18. Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Eighteen
S ophie
I pause outside the honey-colored building, my heart thudding hard against my ribs. Even with the evening breeze cooling my skin, my palms are slick with sweat.
“I shouldn’t have come,” I whisper to the wall.
But I couldn’t stop wondering if I was about to throw away my last chance to say goodbye to my childhood home.
Even if Dom keeps to his word about withdrawing his interest, I don’t think I could come back. It hurts. Too much.
It also carries betrayal, and I doubt I’d ever look into my uncle’s face again without remembering that he lied to me.
“For now, I’ll just sit here,” I murmur, running my fingers against the chipping paint. “Just for an hour.” I lower myself to the ground, curling my jeans-clad legs and exhaling audibly.
I’ll pretend I’m ten again and can still hear my mom’s voice asking me to come into the house. Maybe it’ll give me the closure I never had.
As I close my eyes and hold my arms out, slipping back into memories, I hear voices from afar. They sound like hushed whispers, but it’s the urgency in them, the secrecy that has my ears perking.
“…we should do it now. I heard they’re leaving in the morning.” I hear the distinct voice of a man.
My eyes pop open. That can’t be good. They’re talking about us—Dom and I. Unless there’s another set of people leaving in the morning, and I’m just being paranoid.
“What’s the plan?” Another man. “It has to be airtight. The boss said it should look like an accident. Remember—” I hear something like a shove, “—he said not to touch the woman.”
They speak Italian, which I understand fluently, but years of speaking English automatically translate it into my head.
“Easy.” The first man chuckles. I hear keys. “I got it from the front desk. I gathered that they’re not lovers, meaning they sleep in different rooms. We just have to find out which is which. You distract the woman, and I take care of the other one.”
Kill . He’s going to kill Domenico. I slap my hand over my mouth to muffle a frightened gasp.
But who? The question stops me from running to inform Dom or reaching for my phone. I need to know who put the hit on him.
“But,” I hear a third voice, one that sounds unsure. “He’s a big shot. What if they trace it back to us? We’ll be as good as dead.”
The one who spoke up first huffs. “Don’t you know who Mr. Bellini is? And this is a different country. The cops have been paid off already. By the time we’re done, nobody will find his body.”
My blood turns cold. Mr. Bellini. My uncle? No other person would know of our presence here… nobody else with an agenda against Dom.
The chill spreads through my body until I’m visibly shaking and holding my breath, afraid that if I breathe, I’ll be found.
Why would he want to kill him? The plan was to infiltrate the company and tear it down from within. The plan did not include eliminating Dom.
Another lie.
I’ve lost count of how many lies my uncle had fed me over the years, but I never realized the extent until we turned up here.
“So, are we doing it now?” One of the men asks.
I look around frantically, trying to find a way to sneak away without blowing my cover. The house is surrounded by manicured grass and the gravel part is beyond it.
I’ll still have to walk a distance to the gate, and there’s no way I’ll get that far without one of them seeing me.
“Shit,” I mutter. My chest feels stuffy, and my heart thuds. I grip my face tighter, muffling the rapid exhales that escape as I struggle to breathe.
A loud sound from the other end of the winery has my heart leaping to my throat, but it also startles the others.
One of the men swears loudly. “There’s nobody in the distillery. You should’ve stayed back,” he accuses another, smacking him hard. Then he sighs. “Let’s handle that first. There’s plenty of time to get to the villa.”
I wait, like a mouse playing dead, until I can’t hear their footsteps or voices anymore. Even then, I creep from my hiding spot, walking on tiptoes to see they’re truly gone.
As soon as I see that they are, I run for it. I don’t stop, not when my shoe comes off and my toe scrapes the gravel, the loose stones cutting through my skin.
I flag down the first taxi and jump in, mumbling the address. My phone falls to the car floor as I rip my jeans trying to get it from my pocket.
The driver glances at me through the mirror with a curious, worried look, but I ignore him, punching buttons to Dom’s number.
“Pick up, pick up,” I grunt as the phone rings repeatedly with no response. “Please pick up,” I mutter in despair as I rub my forehead.
He doesn’t.
Could they have gotten to him already? “Please drive faster,” my voice trembles as I talk to the driver, grabbing the headrest of his chair.
The ten-minute drive to the villa feels like forever, and I toss as many bills as possible through the window without counting them.
My feet barely touch the ground as I race for the door, fumbling the key so badly it slips from my shaking fingers. I curse under my breath, then resort to pounding on the wood with my fists, wild and unthinking.
“Dom!” I shout, voice cracked and frantic. “Dom!”
I snatch up the key again, but the door swings open before I can use it. He’s standing there shirtless, damp hair curling at his temples, his chest still wet from a shower. His brows pull together the second he sees me.
And for one split second—just a millisecond—I forget what dragged me here like a madwoman.
“What happened?”
“I—” The words jam in my throat as the horror rushes back in full force: the honey-colored building, the voices I recognized too late, the realization of who they were after.
“I—” I stammer again, the panic catching in my chest. My voice shakes, weak and breathless. “They’re here to kill you. They’re going to kill you.”
His expression hardens. “Who?”
He glances past me, shoulders tense, then back. “What is going on, Sophie?”
I swallow hard, trying to force my brain to cooperate with my mouth, but the words knot in my throat. My pulse thuds in my ears. Then I hear footsteps echoing down the hallway.
I act before I can think. I shove him backward into the apartment and slam the door shut behind us, hands flying to the locks.
“What is going on?” he says again, louder now, but I don’t answer. I can’t.
Dom reaches for me, trying to anchor me, but I shove his hands off, lunging for the last bolt at the bottom. It scrapes loudly as I lock it in place. There aren’t enough locks. It doesn’t feel like enough.
