Chapter 49
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
Sophia
Istand frozen on the sidewalk, staring up at Marina's building. My throat closes, remembering the last time I was here.
"Take your time," Lorenzo says beside me.
I force myself to breathe. One week since Marina woke up and the doctors explained about the nerve damage, the paralysis in her right hand. A week of visiting her in sterile hospital rooms while she stared at walls and gave one-word answers.
"I should go up alone." My voice comes out rough, still healing from the strangulation.
Lorenzo studies my face. "You sure?"
"She needs space from... all of this." I gesture vaguely at him, at us, at the world we represent. "From what I brought into her life."
He cups my face gently. "This wasn't your fault, tesoro."
"Wasn't it?" I pull away. "If I hadn't run to her apartment that day—"
"Daniil would have found another way." His jaw tightens. "He was hunting you. Marina just got caught in the crossfire."
Crossfire. Such a clean word for what happened. For Marina taking a bullet meant for me, for the way her hand now hangs useless at her side.
"I'll wait here," Lorenzo says, leaning against the car. Two of his men stand at the building entrance, ensuring no surprises this time.
I make myself walk forward. The lobby still smells like industrial cleaner and old carpet.
I reach her door and knock softly.
"It's open," Marina calls.
She's sitting on her couch, surrounded by half-packed boxes. Her right hand rests in her lap, fingers curled and still. She's learning to do everything left-handed now.
"Hey," she says. No warmth, no anger. Just exhaustion.
"Hey." I hover in the doorway. "Need help?"
"My mom's been packing." She indicates the boxes. "Just need to grab a few more things from the bedroom."
The bedroom where Daniil tried to— I push the thought away.
"Marina, I'm so sorry—"
"Don't." She cuts me off, not harsh, just tired. "We've done this already, Soph. Multiple times."
"But your hand—"
"Might get better. Might not." She shrugs with her left shoulder only. "Physical therapy three times a week. Occupational therapy twice. My parents' insurance covers most of it."
She stands, moving past me toward the bedroom. I follow, watching her awkwardly gather clothes one-handed from her dresser.
"Let me," I say, reaching for a sweater.
"I can do it."
"I know you can. But let me help."
She stops, shoulders sagging. "You want to know the worst part? It's not the hand. It's that every time I close my eyes, I see him. Every unexpected sound makes me jump. My parents' neighbor slammed a door yesterday and I hid in the bathroom for an hour."
My chest aches. "The therapy will help with that too. PTSD is—"
"I know what it is." She turns to face me. "I've been reading about it. Trauma responses. Hypervigilance. All the fun stuff you probably know all about now."
"Marina—"
"I'm not mad at you, Sophia." She sits heavily on the bed. "I'm just... tired. I need to be somewhere quiet. Somewhere normal. Where men don't break down doors and people don't get shot in their own kitchens."
"Your parents' house is good," I manage. "Safe."
"Yeah." She looks at her useless hand. "The doctors say if the nerves regenerate, I could get seventy percent function back. Maybe eighty if I'm lucky."
"You'll get it back." I sit beside her carefully. "You're the strongest person I know."
"No," she says quietly. "That's you now."
I watch Marina fold a shirt with her left hand. "What happened with Dante?"
Her whole body goes rigid. "What about him?"
"He never told Lorenzo anything about the day you woke up. Just said you were okay and left it at that."
Marina's laugh is bitter. "Okay. Right."
"Marina—"
"I told him to leave." She shoves the shirt into a box with unnecessary force. "To get out and never come back. Not to the hospital, not to my life, not anywhere near me."
"He saved your life," I say carefully.
"I didn't ask him to!" The words explode out of her. She stands abruptly, pacing with sharp, angry steps. "I didn't ask him to carry me to that car while I was bleeding out. I didn't ask him to stay."
I stay quiet, letting her rage build.
"My mother told me everything." Marina's voice cracks with fury.
"He never left. Day and night, sitting in that uncomfortable hospital chair like some kind of— like he had the right to be there.
Only leaving to change his clothes, barely eating.
The nurses thought he was my boyfriend. Can you believe that? "
She whirls to face me, anger forming her features.
