Chapter 31 SOPHIA
The next day…
The first thing I notice is the warmth. The second is the faint hum of the heating vent and the rustle of the trees outside the window—that’s it, the only sound.
My eyes blink open to the same soft ivory walls as yesterday, but they feel… different now. Not home, not safe, but familiar enough that the panic doesn’t hit all at once.
We had dinner last night—Raffael and I. If you can call it that
He ate, while I pushed food around my plate until he gave me a look that made me eat. He was polite and careful, like every movement was planned in advance, every word chosen so I wouldn’t break.
And I still might.
Everything’s a haze. Being here and not there. No Roberto.
His absence is so strange, I can’t wrap my mind around it. For three years, he’s been everywhere, his voice, his rules, his hands. He filled every corner of my life until I forgot what it was like to live without him watching.
Now the space he left is so big it feels like I could fall into it.
And then there’s Raffael.
The man I’ve loved quietly, stupidly, for years. More than five years, if I’m counting right from when I met him at sixteen. The one who stepped in back then, when I thought I might die in some dark alley. And now he’s done it again, only this time, he pulled me out of something worse.
I should feel… what? Grateful? Relieved? Happy?
I feel nothing like that.
I don’t know who I am without Roberto’s voice in my ear.
I don’t know what I want, or if I even want anything at all.
My skin doesn’t feel like mine, my thoughts keep looping back to the same questions, the same dark corners.
Every time I look at Raffael, I see the man I used to imagine saving me.
I see the man who finally did. And I don’t know if I can be the woman he thinks he rescued.
What if she’s gone?
What if there’s nothing left to save?
And then there's the fact that Raffael has Roberto.
I don’t know how to feel about that either.
Part of me wants to see him, just to look him in the eye and know he can’t touch me again. Part of me wants to watch him suffer, to hear him beg, to see him bleed until there’s nothing left but the memory of the pain he caused.
Another part of me just wants it over—all of it. I want to wake up one day and not feel him in the room with me, not hear his voice in my head. I want him gone so completely that I can forget there was ever a time I answered to his name.
But there is no part of me that wants him to live. Not one.
And that scares me.
Because I don’t know if that makes me broken or finally sane.
I curl tighter under the covers, as if I can hide from the truth of it. I’ve never wanted to hurt anyone, not like that. But I want him dead. I want him gone so badly it feels like a physical ache in my chest.
And then I think of Raffael.
Of what it will cost him to do it.
Of how much blood is already on his hands.
And I hate that I can’t decide which scares me more, the idea of Roberto breathing another day, or the idea of Raffael killing for me and the consequences of it.
I sit up straight. Raffael attacked Roberto's mansion! He took a capo! This will not go unanswered. They will all come for him, every one of Roberto’s allies, every soldier who wants to earn their way up, every vulture who smells blood in the water.
And they won’t stop until they’ve put him in the ground.
The thought twists my stomach, sharp and nauseating.
Which brings up another thought, one I can’t push away now that it’s lodged in my head—this place.
How in the hell can he afford this?
The sprawling property, the marble kitchen, the forest wrapping around us like a private kingdom—it’s not soldier money. Not even the kind of money my father paid him for saving the other girls and me all those years ago. That was a lot, but not this.
So where does it come from?
The question about Raffael’s money lingers, but it’s no longer just about him.
It’s about me. About what I don’t know. About the lies I’ve lived under before.
The man I dreamed would come for me—the one I built up in my head all those nights Roberto locked me away—he might not be the same man who brought me here.
And I don’t just mean the new scars on his face.
What if he’s lying to me?
Roberto lied for six months. Convincingly. Six months of sweet words, gentle touches, and promises whispered in the dark. He made me believe I was safe with him, that maybe my father hadn’t sold me to a monster after all. And then… then came our wedding night.
I can still see it. The moment the mask slipped. The way he looked at me, like he’d been waiting to sink his claws in. He loved every second of watching the truth dawn on my face. That wasn't the worst, though, oh no. He made me relive that night every year on our anniversary. Every. Single. Year.
A cold sweat breaks across my skin. Our anniversary is next month.
My heart pounds, my breathing turns sharp and shallow, and my hands start to tremble as I press them to my knees, but it doesn’t stop.
Three years.
Three years of bruises and broken skin. Three years of hearing my own screams and knowing no one would come. Three years of being told I was nothing, of learning to be silent, small, invisible. Three years stolen from me by a man who got away with it because no one cared enough to stop him.
The sorrow claws up my throat until I can’t breathe. My chest is tight, my eyes burn, and the tears spill before I can swallow them back. They’re hot, fast, and relentless, like they’ve been waiting for permission.
I bend forward, wrapping my arms around my middle, rocking without meaning to. I want to scream, to tear the walls down, to make the whole world hear what he did to me. But all that comes out is a broken, gasping sound.
It feels like I’m drowning in everything I couldn’t say for three years.
The air feels too thin, like I’m trying to breathe through a straw. My nails bite into my own arms as if holding myself together physically might keep me from completely shattering.
I squeeze my eyes shut, but the darkness behind them is worse. All I hear is his voice, his hands moving to his belt, the sound of the lock clicking shut. All I smell is his cologne, which turns my stomach. I can’t stop shaking. My teeth chatter, my muscles tremble, and it’s not from the cold.
I hate him. God, I hate him. But I hate myself too, for surviving the way I did. For giving him what he wanted just to make the pain stop. For losing myself so completely that now, even free, I don’t know where to find me again.
The sob that rips out of me is jagged and ugly, but once it’s out, the rest come faster. I press my forehead to my knees, the sound of my own crying filling the room, bouncing off the walls, making me feel exposed even though no one’s here.
Or so I thought.
A shift in the air makes me lift my head.
He’s there.
Raffael stands just inside the doorway, his eyes locked on me like he’s seeing something that hurts to look at, but he can’t turn away. He doesn’t move right away, just watches with a tight jaw and his hands curling into fists at his sides.
I scrub at my face, wishing I could hide all of this from him, but my hands are shaking too hard. Then he’s moving, fast, like a prowling jaguar. When he’s close enough, he drops to his knees in front of me.
"Sophia…" His voice is rough, like it’s scraped over gravel, and hearing it makes my chest ache.
I don’t know what to say, so I say nothing.
He reaches out, hesitantly, his eyes silently asking for permission. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to think. What does he want from me? What does he expect? I don't know what I'm going to say, but the words come on their own before I can stop them. "Make it stop. Please. Make it stop."
Something in his face shatters. His jaw tightens, like he’s holding back everything he wants to say, everything he wants to do.
His hands close around mine, not hard, but like he’s trying to anchor me to the here and now, as if he could physically pull me out of the place in my head where the memories keep dragging me under.
"I will," he says, and it’s not a promise; it’s a vow, low and fierce, like it’s already written into him. "I don’t care what I have to do, Sophia. I’ll burn the world down if that’s what it takes."
I shake my head, tears spilling faster, because I don’t know if he means Roberto or the memories, and I’m terrified it’s both. He shifts closer, still on his knees, and his thumb brushes tenderly across the back of my hand. "Look at me," he murmurs.
It takes everything I have to lift my gaze.
His eyes are darker than I’ve ever seen them, but there’s no anger there, not for me. Only a kind of aching determination that scares me in a different way. Because if he means it—if he really will do anything—then what will be left of him when it’s done?