Chapter 24
Xavier
The estate lights were turned down in my absence.
As Michael opens the gates, they blink on and off sequentially while the men take their time securing our grounds.
Sophie’s grim expression gives her a hardness I’m not used to seeing as I help her out of the vehicle, her attention solely directed at the main house.
On the porch swing swaying in the warm breeze.
On the wild rose bushes brushing against their thorns.
It’s a shield she’s learned to wield on her own, without my help.
Michael lowers his head as I guide her inside, a steady hand of reassurance on her spine. “Welcome back, Mrs. Marcello.”
Mechanically, she replies, “Grazie.”
Sophie seems smaller as she climbs through the threshold and into the dark foyer.
Michael’s waiting to be relieved for the night.
“Post the men around the gates,” I say. “No one enters this house without notice. Tell Dario I’ll see him at the restaurant in the morning.”
“Heard, Boss.”
“Go home. ”
When the door closes behind me, and I see her standing in the middle of the foyer, her long obsidian hair flowing down her back, I’m stunned speechless, watching her absorb the familiar surroundings with caution.
The tiered chandeliers our guests passed under on the night of our wedding.
The twin marble staircases that define the room.
The gold accents on the window drapes, the roses swarming the room with fragrance.
It takes me just a few moments to notice how heavy she’s breathing.
Four years couldn’t have been enough. Even I feel the menace of these halls, the lingering presence of a past life that destroyed us both.
While I’ve grown accustomed to it all, there’s no way she could. Seeing her here again confirms that.
Sophie’s a rare beacon of light, an oddity among the lavish furnishings and crystal chandeliers bought with blood.
My hand intertwines with hers, leading her from the foyer to the kitchen and into the living room. Each glance back, I find her mesmerized by this space, which served as her summer home during our childhood. She spent her younger years here willingly and, later, by force.
The terrace light illuminates the living room.
As I reach for the light switch, Sophie grabs my hand and shakes her head. Strangely enough, I get the hesitation. For the both of us, it’s now easier to navigate the darkness than face what’s around us. Photographs of my parents, encased in gold frames on every coffee table.
It’s all the same as the last time she was here. To change anything, to make any improvements felt wrong—like I’d be accepting this home as my own. Now that she’s in this room with me, I wish I’d cared enough to remove the remnants of the man who bore me.
“I think I’ll take that drink now,” she says, entrapped by my father’s looming smile.
Before I grab the glasses, I gather every photo frame I can find with his likeness—even those with my mother and family—finding myself in front of the fireplace.
As I toss them into the hearth, taking the time to kindle flames that will reduce everything to embers, Sophie merely watches—not the blazing fire, but me.
As the glass crackles, I pour her a drink from the wet bar nestled in the far corner of the room. Sophie drifts her fingers across some papers on the sofa’s armrest, making me freeze, remembering what’s on them.
The glass in my hand clinks against the countertop as she bends close to the fire, inspecting the information and images on each page. Noticing her shiver—aware it’s not just the draft in this old manor—I ditch our drinks to fetch a blanket from the couch, wrapping it around her shoulders.
I kneel beside her, watching the flickering flames bring to life the photographs of my wife from three years ago, taken on the bustling streets of Madrid.
Sophie covers her mouth. “I can’t believe that was me.”
In stark contrast to the athletically strong woman next to me, the woman in these photos was almost lifeless, staggering through the streets with empty eyes and a body perpetually on the brink of collapse.
Her clothes hung loosely on her frame, and her cheeks were as hollow as the dark circles under her eyes.
For such a long time, I knew a photograph could change everything. I braced myself to see her with a new man, knowing it was only a matter of time before I saw the first smile she’d wear that I hadn’t been responsible for making.
But that never happened.
I lost her altogether, forced to search a city I had no idea she’d already abandoned.
“Why did you have these out?”
Taking the papers from her, I flip through them, showing her the post-mortem photograph of a Jane Doe with pale skin, black hair, and eyes that had lost color altogether. The next page is the autopsy report that came out weeks later, revealing the name of the woman.
Maria Alverez.
Not Cara Alfieri. Not Sophia Marcello.
