Chapter 34
Sophie
Oh God.
Oh my God.
I break free from the frigid rush of water, unable to scream past the water that’s filling my mouth, choking my words. The moment we plunged into the water from above, the river's strength completely seized me. I lost her. I lost Isabella. I sank so fast into the depths, struggling to emerge.
But I hear her now. She’s coughing. She’s close.
I stretch until I have her, fighting with every ounce of my strength against the relentless waves, my gaze trapped on the building we were just thrown from, cast into chaos.
“I’ve got you,” I cry out, forcing my legs to kick. If I don’t, we won’t make it. The nearest solid ground is a dock, swaying at the water’s edge, now a considerable distance away due to the swift current. “Keep your head up, Izzy. Up.”
Xavier .
His emerald eyes are etched in my mind, a lasting image of the staunch resolve he granted me…
only when he was sure I had no time to change his mind.
Did he act on a whim when he saw the water?
Or did the blueprint of this club, tucked aw ay in his parlor, unveil the only escape from this place?
Did he leave that house already knowing what he was going to do?
It all flashes before me.
His legs giving out from under him, collapsing against the marble.
The way he kissed me in our bedroom.
His dead silence as I spoke of my final moments, saying my goodbyes.
I don’t need an hour.
If anyone is to blame, it’s me.
While I was pouring out my heart, he was resolving his .
When a flash of light flickers at the edge of the deck above, my arms ease their rowing. The beam appears and vanishes all in a fraction of a blink—just like my sanity.
A gunshot.
That… was a gunshot .
A visceral shock grips me, an icy terror that freezes every muscle in my body. A few seconds stretch into eternity before that fear bursts forth from my lips in frantic screams. Hoarse pleadings to the wind and waves. I imagined it. None of this is real. Wake me up.
The heavy weight of his child in my arms—only for her do I keep my head above water. For her, I can’t stop moving. But I’m tired. I’m so tired.
So scared.
So ready to accept that this is it. This is all that’s left. My world just went dark, a total blackout where all light, all joy, all reason disappeared in a split second. He wasn’t supposed to do this. It was supposed to be me .
This was my sacrifice to make.
I was supposed to protect him .
Tears flow like the currents around me, spilling down my face as I push through the waves, struggling, unable to stop the heaving that accompanies full-on hysterics .
No . One word, and the mind becomes a frightening place. An endless void of denial. No, it didn’t happen. You imagined it, Sophie. It wasn’t a gunshot.
He’s alive. He has to be.
“Please,” I wheeze, each pulse of pain sharpening my focus on the dock. With every strained movement, memories flood my mind—visions of the taxi I arranged for their escape.
His escape.
My eyes close. We’re running from here, running like hell to Bo and Dante.
Hopefully they’re still here.
Doing my best to rein in my torment, I press Izzy against the wooden plank. “Hold on tight.” She grips the aged wood with her tiny fingers while I paddle back, trying to figure out how to get onto it. “Don’t let go.”
My weak arms strain to cut through the current. A wave crashes over me, and I collide with a sharp stone, wincing at the impact on my shoulder. When I finally get back to her, grabbing the wood and gasping for breath, blood is seeping into the fabric of my shirt.
“ Daddy ! Where’s Daddy?”
“He’s okay,” I pant, brushing the wet hair away from her face with splinters in my fingertips. “He’ll be okay.”
I have no clue if I'm comforting her or myself or if I even believe he’s still breathing, but my husband entrusted me with his daughter to keep her alive. I’ll find a way to do that, even if it seems impossible.
“I need you to be good, Izzy. We have to get to Bo as soon as we can.”
“Bo.” The name visibly gives her some comfort.
“Just do what I say, and we’ll be okay. I promise.”
Isabella’s crying, yet she manages to nod, locking her arms around my neck as my eyes shift to neighboring docks in the distance.
Her weight drains my strength fast as I swim toward them, fighting the tempting urge to let my world fade to black.
By the time I reach the nearest dock, my capacity for rational thought has completely abandoned me.
Xavier isn’t dead. He wasn’t even shot. He’s alive.
“Over there!”
The sight of the rusty ladder Isabella is pointing at makes me exhale with relief as I push towards it. “Good. Good girl.”
Thankfully, the corroded steel withstands my weight as I grasp onto the bars. I draw Isabella closer, positioned behind her to prevent her from toppling backward.
“Okay, climb. Quickly, climb,” I gasp, my teeth chattering as I urge her onto each quaking bar.
