Chapter 27 SOPHIA
We just returned from LA. I'm tired and wary. Roberto hasn't said anything to me during the flight or drive. He's been talking on his phone or typing out messages, ignoring me.
The moment the front door shuts behind us, the atmosphere changes. Almost as if there were a signal I missed, the guards and servants scatter without a word, slipping away like shadows sensing an oncoming storm.
There’s no foreplay this time. No cutting remarks or slow windup.
Before I even have a chance to put my purse down, his hand is at my throat.
The impact is sudden and vicious. He slams my back against the wall hard enough to make the picture frame beside my head rattle.
Air vanishes before I can even gasp. His grip tightens instantly, unyielding, and the fury in his face is so raw it’s almost unrecognizable.
His eyes are wide and wild, bloodshot from whatever rage has been simmering since the moment he spoke to Marcello.
His lips curl back over clenched teeth, and his jaw works like he’s grinding my existence down to dust. I claw at his wrist, my nails scrape skin, but his hand might as well be made of steel.
My feet scramble for purchase on the floor as my knees buckle under the pressure.
The air in my lungs is already thin and sharp; it doesn't take long for it to be gone entirely.
With more terror than I thought myself capable of after all this time, I realize that this isn’t one of his twisted games.
This is real.
A true chokehold meant to silence me, to end me.
The edges of my vision darken, and shadows bleed inward. My ears fill with a low, angry buzzing that drowns out everything but my own pounding heartbeat. My fingers weaken. My legs kick once, twice, then fall useless.
The fire in my lungs roars, my body jerks, not from defiance any longer, but from desperation. My entire being is homed in on survival. Unfortunately, I don't think that's enough. I can't fight him off.
The thought lands, heavy and final.
This is it.
You’re going to die.
But then, unexpectedly, the shrill sound of an alarm penetrates the darkness, loosening the hold of his fingers around my throat and allowing me to take in a ragged breath.
BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.
The gate alarm. Roberto releases me with a startled grunt, and I crumple to the floor like a rag doll, coughing and gasping, clutching my burning throat.
"What the fuck—?" he snarls, spinning around.
A bodyguard bursts into the room, his hand pressed to his earpiece, his eyes wide and pale beneath his buzzed hair. "We’re under attack."
Roberto freezes. "What?"
I'm so consumed, gasping for air, taking in one painful breath after another while holding my throat, that I nearly miss what's happening, but then the unmistakable sound of gunfire erupts.
Not one or two shots. No, it's a barrage of it.
The sound rips through the air like a storm, rapid, close, brutal.
The kind of gunfire that means someone came prepared. The kind that means war.
Utter chaos erupts. Guards shout. Radios squawk. A window shatters somewhere upstairs. Roberto draws his weapon without so much as even glancing at me.
It's like he's forgotten I'm here. "What? Who?"
The questions pop out from him as he turns in a circle, aiming his gun at invisible shadows.
All the while I’m still on the floor, chest heaving, heart galloping, my throat sore and bruised, my limbs shaking.
My mind is too hazy to register fear of what is happening.
I'm too grateful to be alive to worry about what may or may not happen five minutes from now.
Another scream rings out, shrill, terrified. Loud enough to get my attention, loud enough to make me crawl against the couch.
Roberto is still holding his gun out, aiming it directionless at every noise; two guards are at his side.
All three look rattled. A banging sound comes from the front door.
I didn't think the beat of my heart could increase or the fear inside me grow any bigger, but both things are happening as I stare with wide-open, wild eyes as several shadowy figures dressed in black and wearing ski masks enter.
Roberto begins to shoot, and so do his guards.
More shots ring out. One guard goes down, his kneecap shattered.
The second flies against the table as he's hit in the chest, right in the middle of his vest. Some random flare in my mind tells me that he's not dead, only unconscious, because he, like the others, is wearing a Kevlar vest. The flare bounces around in my head and extinguishes just as quickly and as randomly as it came.
I guess my synapses are firing wildly now.
Either still from the oxygen deprivation or the immense fear raging through me.
I don't even know who to be more afraid of: the men whose attack stopped my husband from choking me to death, or Roberto, whose gun makes a clicking sound as his magazine runs dry.
He ejects the clip, but before he can replace it, the barrel of a machine gun is pressed to his temple, and a deadly voice mumbles one word, "Don't. "
Roberto drops his gun.
Just like that. I see something on his face that I’ve never seen before. Roberto Giordano’s eyes hold fear. Real, visceral, paralyzing fear. The sight sends something electric surging through me. Something primal. Dark. Unapologetic and ugly. And so, so deeply satisfying.
For a flickering second, I don’t even care if these men came to kill us all. Just seeing that look on his face—that tremble in his jaw—is worth dying for.
Roberto stays frozen as the man behind him orders, "Down."
One of the others steps forward, coolly, efficiently, pulling zip ties from his vest. They wrench Roberto’s arms behind his back and bind his wrists, then shove him to his knees.
He doesn’t fight. That’s how I know he’s shaken, truly shaken.
I stay pressed against the couch, unmoving, and with a heart that's pounding so fast it hurts. I’m not screaming. I’m not crying. I’m not even shaking anymore. I’m past fear. Way past panic.
I’m hovering somewhere else now, somewhere foggy and hollow where nothing feels real and everything feels sharp.
Then one of the masked men turns. He slowly walks toward me.
He’s tall, dressed like the others, head to toe in tactical black, a ski mask pulled low, hiding his face; he's holding a machine gun in one hand.
But there is something familiar about him.
Something I don't want to consider right now.
Something too dangerous to consider. His other hand reaches out, forward, toward me.
The movement is gentle and open. The way one might approach a scared kitten.
My name leaves his lips. "Sophia."
So incredibly soft. Too soft for a soldier. Too familiar.
I realize I'm shaking my head, denying what my heart is trying to tell me, even as the sound of his voice burrows under my skin. My brain keeps telling me, No. It can’t be. That’s not possible.
But when my hand lifts—numb and once again shaking uncontrollably—and slips into his, something happens. I feel it. The calluses. The heat. The recognition. In one smooth motion, he lifts his other hand—the one with the gun—to pull off the mask.
Time fractures, and the world narrows to the face beneath. Scars slash across his cheekbone, and another cuts into the edge of his brow. His face is black and blue in places, almost unrecognizable. It's him. But that’s not what stuns me.
It’s his eyes.
Because this is Raffael.
And it isn’t.
Not the man who once held me while I cried.
Not the one who once before stood between me and danger like a shield made of flesh and blood.
Not the man who kissed me. This Raffael is different.
Colder. Sharper. Harder. This is a man who kills and doesn't blink. Who would do it again without hesitation. He’s death incarnate—and he’s holding my hand so incredibly gently, like it’s the only thing tethering him to the earth.
I can’t breathe.
Behind me, Roberto spits from the floor. "Who the fuck are you?"
Crack.
One of the masked men slams the butt of his machine gun into Roberto’s head. He grunts and slumps sideways, stunned or unconscious, I can’t tell.
But I can’t even process it. Because all I can do is stare at the ghost of the man I once loved—standing in front of me like a living weapon—right before the world tilts.
Dizziness overcomes me, followed by blackness around the edges of my vision, slowly taking everything else over.
My mind spins, before it goes mercifully blank, and I fall.
Into nothing.