate it?"
"Because you came to me for protection, not... this."
"This?"
"Whatever this is becoming." He gestures between us, frustration bleeding through his usual composure. "You think I don't know what I'm doing? Every touch, every look, every moment I let myself get closer to you—I'm taking advantage."
"I kissed you first."
"You're vulnerable. Your mother just died. Your uncle sold you to monsters. You're alone and scared and I'm—" He cuts himself off, turns away to face the skyline again.
"You're what?"
"The man who's supposed to keep you safe. Not the one making it worse."
I want to argue. Want to tell him he's wrong, that I've wanted him since I was old enough to understand what wanting meant. But the exhaustion in his voice stops me. This isn't just about me. It's about every betrayal that's carved pieces out of him.
"We can't be together, Sophia." His voice drops to barely above a whisper. "Even if the engagement wasn't fake. Even if Francesco and Daniil weren't threats. We still couldn't."
"Because of our families?"
"Because I'd destroy you." He grips the railing until his knuckles turn white. "Everything I touch turns to ash. You'd just be another casualty."
The pain in his voice breaks me. I move closer, not touching but near enough to feel his warmth against the cold night.
"You saved me when I was eight."
"A moment of decency doesn't erase a lifetime of violence."
"You're protecting me now."
"For my own purposes. Pietro needed this alliance. The family needed leverage against Francesco."
"You brought Marina to me."
He goes still. "That was strategy too."
"Liar."
The word hangs between us. He turns to look at me, and the raw hunger in his eyes steals my breath. But beneath it, I see the self-loathing, the certainty that he's poison.
I won't push him. Not tonight.
"Goodnight, Lorenzo."
I leave him there with his ghosts and his cigarettes, with the weight of secrets and the burden of want he won't let himself have.
My legs shake as I descend the stairs. My body still burns from his admission.
He wants me.
He hates that he wants me.
And somehow, that's worse than if he didn't want me at all.