Chapter 40
CHAPTER FORTY
Lorenzo
Ilean back in my leather chair, staring at the stack of invoices that have piled up on my desk.
Three weeks of neglect show in every corner of my restaurant empire.
Supply orders unsigned, vendor contracts waiting for review, profit margins unchecked.
The legitimate side of my business doesn't run itself, despite what my brothers think.
My phone sits silent on the desk. Too silent. Daniil hasn't made a move since Francesco's funeral, and that silence crawls under my skin like insects. Russians don't forgive. They don't forget. They plan.
I force myself to focus on the computer screen, pulling up the monthly reports from all twenty-three locations. The numbers blur together. All I can think about is Sophia back at the compound, probably curled up in our bed with her hair spread across my pillow. The image makes my chest tight.
Christ, I need to be inside her. Need to feel her wrapped around me, hear those little sounds she makes when I push deep. Need to tangle myself so completely with her that I don't know where I end and she begins. The wanting is a physical ache, worse than any bullet wound I've taken.
I push away from the desk and walk to the window, looking out at the Chicago skyline as my mind drifts to the future I want. A penthouse apartment downtown, just the two of us.
A kitchen where I can cook for her every morning. A bed that's ours alone, not in a compound full of family and memories of death.
But not yet. Not until I know every threat is eliminated.
The contradiction tears at me. I want to lock Sophia in a tower where nothing can touch her.
Want to surround her with guards, bulletproof glass, every protection money can buy.
But I also want to see her smile when she has lunch with Marina.
Want to watch her eyes light up when she talks about the books she's reading.
Want her to have the normal life she deserves.
I pour myself a whiskey, the burn doing nothing to ease the knot in my chest. The restaurant reports can wait another hour. Hell, they can wait forever. Nothing in those numbers matters if I lose her.
But I can't go back to the compound yet. If I do, I'll take her to bed and won't surface for days. The business needs attention. The family needs their consigliere functioning, not lost in his wife's body.
I sit back at the desk, forcing myself to review the vendor contracts.
A knock at my office door pulls me from the vendor contracts. George, one of my waiters, stands in the doorway with sweat beading on his forehead.
"Mr. Sartori, I'm sorry, I tried to tell her you weren't—" His voice cracks. "She insisted, and I couldn't—"
"Who?" I start to ask, but George stumbles backward as someone pushes past him.
Luna Torrino walks into my office like she owns it.
The world tilts. My hand moves to my gun before conscious thought catches up.
I'm on my feet, Glock aimed at her face. "George, get out."
The waiter doesn't need to be told twice. I hear him practically running down the hallway, probably already calculating how much notice he needs to give before quitting.
"Hello, Lorenzo." Luna's voice carries that same musical quality that once made me stupid. "It's good to see you."
I study her face, searching for regret, guilt, any sign that betraying me and getting four of my men killed weighs on her conscience. Nothing. Her expression holds the same calculating coldness it did the night she burned those letters. The night she proved every warning about her was true.
"What the hell do you want?" My finger rests on the trigger guard. "How do you think you're leaving here alive?"
She laughs. Actually laughs, like I've told a particularly clever joke. "You can't kill me. You won't."
"Want to bet?"
Luna moves toward my desk with that grace she perfected before she could drive. I'm around it in two strides, slamming her against the wall hard enough to knock a frame off its hook. The barrel of my gun presses under her jaw.
"Where the hell have you been?" My voice comes out raw, twelve years of rage compressed into five words. "Who helped you fake your death?"
Luna doesn't flinch at the gun against her temple. "Does it matter? Sicily, France, back to Sicily. "
I press the barrel harder against her skin. "Why come back now? Why walk into my fucking office like you have any right to breathe the same air as me?"
"Because you deserve the truth." Her voice drops, something almost human flickering in her expression. "This is my chance to do something... less evil to you."
"Less evil?" I laugh, the sound sharp enough to cut. "You destroyed everything. You made me believe—" I stop myself. She doesn't get to know what she did to me. "Explain. Now."
"I need to see Bruno."
The non sequitur makes me blink. "What?"
"Bruno. Your brother. I need to speak with him, and you need to be there when I do."
"You're not getting anywhere near my family."
"Lorenzo. Bruno holds a secret that can either destroy your life completely, or just... hurt a little less. You need to hear it from both of us."
I move the gun from her temple to under her chin, forcing her head back. My body cages hers against the wall. "The only thing that's going to bring Bruno joy right now is putting a bullet in your skull. One way or another, you being dead will make him happy."
