Chapter 19 Sophia
SOPHIA
I press my face against the grimy window of Father Miguel’s modest home, watching the street below for any sign of Lorenzo’s men.
Melinda is hiding at a different safe house, one where she can get more medical care.
While I hate being apart from her, we know that Lorenzo wants us more.
My hands shake as I grip the windowsill, and I force myself to breathe slowly, to identify the faint layers of incense lingering in the room.
“We can’t stay here long,” Mikhail says behind me, his voice rough with exhaustion. “Lorenzo has eyes everywhere.”
I turn to look at him.
He’s sitting at the small kitchen table, his blonde hair disheveled, dark circles under his green eyes.
He looks more human than I’ve ever seen him, stripped of his expensive suits and cold confidence.
Just a man running for his life.
Our life.
“My father trusted Father Miguel,” I say, moving away from the window. “He won’t betray us.”
Mikhail’s jaw tightens. “Your father trusted a lot of people who ended up dead.”
The words sting, but I can’t argue with them.
Not after everything we’ve learned about Lorenzo’s web of lies and manipulation.
Not after watching Mikhail’s entire organization crumble from within.
Father Miguel enters from the back room, carrying a tray with coffee and bread.
He’s a small man in his seventies, with kind brown eyes and weathered hands that shake slightly as he sets down the tray.
He was my father’s confessor for years, one of the few people Vincent Moretti actually trusted.
“Eat,” Father Miguel says gently. “You both look like death.”
I sink into a chair across from Mikhail and reach for the coffee.
It’s weak and bitter, but it’s warm, and right now that’s enough.
Mikhail doesn’t touch his cup.
He just stares at it like he’s trying to divine our future in the dark liquid.
“Father,” I begin, my voice cracking. “What do you know about my father’s final days? Before Mikhail found him?”
The old priest’s expression grows somber. He lowers himself into a chair with a soft groan. “Your father came to me three weeks before he died. He was terrified, Sophia. Said he’d discovered something terrible about Lorenzo and needed to get the information to Mikhail before it was too late.”
Mikhail’s head snaps up. “What information?”
“He never said. Didn’t want to put me at risk.” Father Miguel’s hands tremble as he clasps them together.
Tears burn my eyes. “He tried to save her. He tried to save Nicole.”
“Your father, for all the bad he did, was still a good man at heart.” Father Miguel reaches across the table and takes my hand.
Mikhail’s jaw tightens. “Why didn’t he come to me? Why didn’t he tell me the truth?”
“He tried,” Father Miguel says quietly. “But messages disappeared or got blocked. When he resolved to tell you in person and risk his identity, he died.”
The room falls silent except for the ticking of an old clock on the wall. I watch Mikhail process this information.
Guilt and anguish war in his expression.
He killed my father for crimes he didn’t commit.
He tortured an innocent man.
Well, not entirely innocent. My father was many things, but he wasn’t a rapist. He wasn’t that kind of monster.
“There’s something else you should know, Sophia.” Father Miguel’s voice is gentle. “About the closet.”
My blood runs cold. “What about it?”
“He confessed his guilt about the closet so many times, he… The day your father locked you in there. You thought it was punishment for not cleaning your room.” Father Miguel’s grip on my hands tighten.
“It wasn’t. Lorenzo’s men had come to your house looking for your father.
He hid you in that closet to protect you.
The tv was to keep you drown you out. He was downstairs, keeping them there. He never knew how to tell you after.”
The memory shifts in my mind, taking on new meaning.
I remember my father’s voice through the door, low and urgent before he walked away and turned on the tv.
I’d thought he was angry, but now I realize he was terrified.
Terrified for me.
“He loved you,” Father Miguel says. “Both you and Tony. Everything he did, every terrible choice he made, was trying to protect his children from the world he’d gotten himself into.”
I can’t hold back the tears anymore.
They stream down my face as I grieve for the father I never really knew, the man who died trying to do the right thing.
Mikhail stands abruptly and moves to the window, his back rigid with tension.
“I need some air,” he mutters, disappearing into the small bedroom.
Father Miguel pats my hand. “Give him time. Guilt is a heavy burden, especially for a man like him.”
I nod, wiping my eyes. “Thank you for telling me the truth. About everything.”
“Your father made me promise to look after you if anything happened to him.” The old priest’s eyes are sad. “I’m sorry I couldn’t do more.”