“Come,” I gasp, grabbing his hand with trembling fingers, already scanning the room for someplace to hide. My mind’s spinning. Too fast.
But he doesn’t move. Instead, he pulls me back, his grip tight around my wrist.
“Stop,” he says, gentle but firm. “Take a breath, Sophie.”
“No,” I choke out, shaking my head violently as a fresh wave of fear crashes over me. My voice is raw now, pitched higher, trembling with urgency. “No. There’s no time to breathe, Dom.”
I clutch his arm. “They’re coming. I heard them. I heard them talking. They’re going to kill you, Dom.”
His eyes sharpen when the words leave my mouth, and he doesn’t ask more questions. “Stay behind me,” he says, already moving.
Dom releases my wrist and bolts down the hall toward his bedroom. I follow him on instinct, heart in my throat, every step echoing like thunder.
“Close the door,” he says. As I do, gunshots ring out. Two of them.
I freeze, my breath caught between flight and fight. Dom curses under his breath as he yanks open a drawer and grabs a black pistol, sliding the magazine in with muscle memory.
A gun? I don’t remember him bringing one. Or having one.
“They’re in the building,” he says as he faces me, holding the gun steady while I’m losing my mind on the inside.
Then the sound of the front door slamming down crashes through the apartment. It’s metal against tile, sharp and violent.
Dom turns and grabs me by the waist as I jump, pulling me to the walk-in closet. “Get in,” he orders. “Now.”
I start to, when I remember what they said. It’s him they’re after , not me.
“No.” I shake my head, finding courage out of the blue. “There are three of them and one of you. You need me.”
His gaze darkens with a warning. “No offense, but you’ll only get in my way. Stay there and call the cops.”
“They’ve paid them off.” I hate the words as they leave my mouth, because they emphasize how truly fucked we are.
His expression muddles with confusion as his gun lowers. “They’ve paid off the police? You heard them say that?
I nod. “Yeah. Let me help you,” I offer again. “I’m good with a gun,” I add when he hesitates, knowing he must have another stashed somewhere. “If for no other reason, let me be able to protect myself.
A muscle twitches in his jaw, but there’s no time to deliberate when another shot rings out. They were planning to do it quietly, but something must’ve spooked them.
Me? Did they see me as I ran from the winery, or did the taxi I entered have something to do with them?
The cold steel of a gun touches my chest as Dom hands it to me. It’s a small one, but it’ll do. “Stay here,” he repeats, “and don’t fire unless you absolutely have to.”
“Okay,” I nod, though my voice trembles and my knees aren’t far behind.
He steps out quietly, moving like a shadow, and closes the door behind him without a sound. There’s nothing for a long while.
I crouch low behind the door, clutching the gun with both hands, trying to steady my breathing, trying not to imagine him bleeding out just beyond this wall.
The silence stretches so long that it becomes unbearable, and I start to think they might’ve gotten him in some other way.
Three sharp pops.
I flinch hard, heart rocketing to my throat. One of the bullets slices through the wood just inches above my head with a dull, whistling sound. I drop lower, shaking, fingers white around the grip.
And then I hear it.
“Fuck,” Dom groans. The sound he makes is low, breathless, and pained. My heart stops for a moment.
He’s hurt.
I move, flinging the door open with the gun raised, breath rushing like wind in my ears and adrenaline coursing through my veins.
He’s on one knee just down the hallway, a smear of red blooming through the side of his shirt. One hand braces against the wall for balance. The other points his gun toward the man lying in front of him. Dead.
Dom doesn’t see me, and I start to go for him, when I see another one rounding the corner, his gun raised to fire.
“Dom! I yell to warn him, but the other man’s head jerks in my direction, his gun shifting. I fire.
The sound splits the air, and he jerks backward and collapses, his weapon clattering to the floor just before his body does. I feel nothing, except the ringing in my ear.
And the reality that I just killed someone. I look down at the gun in my hand, adrenaline draining as my body begins to shake.
I shot him. But I saved Dom.
Dom looks up at me, eyes wide as he staggers to his feet. “Sophie,” he rasps. “Are you hurt?” He stumbles as he makes his way to me, legs wobbling.
“So—” He holds a hand out, and I gasp when he crumbles to the ground, racing to him.
“Dom,” I gather him in my arms, cradling his head to my chest. “Dom!”
***
“I’m with him,” I say, jumping into the back of the ambulance as they load him in, an oxygen mask over his face. My eyes are awash with tears… tears I shed when I thought I’d lost him.
As the ambulance pulls away, I hear the sound of sirens.
Police. They finally arrived. My fingers dig into my thigh, unconsciously, pressing down hard, right where the blood from my palm stains the denim. A deep, ugly imprint from when I tried to stop the bleeding at his side.
The mark feels like it’s still pulsing, like he’s still there, bleeding under my hands.
He paid them off. My uncle.
Disgust curls low in my stomach, and rage chokes my throat with bile. I’d thought of everything while growing up… the look of horror on Domenico’s face when I take everything that belongs to him, the feeling of finally avenging my parents death.
I even thought of holding a gun to his head, once or twice.
But this… cold, ruthless, and evil.
Not to mention that I could’ve died if things had gone sideways. And something tells me that my uncle would’ve considered it a necessary sacrifice.
Who stands to gain, then? He made me believe it was all for me. That I was taking back what the Morettis stole from my family.
I believed it for years. Now? It seems like I’m fighting a war that someone drafted me into. A brainwashed soldier, nothing more.
And if that’s the way things are, I’m not sure I want to keep fighting.