Chapter 31
Sophie
“They’ll be home any minute, I'm sure.”
Bo is just saying things now, having run out of reasons my husband could still not be home.
He promised to pick up every call.
Months. Months Xavier’s made good on that promise.
Something’s wrong.
The bench creaks as Bo stands, leaning against the porch rails. I haven’t spoken a word in thirty minutes. My mouth has dried, making conversation impossible.
A group of soldiers pass in front of the house, their daring eyes lingering longer than they would if Xavier were on the grounds.
Their bold looks vanish as soon as Bo steps in front of me, blocking their view.
He mutters a disgusted curse, not used to it like I am.
Men have flashed their teeth in my direction my whole life, wanting a piece of my father’s power.
Now, it’s my husband’s power.
It was easier to accept when I couldn’t kill them with my bare hands.
Whispers herald the arrival of a truck at the gate before its headlights pierce through the bars. When the driver climbs out of the front seat, and I notice the blood-stained on Xavier’s face, I'm springing to my feet, shoving through his men to reach him. “Xavier!”
I surge past the final man, dashing beyond the headlights, leaping right into his arms. His blood-cracked hands gently glide through my hair. “Baby.”
“What the hell happened?” Nowhere near tall enough to inspect the head wound, I paw at the rest of him, searching for any deeper injuries. “Where else are you hurt?”
“I'm fine.”
“You are not fine?—”
Xavier’s firm look at Dante is brief, but whatever hangs in that silence prompts Dante to open the back seat door with a nod. He pulls a struggling man to his feet, and my fingers slip from Xavier’s chest.
My blood curdles.
Spoils.
Shrinks to nothing within me.
As Xavier’s men recover and rush to Dante’s side, taking the prisoner— my father —from his grasp, Xavier’s cold hands redirect my gaze to him. “I need you to listen to me, okay? It can be me. You said you wanted to be the one to do it, but that doesn’t need to happen.”
I can’t believe what I'm hearing. “Xavier.”
We were sorting through tile samples for our unfinished house this morning, lounging in bed.
That joy, the laughter we couldn’t contain, echoes in my mind as Xavier brings me back to reality, reminding me of where we are, who is banging on the door of our incomplete home, threatening to tear us from our brief moment of happiness.
He reminds me of the last five years of my life.
No . Even further.
My nails dragging through leather to stay on that bus as Thomas Ritchey bled out. A marble bathtub stained with my blood, and my father heaving like the devil above me as water splashed onto my swollen face. His thick hands encompassing my throat, trying to steal my life on the eve it would begin.
Vengeance awakens within me.
I’m once again the woman who spent countless days and nights training under a punishing hand, conditioning my body for this moment.
And while I wish I could always be the woman I was this morning, safe and secure in the arms of the man I love, I am also this—an unforgiving, fractured soul yearning to inflict pain on every bastard who made me this way.
Watching Xavier’s men drag Vito to the place of my nightmares, my pulse quickens, finding it so fitting… that it should be here. Here, where I once died. Where Xavier’s father was killed. It all narrows to that place. And for once, I think that this could actually be the end… of everything.
We could be free of our past tonight if I can just ?—
“Four years of searching… I'm not letting him go again,” Xavier says.
My wide eyes have slimmed, and my hands are no longer shaking. “You won’t need to.”
Before he can intervene, I seize the gun from his hip and turn. I can’t reach that deteriorating building fast enough. A profound hatred propels me through the doors that housed the darkest months of my existence.
I hardly register the disapproving glares from Xavier’s men as they carry out his orders against their will. Not long ago, one of those hateful looks would have paralyzed me, making me fear how far their hatred might escalate. But I’ve seen what hate looks like, feels like.
I know it as intimately as love.
I’m sure they can see it clearly on my face because I do absolutely nothing to disguise it. It’s dangerous. Unwise. And yet, as I ground my feet into the unforgiving concrete, I absorb the havoc Xavier unleashed upon this small hellhole.
The odors. The sounds. The bars.
The walls are closing in. I’m battling fits of nausea, perspiring, but I continue to press on.
I am not the captured here.
I am not the prey.
My feet pause at the entrance to the cell— the cell.
I see it all. Thomas decaying beside me. Sinister, unending eyes filled with something I'm glad I’ll never understand. Even the sight of myself, curled into a ball, having no choice but to let them steal the core of my very being.