“You’re doing it now.” I stand and embrace him. “You’re keeping us safe.”
After Father Miguel retires to his room to rest in the afternoon, I find Mikhail sitting on the edge of the narrow guest bed, his head in his hands.
The bedroom is sparse, just a bed, a dresser, and a crucifix on the wall.
Afternoon light filters through the thin curtains, casting shadows across his face.
“Mikhail,” I say softly, closing the door behind me.
He doesn’t look up. “I fucked up everything. Your father, your future. I…you should leave me. Annul the marriage. I’ll sign the paperwork.”
I freeze, his words a jumble. “M-Mikhail?”
He finally lifts his head, his cold green eyes ringed red. “It won’t keep my uncle for tracking you down though. You’ll need witness protection. Another country maybe. And your friend. I…”
His words finally process, and my heart pounds in my ears, my mouth dry. My steps are unsteady, but I stumble to him and fall on my knees, my hands shaky as I cup his face.
“What the hell?” My grip tightens, and a sliver of pain flashes in his dead eyes. “Did I ask for a fucking divorce?”
“Sophia.”
“Shut up.” My hands move to his hair, my fingers tight as I guide our mouths together. My kiss is desperate, my lips molding around his until they find life and finally kiss me back with all the desperation we’ve suffered through since Adrian’s text.
We finally break apart, breathing heavily, and our eyes lock together.
“I am not fucking leaving you, Mikhail Artyomov.”
Life finally flares in his cold eyes, and he pulls me up onto the bed, his arms wrapping around me with desperate intensity.
His lips find mine again and I latch onto him greedily, then pull back with a moan.
“We shouldn’t,” I whisper against his mouth, glancing at the crucifix on the wall. I want this man with every fiber of my being, to show him how much I need him, here, with me. But… “Not here. Not in Father Miguel’s home.”
“I need you.” Mikhail’s hands frame my face, his thumbs brushing away my tears. “You…need me too.”
The laugh that slips from me is soft, and I can’t resist this man.
We undress each other slowly, reverently.
His hands shake as he unbuttons my shirt, and I help him with trembling fingers.
When we’re finally bare, he pulls me against his chest, and I feel his heart hammering against mine.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers into my hair. “For your father. For everything I put you through. For being the monster who destroyed your life.”
“You didn’t destroy my life.” I pull back to look at him. “You changed it. It was brutal and terrible and wrong. But it also brought me to this moment, to you, to us. I…wouldn’t trade that for anything.”
He kisses me with renewed urgency, his hands sliding down my body.
I arch into his touch, needing this connection as much as he does.
We’ve been running for days, sleeping in shifts, always looking over our shoulders.
This moment of intimacy feels stolen, precious.
When he enters me, it’s with a tenderness that makes me almost cry.
We move together slowly, our eyes locked, our breathing synchronized.
This isn’t about passion or lust.
It’s about survival, about two people finding solace in each other when the whole world is trying to tear them apart.
We climax together, our bodies shuddering in unison.
Afterward, we lie tangled in the narrow bed, our skin slick with sweat despite the cool air.
Mikhail traces lazy patterns on my shoulder, and I listen to the steady thump of his heart.
A sound gains my attention.
A soft thump from the front of the house, followed by silence.
Mikhail tenses immediately. “Stay here,” he orders, reaching for his gun on the nightstand.
“No.” I grab his arm. “We stay together.”
He looks like he wants to argue, but there’s no time.
We dress quickly, quietly, and Mikhail moves to the bedroom door.
He peers out into the hallway, his body coiled and ready for violence.
“Father Miguel?” he calls softly.
No answer.
My heart pounds as we creep down the hallway toward the living room.
The afternoon light seems too bright, too cheerful for the dread pooling in my stomach.
We find Father Miguel in his chair by the window.
At first, I think he’s sleeping.
Then I see the blood.
So much blood.
It’s everywhere.
On the walls.
On the floor.
Pooling beneath the chair where the old priest sits with his throat cut, his kind eyes staring at nothing.
I can’t breathe, can’t think, can’t process what I’m seeing.
Mikhail pulls me against his chest, turning my face away from the horror.
But I’ve already seen it.
Already seen the message written in Father Miguel’s blood on the wall behind him.
No sanctuary for sinners.