As I flip through another, her gaze drifts over flight records for nearby cities, extending as far as Germany, Sweden, even Norway. Realizing I couldn’t track her by name, I began to sift through entries of anyone whose physical description was even vaguely similar to hers.
“Norway,” she whispers. “You were getting close.”
As I return the papers to her, I shake my head. It had been a year of fruitless searching. The burden became harder to bear each passing day, but I wouldn’t stop.
When Dario would head home after a tireless day on the streets, he took with him this false identity I assumed, leaving me to continue searching for as long as I could manage to keep my eyes open, defined solely as a husband.
“You kept looking? Even after they told you I was dead?” I hear the soft rustle of papers cascading to the floor before she throws her arms around my shoulders, exhaling a weary sigh. “You would have found me, I know it.”
She gives me a nod, even as my head shakes back and forth. Without words, I can only stroke her hair, struggling to erase the haunting images of corpses that resemble her imprinted in my mind. I still can’t believe this is real.
The frames shatter inside the fireplace, breaking the silence between us. Eventually, she chuckles, dabbing her wet eyes.
“Let’s get drunk.”
I release a startled laugh. “ What ?”
“I really, really think we should obliterate that bar tonight. Let’s laugh, reminisce, and forget about all the bad stuff.” She kisses me deeply, her hand stroking the smooth skin under my chin. “Okay?”
I’d do just about whatever she wants right now. She’s here .
I'm on my goddamn knees for this woman.
“Let’s do it.”
“Aw, look at this one!”
Sophie turns a page of my mother’s scrapbook, laughing at a photo of me at nine, leaping off my father’s motorboat into a murky lake.
Enough time has passed for us to have moved from the couches to a pile of blankets near the fireplace.
The flames are reflecting off of the drained decanter beside us.
Over the past hour, a rosy glow has crept into Sophie’s cheeks, drawing me in helplessly. Her tipsiness brightens her smiles and frees her laughter, bringing lively warmth back into these once lifeless rooms.
I grin, recalling that day, albeit faintly. “You didn’t know how to swim then.”
“No, you made fun of me stuck on the boat while you got to swim, remember?”
“I’m sure I didn’t.” I did.
“Look, this was payback,” she says, tapping on a picture. “You were drowning in this one.”
I roll my eyes, flipping the page. She laughs, nudging the scrapbook in my direction, making me face a photo of myself. Awkward and unattractive next to her—drop-dead gorgeous—even at fifteen. Camilla had to force her arm through mine the night of that dance I would take her to.
It’s not a memory I want to linger on long.
Sophie says less and less as we progressively age through the photos.
The innocence of childhood fades in each frame of us, friends who were now declared for each other.
She squints against the dim light, taking in each detail.
Instead of dwelling on the memories, I roll onto my side, brushing her hair aside to look at her in the flesh. My living, breathing wife.
“I don’t know how I didn’t see it,” Sophie says.
“See what?”
She shakes her head, and her speechlessness prompts me to check what’s caught her eye. It takes me a moment to notice the pattern she’s keeping hidden to herself—the one similarity to every photograph that I hadn’t caught on to either.
In every frame, I was looking at her .
It didn’t matter what I was doing or how out of focus the camera was; the evidence is right there in every photo. My face burns, and it has nothing to do with how much alcohol I’ve consumed in the last hour.
Fucking hell .
These photos bare my soul—revealing decades of longing.
Vulnerability has never been something I'm comfortable with, so instead of responding, I flip onto my back against the blanket, my eyes drifting to the ceiling. With my arm resting behind my head, I feel her gaze moving over me.
Sophie shuffles through a few more pages before she turns onto her back like I have and holds up her arm, flashing me another picture.
The night of our wedding reception. I was leaning over the table, talking with my cousin Elio, unaware of the intensity on my new bride’s face as she stared at our entwined hands.
Sophie sets that one down, holding up another.
This one was taken here on the grounds. The photograph captured in the gardens confirms that my mother was behind the camera.
That fact alone shakes me before I even notice us in the background, tangled in each other.
I had Sophie pinned against one of our ancient oak trees, my hands tangled in her hair. We had just left the shooting range.
While I was looking down, laughing, she was staring at me.