"I hate him." The words come out low and vicious. "I hate him more than before. More than when he kidnapped me that first time. More than when he manhandled me like I was nothing."
"Why?" I ask, though I think I already know.
"Because people like him don't get to do that." Her voice rises again. "They don't get to show up and act like they care. They don't get to sit vigil at hospital beds and look destroyed when someone's hurt. They don't get to be human."
She's crying now, angry tears streaming down her face.
"He's a killer, Sophia. A criminal. He probably shot people that same week. He definitely hurt people. And then he sits there holding my hand like he's capable of gentleness? Like he's capable of caring about someone like me?"
I think about Lorenzo, the way he held me in that hospital bed, the tears in his eyes when I woke up.
The same man who beat Daniil to death with his bare hands.
The same hands that stroke my hair at night when nightmares wake me.
I asked how Daniil died and Lorenzo told me like he was talking about our next meal.
But I don't say any of this. It's irrelevant now.
"They're not supposed to be complicated," Marina continues, wiping her face roughly with her left hand. "They're supposed to be monsters or heroes. Not both. Not... this."
I understand exactly what she means. The confusion of seeing humanity in someone who does inhuman things. The way it breaks your brain, trying to reconcile the gentle touches with the violence.
"Did he say anything?" I ask. "When you told him to leave?"
Marina's face crumples. "No. He just... looked at me. Like I'd shot him. Then he stood up and walked out. Haven't seen him since."
"Good," I say, though the word feels hollow.
"Yeah." She turns back to her packing, movements jerky. "Good."
We work in silence for a few minutes, me helping her fold clothes while she sorts through drawers. The apartment feels haunted, like violence has seeped into the walls.
"I need normal, Sophia," Marina finally says. "I need to pretend this never happened. That your world never touched mine."
"I know."
"I can't know about that life anymore. I can't wonder if every person who looks at me wrong is connected to some crime family. I can't think about what Dante's doing or whether—" She cuts herself off. "I just can't."
Lorenzo
She comes down the stairs with tears streaming down her face, and I catch her before she collapses. Her body shakes against mine as I pull her into my chest.
"She needs space," Sophia whispers into my shirt. "Marina needs... normal."
I stroke her hair, feeling her tears soak through the fabric. "I know, tesoro."
"I destroyed her life." Her voice cracks. "She can't even use her hand because of me."
"Because of Daniil," I correct firmly. "Not you."
She pulls back slightly, wiping her face with her sleeve. "I need to not call her every day. Need to let her heal without me constantly reminding her of what happened."
"Everything needs time." I cup her face, thumbs brushing away fresh tears. "Marina's been through hell. So have you."
"I just want something normal," she says, voice small. "Just for a little while. Something that doesn't involve guns or territories or—"
"You want to go for a walk?"
She blinks at me, confusion replacing grief. "A walk?"
"Yeah."
"Like... with our feet? Outside? Just walking?"
I can't help the laugh that escapes. "Yes, Sophia. A regular walk."
Her entire face transforms. The devastation vanishes, replaced by something I haven't seen since before Daniil attacked her. Pure, uncomplicated joy. She looks like a kid who's just been offered a trip to Disneyland.
"Really?" She bounces slightly on her toes. "We can just... walk? Like normal people?"
"Like normal people."
She grabs my hand and yanks me toward the door with surprising strength. "Come on!"
"Sophia, wait—"
But she's already pulling me outside, and suddenly we're running. Actually running down the sidewalk like teenagers escaping curfew. Her hand grips mine tight as she drags me along, laughing for the first time in days.
"Slow down," I call, but I'm laughing too. When did I last run anywhere that wasn't toward violence or away from it?
She doesn't slow down. If anything, she speeds up, her hair flying behind her as we race past confused pedestrians. An elderly woman jumps out of our way, clutching her purse.
"Sorry!" Sophia calls over her shoulder, still pulling me along.
My lungs burn. Not from exertion, but from the surreal normalcy of it. Lorenzo Sartori, who hasn't taken an unguarded step in fifteen years, running down a Chicago street in broad daylight because his wife wants to feel normal.