Somehow, my eyes are dry. Painfully so, as I step into the cell with a steady gaze fixed on my father, who is shackled to the wall… just like Thomas was.
Maybe it’s just my imagination, but I swear I feel a weight on my shoulders, as if his hands are guiding me into the cell, the place of our nightmares, his spirit urging me to abandon the gun for a rusty cutting blade.
Anything Vito might want to say is restrained by the cloth gag in his mouth.
His eyes. As much as I tried and tried, I could never forget them.
Not the color. Not the creases deeply set into the crooks near them.
While I inherited my grandmother’s eyes, Victoria got his.
Looking into them, I’m reminded of my sister in the pool of blood I left her in, reliving the loss.
It never had to happen. He could have continued with his life without his nuisance daughters.
But that’s not Vito Marin.
“I'm sure you know it was me by now,” I finally say.
His gaze betrays him. He’s scared… and he should be.
Bending down, watching him follow the blade I pass between my hands, I confess one of my sins. “You made me kill my sister. ”
By the door, Bo inhales, unaware of the darkness I tried to shield from them. Xavier remains silent, the only one with a heart tormented enough to comprehend what it takes to kill family. I grab the stifling gag, pulling it down just enough to free his mouth.
The man slumped in front of me no longer carries the primped appearance of a former Boss.
He looks ordinary and aged. His hair has nearly fallen out.
The long days on the streets have sagged his skin like worn leather.
But those black eyes are the same, bursting with the same hate he always had when looking at me.
Vito opens his mouth, really thinking about what he wants to come out.
As usual, he doesn’t disappoint.
“You will never be happy, Sophia Marin.”
It sounds like a curse, something he’s projecting into the universe. Once, I might have believed he was powerful enough to make it happen.
“You’re the only thing standing in the way of making it happen,” I reply.
He shakes his head, resolved to deliver a final devastating blow. “No, piccolina. Like your Papa, you are a black stain on everyone you dare to touch. Like your sister, they will leave you too. One by one… Dominic will ensure it. He’ll do it just to get you alone.”
My eyes dart to the door, where my husband stands, his face drained of color.
Revenge is easy until it’s right in front of your eyes.
My skin prickles. My father knows how to provoke fear. “Bo, take Xavier out of here, please.”
Xavier’s refusal is spoken through my name. “Sophie.”
“This is something only I can do. It has to be me, and I can’t do it with you watching.”
The silence is haunting, the air thick enough to choke on.
When Xavier turns on his own, needing no help from Bo, leaving me alone with my father, he takes the light out of the room with him.
What remains is odious… rotten.
“For many years now, I wondered if I would ever see you again,” Vito eventually says.
“There wasn’t much hope until Dominic saw your picture.
He heard the story of your life and linked your sick connection to the bastard who broke code and ruined countless lives.
He offered me the whole world for one thing… you.”
“I'm not yours to give. I never was.”
“Yet, here you are. Exactly where you were always meant to be.” His eyes explore my features, lingering on the scars that weren't there when he saw me last. “Except you’re stronger. You’ve finally come to understand our world, my darling.”
My lips shrivel in rage. “Do you know what they did to me? Could you even fathom it?”
His eyes wince, his pupils perfectly still. “You spit on my help the moment you ran off with that man. You wanted to run? You wanted to leave your family? Fine. I let you get what you want.”
“What I want?” My eyes widen, horrified, relieving what he’s referring to. “What I want ?”
“What would you like me to say, Sophia? That I regret leaving you with that Marcello bastard? Arturo didn’t tell me what they planned to do.
He didn’t need to. The moment you were gone, Camilla was, too.
Within a single year, my life fell apart.
All because you couldn’t handle the life you were made for. ”
“You’re a fucking monster .”
“So are you. So is your husband. Don’t act all saintly when you have a blade in your hands, Sophia. We are all a product of this world within the world.”
My thumb traces the blade’s hilt, my eyes trapped on the floor. “Anything else? ”
Vito stiffens as if he’s forgotten his unlucky predicament, trapped in a crumbling building. He tilts his head, suddenly smirking. I dread what his horrifying mind has convinced him is an appropriate final blow.
He gives a glance to the front door. “Shame Camilla told you about the hit. All of this could have already been over.”
“She did it to help her daughter.”