"Bruno was the one who orchestrated the car bombing. The one that was supposed to kill me."
The world goes silent except for the blood roaring in my ears. "What?"
"He planted the bomb in my car twelve years ago. He's the one who helped me run away." She watches my face carefully.
Red floods my vision. My hand moves from the gun to her throat, squeezing just enough to feel her swallow. "You're lying."
"I'm not." Her voice stays maddeningly calm despite my grip.
Sophia
My legs burn from climbing the stairs to Lorenzo's office.
Dante made me wait forty minutes in the car while he "secured the perimeter," then another twenty in the restaurant kitchen while he "verified protocols.
" The man takes his job as enforcer way too seriously, but at least he finally brought me here.
The movie tickets crinkle in my pocket as I reach the third floor. It's probably stupid—Lorenzo Sartori doesn't seem like the type to sit in a dark theater eating popcorn. But being cooped up in the compound gives my brain too much time to spin fantasies about normal couple activities.
Movies, walks in the park, grocery shopping together. Things that will never happen in our world of bulletproof cars and armed escorts.
Still, I want to try. Want to see his face when I suggest we sneak out for two hours of normalcy.
I'm three feet from his office door when I hear it—a woman's voice, low and musical. My hand freezes on the doorknob. I can't hear what she's actually saying.
That voice though. Something about it makes my skin crawl with recognition I can't place. I lean closer to the door.
My hands shake as I shift to peek through the old-fashioned keyhole. The angle shows me Lorenzo's back, his body pressed against someone at the wall. A woman with dark hair, her face tilted up toward his. His hand at her throat.
Luna.
Lorenzo is standing the same way he presses me against walls. The same possessive cage of his body.
My eyes burn, vision blurring. I blink hard, forcing myself to keep watching. Luna's face comes into focus.
His body language screams intensity, but I can't tell if it's rage or... something else. The way he leans into her space, the way she doesn't flinch from his proximity. Like they're picking up a dance they started twelve years ago.
My stomach churns.
The hallway spins. I grip the doorframe to stay upright, my knees threatening to buckle.
Of course.
Of course Lorenzo would realize he didn't want me. I'm just some scared girl who showed up at his door begging for protection. He saved me because that's what he does.
But Luna? Luna was his equal. His match. The woman who broke him so thoroughly that years later, her name still makes him freeze.
My chest cracks open, pain spreading through me.
"You're nothing like her," he'd said once. I thought it was a compliment. Now I think it was disappointment.
I back away from the door, my hand pressed to my mouth to muffle the sob building in my throat. Everything we built these past weeks—lies. Beautiful, convincing lies that I desperately wanted to believe.
Deep down, some part of me always knew.
I need to leave. Now. Before that door opens and I have to face them both. Before I have to see the truth written across Lorenzo's face. That I was never anything more than an obligation wrapped in convenient attraction.
My legs shake as I move toward the stairs. Each step down feels like walking through quicksand, my body fighting against what my mind knows I have to do. The second floor passes in a blur. Then the first. I pause at the landing, pressing myself against the wall.
Dante said he'd wait in the kitchen before coming upstairs. The kitchen is to the left, the exit to the right. If I'm quiet, if I'm quick—
I peek around the corner. The hallway stretches empty, afternoon sunlight streaming through the front windows. No guards. No Dante. Just twenty feet between me and the door.
My heart pounds so hard I'm sure everyone in the building can hear it. But I force myself to move, slipping off my sneakers to pad silently across the floor. Fifteen feet. Ten. Five.
The door handle turns under my trembling hand, and suddenly I'm outside, the door clicking shut behind me. For one second, I stand frozen on the sidewalk, waiting for someone to shout, to grab me, to drag me back inside.
Nothing. I put my shoes on.
Then I'm running. My lungs burn as I sprint down the block, tears streaming down my face, blurring the city into watercolor smears. A sob rips from my throat, then another, until I'm crying so hard I can barely breathe.
I don't know where I'm going. Don't care. Anywhere is better than standing outside that office, watching Lorenzo pin Luna against the wall the same way he's pinned me a dozen times. Seeing the proof that I was never special, never chosen, never really his.
My foot catches on uneven pavement and I stumble, catching myself against a brick wall. The rough surface tears at my palms but I barely feel it. Physical pain is nothing compared to the agony shredding my chest.
"Stupid," I gasp between sobs. "So fucking stupid."
To think I mattered. To think a man like Lorenzo Sartori could actually love someone like me. Useless, a little girl knowing nothing about the world they live in.