We reach the corner and she finally stops, breathing hard, cheeks flushed. She's still holding my hand.
"That was..." I search for words.
"Normal?" she supplies, grinning up at me.
"Insane."
"Same thing, apparently." She tugs me forward at a walking pace now. "Where should we go?"
"Wherever you want."
She considers this seriously, like she's been given an impossible puzzle. "The park? Can we just... sit in the park?"
"We can sit in the park."
We walk in silence for a block, her fingers laced through mine.
People pass us without a second glance—just another couple out for a stroll.
No one recognizes me. No one knows she inherited a crime empire.
We're invisible here in the best possible way.
Because criminals don't go to the park for a walk.
"This is weird," she says.
"Good weird or bad weird?"
"Good weird. Definitely good weird." She swings our joined hands slightly. "When's the last time you just walked somewhere?"
I think about it. "I honestly can't remember."
"That's sad."
"That's safe."
"Same thing," she says again, but softer this time.
A jogger passes us, earbuds in, completely oblivious to who we are. Sophia watches him go with something like wonder.
"We could be anyone right now," she says. "Just Lorenzo and Sophia. Not Sartori and Torrino. Not crime families and territories. Just... us."
We reach the park and find an empty bench under an oak tree. Sophia curls into my side, her head on my shoulder, and for a moment we just exist. No threats, no plans, no violence. Just breathing.
"You know what would make this even more normal?" I murmur against her hair.
"What?"
"We could pretend we're different people. Like... I'm a banker and you're a teacher, meeting for lunch."
She pulls back to look at me, eyebrows raised. "Are you suggesting role play? In public?"
"Just talking. Nothing—"
"Oh my God." She laughs, the sound bright and unexpected. "You want to fuck me while pretending we're normal people."
The words coming from her mouth make my cock twitch. Sophia doesn't talk like this—she's usually all soft gasps and whispered pleas. When she gets crude, it drives me insane.
"Jesus, Sophia."
"What?" She grins wickedly. "I'm horny again and that's super bad of you to do because we're supposed to be enjoying this moment without thinking about your dick."
I bark out a laugh. Can't remember the last time I laughed this much in one day. "My dick?"
"Yes, your dick. Which needs to stay in your pants while we have our normal people time."
"You're the one who brought up fucking."
"Because you were being all suggestive with your 'role play' talk." She air quotes the words, still grinning. "I know what you're really thinking about."
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah. You're thinking about bending me over this bench and—"
My phone cuts through her words. The ringtone I have for Dante.
"Don't answer it," Sophia says immediately.
But I'm already pulling it out. "It could be important."
"It's always important."
I answer anyway. "What?"
"Luna went public." Dante's voice is clipped. "Press conference an hour ago. She's taking over the Torrino operations."
My hand tightens on the phone. Beside me, Sophia goes still.
"She actually did it?" I ask.
"Full announcement. Said she's Francesco's rightful heir, that she's been in Europe learning the business. Made it sound like Francesco groomed her for this."
"And the other families?"
"Mixed reactions. The Corellis are pissed. They wanted those territories. Benedettis are staying neutral. Russians are... unclear."
I process this quickly. We knew this was coming. Luna made her intentions clear when she revealed she'd killed Francesco. The question was always when, not if.
"Lorenzo?" Dante prompts when I stay silent.
"We stick to the plan. She knows the terms."
"You sure? Pietro's going to—"
"Pietro agreed. Luna stays away from us, from Sophia, from the family, and she lives. She comes near any of us for any reason, she and her son are dead."
"She knows you mean it?"
I think about that moment in Pietro's office, when I told Luna exactly what would happen if she crossed us again. The way her face went pale when I described in detail how I'd make her watch while I killed her son first.
"She knows."
"What about Sophia's claim to the Torrino empire?"
I glance at my wife, who's watching me with those honey eyes. "Sophia made her choice. She's a Sartori now."
"Understood. There's one more thing—the Corellis want a meeting. Tomorrow."
"Set it up."
I hang up and pocket the phone. Sophia's still watching me, waiting.
"Luna's officially taken over your uncle's operations," I tell her.
She nods slowly. "Good."