When she scrambles onto the wooden dock, I’m close behind, using my hands to keep myself from collapsing.
Without a second to catch my breath, to think it through, I’m lifting his daughter, leaping across the dock barefoot.
My shoes are likely resting at the bottom of the river by now.
The riverwalk is full of drunk patrons and college students who blink in surprise as I sprint past them, throwing myself in front of the taxi that is still waiting at the curb.
“What the?—”
I pull the wet cardigan from Isabella’s arms, directing the heat towards her. “I don’t have any money, but I need you to drive.”
“That’s not happening, lady. No money, no?—”
Seizing each side of the cardigan, I swing it over his seat, lodging it to his neck, digging the material into his throat until I hear choking. “I told you to fucking drive .”
He screams, and that scream is quickly followed by strangled prayers as he tries to dislodge the material, failing because I’m digging my knee into the back of his seat, using every last bit of strength to pull, show him just how far I can be tested.
He doesn’t last long, caving with pleadings, his hand shooting to start the ignition.
I barely ease up, gasping as hard as he is once the car shoots into motion.
Isabella watches it all as I become someone else, tears streaming down her face, but I can’t focus on her emotions.
As long as she’s breathing, I will keep moving. I will keep her alive.
As soon as the taxi speeds over the bridge, it’s only a few more minutes before we reach Dante’s and Mimi’s apartment.
The driver hasn’t even come to a full stop when I drop the wet material onto his lap, snatch up Isabella, and cross the sidewalk.
I scream their names as the taxi screeches off onto the next street. “Dante! Bo! Zeke!”
The window snaps open in one swift movement.
Bo looks from the top floor before vanishing.
By the time he’s sprinted down the stairs, I’m already at the top step of the building.
He ushers us in quickly and secures the door before guiding me up the stairs.
Isabella is comfortably resting against my chest.
“I’m sure the cops are on their way. I just threatened a taxi driver,” I say, setting Isabella down as we enter the living room. That’s when I notice the apartment is quiet and empty, with various shelves cleared out and pictures stripped from the walls in some places. “Where are they?”
Bo’s eyes wince. “They’re gone.”
“Why are you here?”
He waits a fraction of a beat before saying, “I told him I’d wait for you.”
My eyes widen. Not Xavier. Me . “You knew ?”
“You really thought he’d trade you? Give you up to them? After everything they did to you?”
It even sounds ridiculous when he says it, because I know Xavier.
This isn’t the first time he’s changed the course of my life at the expense of his own.
The gutting realization that he walked into that building knowing he wouldn’t be leaving it, I can’t handle it, especially when Isabella begins to sob for her mom, and I'm forced to reconcile that she’ll never find her.
Both of her parents are gone.
To stop her trembling, I draw a warm bath, guiding her in. She cries louder, calling for the few people she knows well. No amount of reassurance will calm her. “Please, Izzy. You need to warm up.”
“Tell me exactly what happened,” Bo presses behind me.
What did happen? I’m still asking myself that question.
“He threw us… into the harbor.” As I utter the words, I'm shaking my head, unable to believe them.
“I saw that,” Bo clarifies, stunning me. “Your phones have trackers. Yours died when you hit the water.”
With my heart banging against my ribs, my ears drowning out any sense of peace, I leave Isabella in the bathtub and step out of the bathroom, surveying the room.
Dante is gone.
Mimi’s laughter has faded to silence.
All light that once existed in my life has been snuffed out, irreplaceably trampled on. The muscles in my stomach clench. My throat contracts, straining… to keep from screaming.
It’s useless.
One flash of Xavier’s face—and I crumble .
Whatever got me here is gone. The sheer scale of my pain makes Bo shrink back in disbelief, makes Isabella’s sobs fade to silence. I’m pacing, slamming my fist against my chest as if that will stop the breaking from happening, clutching at anything to keep myself upright.
The lies I told myself to keep my sanity are finally slipping through my fingers, abandoning me for good as the weight of my grief becomes unbearable. “I… I think they shot him! He’s dead. I think he’s dead !”
Bo’s arms shoot out to support me, lifting me to prevent my collapse. “Sophie, no. Sophie, please .” He pleads the words torturously, like he knows this might actually be it.
My final straw.
Agony seizes all of my limbs, infiltrating every inch of me, already drained by fatigue. Rage feels just as heavy, just as paralyzing. My eyes remain wide open, reliving something I can never forget.