Chapter 50
CHAPTER FIFTY
ONE MONTH LATER
Lorenzo
The New York hotel room smells like sex. We've been here for two days, and I'm pretty sure we've only left the bed for room service and the occasional shower—which usually leads right back to bed anyway.
Sophia stretches beside me, her naked body pressing against mine. She traces lazy patterns on my chest, her wedding ring catching the light.
"Where are we going tonight?" she asks, voice still rough from screaming my name an hour ago.
"Wherever you want."
She props herself up on an elbow, hair falling like a curtain. "I want to see everything. I haven't been to New York since I was eight, and that was just for a day with my mom. We saw the Statue of Liberty and ate hot dogs in Central Park."
"We can do that."
"Hot dogs?" She wrinkles her nose. "Lorenzo Sartori, restaurant mogul, eating street vendor hot dogs?"
"For you? I'd eat gas station sushi."
She laughs, the sound filling the room. It's been a month of healing, of learning to be married without death threats hanging over us.
Pietro suggested this trip. Actually, he insisted on it. "Take a fucking week off," he'd said. "Both of you. Get out of Chicago, act like newlyweds instead of war generals."
So here we are, hiding in a Manhattan hotel, pretending the world doesn't exist beyond these walls.
"Times Square," Sophia says decisively. "I want to see all those lights. And Broadway—can we see a show? And the Empire State Building. Oh, and that museum with the dinosaurs—"
"The Natural History Museum."
"Yes! And I want to walk through Central Park at night—"
"Not happening."
She pouts. "Why not?"
"Because I'm not letting you get mugged in Central Park."
"You'd protect me."
"I'd kill anyone who looked at you wrong, which would ruin our vacation when NYPD shows up."
She considers this. "Fair point." She kisses my shoulder. "What about you? What do you want to see?"
I stare at the ceiling, the question hitting differently than she intended. "Nothing. Everything. I don't care as long as you're there."
"That's sweet but also a cop-out." She studies my face. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing."
"Liar." She sits up fully now, sheet pooling at her waist. "You've been weird all morning. Well, weirder than usual."
I reach for her but she pulls back.
"No. No distracting me with sex. Talk."
I drop my hand, go back to staring at the ceiling. The ornate molding reminds me of the compound, of home, of all the shit we left behind for this week.
"I'm worried about Vittoria."
Sophia's expression softens. She lies back down, curling into my side. "Tell me."
"She was close with Ava. Ava was like a second mother to her. Riccardo and Ava couldn't have kids. She couldn't carry to term. They tried for years before giving up. So Vittoria became... not a replacement, but something close."
Sophia's hand finds mine, squeezing gently.
"Now Vittoria knows about Luna's son," I continue.
"Riccardo's actual child. And she can't say anything to Ava.
Because it would destroy her. She's barely holding on as it is.
Learning that Riccardo had a son with someone else?
That the baby she always wanted exists, just not with her? " I shake my head. "It would be cruel."
"But keeping it from her is killing Vittoria."
"I know." The weight of family secrets presses down on me, even here, even now. "She called me yesterday while you were in the shower. She sounded... hollow. Like she's disappearing inside herself."
"Maybe Ava needs to know," Sophia says carefully. "Maybe the truth would be better than—"
"The truth would ruin her once and for all."
Sophia shifts against me, her fingers tracing circles on my chest. "Okay, enough heavy talk. We're supposed to be on vacation."
"You started it."
"And now I'm ending it." She props herself up again, something mischievous in her eyes. "I have a different question."
"What?"
She bites her lip, that tell she has when she's nervous. "When are you going to give me a baby?"
I freeze. My hand stills on her back. "What?"
"A baby. You know, small human, cries a lot, needs diapers—"
I grab her face and kiss her hard, cutting off her rambling. When I pull back, she's breathless.
"Don't you want kids?"
"Of course I do. With you. But..." I sit up, pulling her with me so she's straddling my lap. "I need time."
Her face falls slightly. "How much time?"
"Four years. Maybe five."
"Five years?"
I cup her face, making her look at me. "I need you to myself first. Just us.
No obligations, no distractions. I want to wake up with you every morning knowing you're mine and only mine.
I want to travel with you, show you things, experience everything with you before we add anyone else to the equation. "
"That's very selfish."
"I'm a selfish man when it comes to you."
She studies my face. "And after your four or five years of having me all to yourself?"
"Then, if you still want to, we'll have a full house. As many kids as you want. We'll fill that whole damn compound with little Sartoris running around, driving Pietro insane."
"How many is 'as many as I want'?"
"However many. Two, three, six—"
"Six?"
"You want six?"
She laughs. "God no. Maybe three. Two boys and a girl."
"But you have to survive me for four years first," I say, trying to lighten the moment.
"Survive you?"
"Mm. Four years of just us. Of me keeping you in bed every morning. Of taking you wherever I want, whenever I want. Of having you completely to myself with no one else to consider."
She shivers against me. "That sounds terrible."
"Horrible."
"I don't know how I'll manage."
"You're very brave."
She laughs, then suddenly climbs higher on my lap, wrapping her arms around my neck. Her expression turns serious.
"Lorenzo?"
"Yeah?"
"I love you."
I look at her. This woman who walked into my restaurant desperate and afraid. Who chose me despite everything. Who sees all my darkness and calls it home.
"I love you too."
Sophia
I pull back from his arms, shaking my head. "No no no, you can't do that."
Lorenzo raises an eyebrow. "Do what?"
"Say 'I love you too' like that. Like it's simple. Like you're ordering coffee or checking off a box on some list.You haven't said it properly. Not once. And you're not allowed to just toss it out there all casual now."
A smirk tugs at his mouth against my finger.
"You want me to say it properly?"
