Chapter 6 Sophia
SOPHIA
The espresso had gone cold an hour ago.
Sophia Castellano stared at her laptop screen, the glow harsh against the soft afternoon light filtering through the floor-to-ceiling windows of her Milan office.
Outside, the city hummed with the energy of summer—tourists crowding the Duomo, locals navigating the streets on Vespas, fashion houses preparing for next season.
Inside, the air hung heavy with mounting disaster.
She scrolled through the photos again. Marco at a yacht party in Monaco. Her brother stumbling out of a nightclub in the early hours. Marco with his arm around yet another model whose name no one would remember by next week. The images had hit social media three hours ago and were already trending.
Her phone buzzed. Pierpaolo from Brioni—again.
Sophia let it ring. She’d already fielded six calls this morning, each one more pointed than the last. The collaborative campaign between Castellano Fashion and Brioni had been her project, her vision.
A sleek winter collection featuring Marco and the American ex-baseball player, Colton Matthews, bridging European elegance with American appeal.
The contracts weren’t signed yet. They’d been close—so close—and now her brother was splashed across every gossip site looking like exactly the kind of liability a heritage brand wanted nothing to do with.
She picked up her espresso, grimaced at the bitter, tepid liquid, and drank it anyway. The porcelain cup clinked when she set it back on the saucer.
Her office phone rang—the landline that only family and senior executives had the number to. She didn’t need to check the display.
“Father.”
“Have you seen?” Alessandro Castellano’s voice carried that particular tone he reserved for Marco’s more spectacular failures. Equal parts disgust and resignation.
“I’m handling it.”
“You’re always handling it. When will your brother start handling anything?”
Sophia pressed her fingers against her temple. The dull ache that had started at breakfast was sharpening into something more insistent. “The Brioni team is nervous. I’ll speak with Marco.”
“Speak with him.” Her father laughed, a short, humorless sound. “Sophia, your brother doesn’t need speeches. He needs consequences.”
“And what consequences would you suggest? Cut him off? He’s the face of half our campaigns.”
“Which is precisely the problem.” Alessandro’s chair creaked through the phone—he was in his study, probably staring at the same photos she’d been torturing herself with.
“I built this company on discipline. On legacy. On the Castellano name meaning something beyond—” He paused, and she could picture him gesturing at his own computer screen. “Beyond this.”
“I know.”
“Do you? Because I am beginning to wonder if anyone in this family understands what is at stake.”
The perfume she’d applied that morning—her signature scent, the one the house had created for her after her divorce—suddenly felt too strong. She stood and crossed to the window, needing air even though the glass didn’t open.
“The campaign will survive,” she said. “I’ll make certain of it.”
“And Marco?”
Sophia watched a woman in red heels navigate the cobblestones below, elegant and sure-footed despite the uneven ground. Once, Sophia had believed she could move through life that gracefully. Then she’d spent four years in a marriage arranged by families and dissolved by lawyers.
“Marco is my responsibility,” she said finally. “He always has been.”
Her father was quiet for a moment. When he spoke again, some of the edge had left his voice. “You work too hard cleaning up his messes. You should be designing, not managing scandals.”
“Someone has to do both.”
“Not forever, Sophia. At some point, he has to grow up.”
After they hung up, she allowed herself thirty seconds to stand at the window, watching the city that had raised her, shaped her, and occasionally suffocated her.
Then she straightened her Castellano blazer—cream silk, impeccably tailored, armor she’d chosen herself rather than having it chosen for her—and pulled up Marco’s number.
He answered on the fourth ring. “Sorella. Let me guess, you’ve seen the photos.”
“The entire world has seen the photos.”
“They’re not as bad as they look.”
“They’re exactly as bad as they look, Marco.” She kept her voice level. He could always tell when she was truly angry—the quieter she got, the more trouble he was in. “Brioni called. Six times.”
A pause. In the background, she could hear water running. He was probably in some penthouse bathroom, nursing a hangover. “I’ll talk to them.”
“You’ll do nothing. I’ll talk to them. You’ll stay out of sight until I’ve fixed this.”
“Sophia—”
“I’m serious. No clubs, no yachts, no cameras. For at least a week. Can you manage that, or should I send Lorenzo to babysit you?”
Marco’s laugh came through thin and tired. Nothing like the charming sound he deployed for cameras. “Lorenzo couldn’t babysit a houseplant.”
“Then make it easy on both of us and disappear for a few days. Please.”
The water shut off. She heard him sigh—a real sigh, not the theatrical ones he used to deflect. “I’m in New York. I was thinking of going somewhere quiet.”
“Somewhere without nightclubs?”
“Somewhere without anything.”
Something in his voice made her pause. Her little brother—though he hadn’t been little in two decades—sounded genuinely exhausted. Not hungover, exhausted. Something deeper.
“Marco. Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.” The deflection was automatic, and they both knew it. “I just... I need a break, Soph. From all of it.”
She wanted to push. Wanted to ask what had been different about him lately, why his usual bravado had seemed forced at the last family dinner, why their mother had mentioned that he’d called her three times in the past month—more than he usually called in a year.
But Marco never responded well to direct questions.
He’d only retreat further behind his charm.
“Take your break,” she said instead. “Go somewhere boring. Come back ready to be the face of this campaign like you actually want to be there.”
“And if I don’t want to be there?”
The question caught her off guard. “What?”
“Nothing. Forget it.” The deflection was back, smooth and practiced. “I’ll call you in a few days.”
“Marco—”
But he’d already hung up.
Sophia stared at her phone. And if I don’t want to be there? In thirty-two years, Marco had never questioned his role. He’d complained, sulked, partied through his frustrations, but he’d never suggested he might want something different.
She set the phone down, tapping a manicured nail against the desk. She needed to call Brioni back, smooth things over, save the campaign. And she needed to update her father, reassure their mother, possibly fly to New York and drag Marco to whatever quiet retreat might actually do him some good.
But first—
She pulled up her design folder, the one she worked on during stolen moments between crisis management and family obligations.
Sketches for a collection that would never bear the Castellano name because it wasn’t what their brand did, wasn’t what their legacy demanded.
Something looser, more modern, designed for women who’d rebuilt themselves after disappointment.
Her phone buzzed. Pierpaolo. Again.
Sophia closed the design folder and answered the call.
“Pierpaolo, thank you for your patience. Let me assure you, the situation is completely under control. My brother has agreed to step back from public appearances for the immediate future, and I personally guarantee...”
The words came automatically—the same damage control she’d performed a hundred times before. But her mind stayed with Marco’s tired voice, with the question he’d almost asked.
Pierpaolo was still talking, outlining concerns about timeline and brand association. She made reassuring sounds while pulling up flight options to New York on her laptop.
“Yes, absolutely. I understand completely.” She clicked through departure times. “In fact, I was just about to suggest an in-person meeting. I can be in New York by tomorrow evening.”
She’d find Marco, fix this, and then, once the campaign was saved and her brother was back on track, she’d ask him what he’d really meant.
Pierpaolo agreed to the meeting. She ended the call and began typing an email to her assistant—book the flight, clear her Thursday, arrange the car service.
Somewhere in New York, her brother was hiding from cameras and questions. She’d drag him back to responsibility whether he wanted to come or not.
Her fingers moved across the keyboard, already planning.