Chapter 25 Luca
I'm standing in the shadows across from a run-down hostel in Prague's backpacker district, watching my wife embrace a man who clearly knows her very well.
And everything I thought I understood about my marriage just shattered.
She told me she was going to rest in our suite. Said she was tired from travel and needed a few hours to adjust. I believed her, went to make business calls, and when I returned an hour later, she was gone.
Not just gone from the room. Gone from the hotel entirely.
The service entrance security footage showed a woman in worn jeans and a jacket slipping out through the staff corridors.
A woman who moved with the confidence of someone who'd done this before, who knew exactly how to disappear without being noticed.
It didn’t take long for my men to pick up her trail, following her path through Prague's old town to this neighborhood that no wealthy tourist would ever visit. A neighborhood where the signs are in Czech and where people who don't want to be found come to disappear.
And now I'm here, watching her.
The woman talking to that man isn't Sofia Romano. She's not even trying to be Sofia. Her posture is different, more relaxed. She's speaking in a manner that suggests familiarity with him or a shared history.
But it's the way the man is treating her that removes any last doubt from my mind.
I watched as he ran across a busy street to greet her, wrapping her in his arms and hugging her like lost lovers.
He's talking to her like someone who knows her intimately. He even touched her fucking hair and brushed it back from her shoulders.
It’s taking every bit of self-control I have not to rush over there and slit his throat right where he stands on the sidewalk.
But if I do that, I won’t get the answers I need.
I watch silently as he pulls up his shirt to show her a tattoo on his shoulder, an elaborate dragon that covers most of his upper arm.
She smiles and leans closer, touching it with a finger and examining the tattoo with the critical eye of someone who has opinions about the artwork.
This isn't a stranger showing off a tattoo to impress a pretty woman.
This is someone sharing something with a lover who helped make the decision.
They have history. Intimate history. The kind you build over time. The kind of history Sofia is supposed to have with me, but doesn't.
Because Sofia isn't Sofia.
This woman is someone else entirely. Someone who has lovers in Prague who she goes to meet while on her honeymoon for fucks sake.
I’d give up my jet to hear their conversation right now since all I can do is imagine their words.
Are they making plans to meet up later? Will she slip out while I’m asleep to fuck him in a rundown hostel?
She laughs at something he says, then appears to be apologizing. They’re in the middle of a tense conversation when she suddenly gets spooked. Maybe she caught sight of one of my men. I know she hasn’t seen me.
She tries to back away and he reaches out to stop her. And then she turns and she’s gone.
I hear him yell after her ‘Wait!’
She doesn’t slow down or look back.
I follow at a distance as she navigates the streets back toward the hotel district, watching how she moves through Prague like someone who knows exactly where she's going. No hesitation, no checking street signs, no tourist confusion. She knows this city.
She slips back into the hotel through the same service entrance she used to leave, and I give her ten minutes before following. When I enter our suite, she's sitting on the bed with a book, dressed in her regular clothes, looking like she's been there all afternoon.
"How were your calls?" she asks, and her voice is carefully modulated again. Sofia's voice, not the animated woman talking to that man.
"Productive." I study her face, looking for any sign of the intimate conversation I just witnessed. "Did you rest well?"
"Very well. I feel much better now."
"Good. I was thinking we might explore the city a bit before dinner. Maybe see some of the areas where locals actually live."
"That sounds lovely."
"I've heard there's an interesting neighborhood not far from here. Lots of small shops and cafes, very authentic Prague atmosphere."
"Oh? What's it called?"
"I believe it's in the area around the old hostels. The backpacker district."
I watch her face carefully as I say it, looking for any flicker of recognition. There's the slightest tension around her eyes, but she recovers quickly.
"I'm not familiar with that area. Is it safe for tourists?"
"Probably not the kind of place Sofia Romano would normally visit," I say, emphasizing her name slightly.
"No, probably not." She sets down her book and looks at me with what appears to be genuine curiosity. "Why are you interested in that particular area?"
"Heard it was... authentic. The kind of place where you might run into old friends, if you had any in Prague."
"Well, I don’t know anyone here." She stands up and moves to the window. "Do you?"
"No, I don’t. Sofia, did you ever have a serious relationship before our marriage?" I ask, switching tactics.
The question catches her off guard and she whirls around to look at me. "What do you mean? That’s a weird question out of nowhere."
"I mean have you ever been in love before? Ever lived with someone, traveled with someone?"
"No. You know my background. I lived with my family, worked at the gallery. There wasn't much opportunity for serious relationships."
"No one special? No one you had to leave behind when we got married?"
"No one. Luca, I promise you…I’ve never been in love before."
"What about friendships? Close friends you might want to visit if you ever found yourself in their city?"
She shrugs. "I don't have many close friends. I've always been more comfortable with casual relationships with co-workers or family."
Another lie.
The woman I watched this afternoon was completely comfortable with that man. Whoever he is.
"Were you ever lonely before we were married?" I ask. “Or sad.”
She hesitates before answering. "Yes, to both. Sometimes. Not anymore.”
“Why is that?”
“I have you now,” she says.
The answer is exactly what Sofia would say.
"Yes," I say quietly. "You have me now."
"Should we get ready for dinner?" she asks, already moving toward the closet. "I'd like to change into something nicer."
"Of course."
I watch her select a conservative, expensive dress. Exactly what Sofia Romano would wear for dinner in Prague. I can't stop thinking about the worn jeans and jacket she was wearing this afternoon. Clothes that belonged to her, and fit her personality.
While she's in the bathroom changing, I check my phone. Several messages from Paolo asking if he should continue tailing the man she met with. The man who has apparently spent the afternoon drinking heavily with friends at a café and showing no signs of leaving.
“Tell the men not to lose him or approach him.” I text back. I would love to murder him for touching her, and I might still do that, though it doesn’t serve my purpose right now.
At least I know, one way or the other, I will get answers on this trip.
If not from her, I can torture it out of him.
When she emerges from the bathroom, she's Sofia Romano again. Perfectly dressed, carefully made up, ready to play the role of wealthy wife enjoying her European honeymoon.
"Ready to go?" she asks, and there's nothing in her expression to suggest she spent the afternoon in a Prague hostel district.
"Almost," I say. "Just one more question."
"What's that?"
"If you had to disappear tomorrow, if you had to leave everything behind and start over somewhere brand new, where would you go?"
The question stops her cold. For a moment, her careful mask slips and I see something that looks like raw panic.
"Why would you ask that? What’s going on? You seem agitated or worried."
"Only curious about your dreams. The places you've always wanted to see but never could."
"I... I don't know. I've never really thought about it."
"Everyone thinks about it sometimes. The fantasy of walking away from your old life and becoming someone new. A fresh start in a new place."
"I don't have those fantasies. I'm happy with my life."
But the way she says it suggests otherwise. The way she says it suggests she knows exactly where she would go, exactly how she would disappear, exactly what it feels like to walk away from everything familiar.
"I’m glad," I say, standing up. "Because I'd hate to wake up one morning and find you gone."
The words are true.
Despite everything.
Despite the lies and the deception and the growing certainty that the woman I married isn't who she claims to be.
I would hate to lose her.
And if I did wake up one morning and find her gone, I’d hunt the world over until I found her again.