"Yes."
He grabs my wrist, pulls my hand away from his mouth. His eyes darken, that warm brown turning almost black. "You want to know how I love you?"
My breath catches.
"I love you like drowning humans love air." His voice drops, rough velvet that scrapes against my skin. "Like I spent thirty-four years suffocating and didn't know it until you walked through my door. I love you like addiction, like obsession, like sickness and cure all at once."
He pulls me closer, his hands spanning my waist.
"I love you in ways that terrify me. In ways that make me want to lock you in a tower where no one can see you, touch you, breathe near you.
I love you so much it rewired my DNA. Changed my molecular structure.
You're in my blood now, Sophia. In my bones.
In every thought, every breath, every heartbeat. "
My eyes burn. My chest feels too small for my lungs.
"I love you like worship and blasphemy. Like prayer and sin. I love you more than my family, more than my empire, more than my own life. If God himself came down and told me to choose between you and heaven, I'd choose you and walk into hell smiling."
A tear escapes down my cheek. He catches it with his thumb.
"I love you violently. Desperately. With a hunger that will never be satisfied. Not in four years, not in forty, not in four hundred. You could live a thousand lifetimes and I would love you in every single one, find you in every single one, choose you in every single one."
His forehead presses against mine.
"That's how I love you, Sophia. Like madness. Like devotion. Like coming home."
I can't breathe. Can't think. Can only stare at this man who just split himself open and poured out his soul.
"Okay," I whisper.
"Okay?"
"That was... adequate."
He laughs, the sound rumbling through his chest. "Adequate?"
"Maybe slightly better than adequate."
He flips me onto my back, hovering over me. "I'll show you adequate."
But I catch his face in my hands before he can kiss me. "Wait."
His brow furrows.
"I know we need time," I say softly. "Before kids. Before all of that."
Understanding crosses his face. "You were trying to distract me. From the Vittoria situation."
I shrug against the mattress. "You take on everyone's problems. Carry everyone's weight. I wanted to give you something else to think about."
"By talking about babies?"
"It worked, didn't it?"
Lorenzo's fingers find my ribs, making me squirm. "You're getting sneaky, Mrs. Sartori. Manipulating me with talk of babies."
"I learned from the best." I try to wiggle away but he holds me in place, his touch light but insistent. "You manipulate people for a living."
"I negotiate. There's a difference."
"Oh really? What's the difference?"
"Negotiation involves mutual benefit." His fingers dance along my side. "Manipulation is what you just did."
I gasp as he finds a particularly ticklish spot. "Stop! Lorenzo!"
"Admit you manipulated me."
"Never."
He increases his assault until I'm laughing so hard I can barely breathe. "Okay! Okay! I manipulated you!"
He stops, but keeps me pinned beneath him, grinning down at me with that rare, genuine smile that transforms his whole face. "See? That wasn't so hard."
"You're terrible."
"You love me anyway."
"Unfortunately."
He mock-glares at me. "Unfortunately?"
Before he can start tickling again, I say quickly, "Speaking of manipulation, did you hear about Giulia?"
Lorenzo's eyebrows rise. "What about her?"
"She asked Pietro if she could go to Sicily for a couple months. To stay with your mother."
"Giulia wants to leave?" He seems genuinely surprised. "She's been with us for twenty years."
"Apparently she needs a break from..." I gesture vaguely. "She told Vittoria she hasn't slept properly since Bruno woke up."
Lorenzo rolls off me, lying on his back. "Can't blame her. Bruno's been..."
"A nightmare?"
"I was going to say difficult."
"He threw a glass at her head yesterday."
"He what?" Lorenzo sits up, fury flashing across his face.
"She dodged it. But still." I touch his arm. "Pietro already approved her leave. She flies out tomorrow."
Lorenzo runs a hand through his hair. "Christ. Twenty years she's taken care of us, and this is how we repay her."
"It's not your fault."
"Everything that happens in this family is partly my fault." He looks at me. "Who's going to cook? Clean? Keep the house running?"
I bite my lip to keep from laughing. "Pietro assigned Nico to find a replacement."
Lorenzo stares at me for a beat, then bursts out laughing. Real, deep laughter that shakes his whole body. "Nico? Pietro put Nico in charge of hiring domestic staff?"
"Apparently it's punishment for something. Pietro wouldn't say what."
"Oh, this is going to be a disaster." Lorenzo wipes his eyes. "Nico will probably run background checks going back three generations. Interview their kindergarten teachers. Install surveillance in their homes before hiring them."
"Or he'll forget entirely and they'll be eating takeout for two months."
"My money's on him hiring someone completely inappropriate. Like an ex-KGB operative who only cooks Russian food."
"Or someone's grandmother who doesn't speak English and pinches everyone's cheeks."
We're both laughing now, imagining increasingly ridiculous scenarios. It feels good, this lightness between us. These moments where we're just... us.
When our laughter finally dies down, I curl into his side. "Thank you."
"For what?"
"Everything." I trace patterns on his chest. "For saving me that day on Michigan Avenue when I was eight. For taking me in when I had nowhere else to go. For protecting me even when it put you at risk. For marrying me. For loving me. For giving me a life I never imagined I could have."
"Sophia—"
"I'm serious. You changed everything for me. Gave me purpose, strength, a family. You taught me to fight, to survive, to be more than just afraid all the time."
He's quiet for a moment, then says in that teasing tone, "You forgot to thank me for the mind-blowing sex."
I smack his chest. "Lorenzo!"
"What? It's a significant contribution to your life."
"You're impossible."
"You didn't deny it though."
Heat floods my cheeks. "I hate you."
"Liar." He kisses the top of my head. "You worship me. You said so yourself. Multiple times. Loudly."
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