47. SOPHIE
SOPHIE
I’ll be there in
Iset the phone face-down and stand for a moment with my hands flat on the counter, watching the reflection of morning sun off my kitchen backsplash.
I take a breath and finish getting dressed. This shouldn’t take long. I can’t imagine that there’s much to say after dropping a bomb like that. But I have to get through it.
Vin is sitting on my couch a gun resting across his thighs like it’s a TV remote, like this is perfectly normal. I don’t know what time he got here, but I saw him when I got up to go to the bathroom at some point and didn’t bother to argue.
“I wish you’d put that away,” I say.
He looks at me for a moment, then leans it against the far side of the couch he’s sitting on. His version of a compromise, I guess.
“Where are you going?” He looks and sounds surprisingly awake despite clearly not having slept all night.
“To meet a friend.”
He stands, grabbing his gun. “I’ll come with you.”
I close my eyes briefly. I knew this would happen. “I would prefer you didn’t.”
His eyes go sharp immediately. “Why?”
“Because it’s going to be an uncomfortable conversation, and I would prefer if you didn’t make it worse. And you will definitely make it worse.”
“You’re going to see Gavin, aren’t you?” He rubs both hands over his face, the muscles in his jaw clenched. “FUCK, Sophia. FUCK!”
Honestly, I’m impressed. He’s handling it a lot better than I expected. I mean, yesterday he put his fist through a wall.
“It’s not a date. It’s just a conversation I need to have in person.”
“Are you doing this to fuck with me?” He looks genuinely tortured, his hair wild, his eyes wilder. Every cell in his body is focused on my response. I take pity on him.
“No.” I say plainly. “You know I would never do that, but I need to let him know that I’m pregnant. Can you please just give me the space to do this?”
The calm he’s been holding onto evaporates. “You’re going to have my baby and let that fuck raise my child? No. Fucking. Way. No fucking way is that happening, Sophia. Do you think for one fucking second that I’m going to let that—”
“Vin.” I say his name, loud and harsh, and he actually pays attention. That’s new, too. “Stop. That’s not what’s happening. But I need you to step out of this one. Can you do that for me? Please?”
He stands there, breathing hard, looking at me like I’ve asked him to reverse the earth’s rotation. I wait, because I know this is only going to happen if he agrees to let it happen.
Finally, he gives me a single sharp nod. Then the interrogation begins. “Where are you going?”
“A coffee shop up the street.”
“Where are you going to sit? By the window or a table in the back?”
I blink. “I honestly don’t know the answer to that question.”
“Text me when you know?”
I sigh. “I will try to text you when I know, sure.”
“How long is it going to take you?”
“I don’t know that either. It depends on how he responds, I guess.”
“Text me every 10 minutes that you are okay.”
“Vin—”
“If you miss a text, I’m coming in there.”
“Vin, that’s not a rational request.”
“Miss a single text, and you’ll see me in the doorway,” he reconfirms. “And you’re taking my car to get there.”
I balk. “It’s only a block away!”
“Fine, I’ll walk you there then.”
“For the love of all that is— Fine.” I’m way too tired to argue, and I need to reserve my resources for when I talk to Gavin.
Of course, he gets in the back seat with me when I climb into his SUV and sits right next to me, our thighs touching, his arm draped along the seat behind me.
He’s looking out his window like he’s paying more attention to our surroundings than to me, but all I can feel is the heat emanating off him, how close his hand is to the back of my neck, how much I want to straddle him right here in the back seat.
No. No, Sophie. Nope, nope, nope.
I dig my nails into my palms and the second the car pulls up to the curb, I open my door to jump out.
“Oh no, you don’t.” Vin grabs my wrist and pulls me across his body, away from my door and toward him. I freeze when he has me across his lap, not too much differently than I was just imagining.
“Vin…” I sound all breathy and weird and immediately clamp my mouth shut before I say anything else.
“Your door opens into traffic, Sophie. Get out on my side.”
Ah, right. Of course. I flush red and scoot off his lap immediately and open his car door, slamming it behind me before he has a chance to say anything else.
The coffee shop is warm and smells like cardamom and burnt milk. I’m here before Gavin, which I’m grateful for. I need 60 seconds to compose myself and shake off all the adrenaline from being so close to Vin.
I choose a table in the back, knowing that Vin is watching. Even though I know it’s not true, I would prefer to imagine that there are only two of us in this weird, absolutely-going-to-suck conversation.
Gavin walks in with an easy smile when he sees me, shrugging off his coat.
Guilt washes over me. He’s a good guy. Nothing wrong with him at all. Part of me wishes I could make him happy, make it work, want him anywhere near as much as he wants me. But I can’t even complete that thought without seeing Vin’s face in my head, feeling him next to me. Our baby inside me.
Gavin waves the waitress over and orders, his easy smile fading when he looks at me. “This isn’t going to be a good conversation is it.”
It’s not a question. I’ve never been good at lying, and I’m sure it’s all over my face how awkward I feel. I force a laugh. “I mean, it’s a conversation I’ve never had before, I can tell you that.”
He doesn’t laugh with me. “You’re back with Vin Demonio.”
I open my mouth to deny it but then shut it again.
The fact is, with this baby, Vin is in my life and right now I don’t have the energy to handle him, being pregnant, the first year of my restaurant being open and dating Gavin.
“My intention was never to lead you on, Gavin. There’s just…
a lot happening in my life right now, and I don’t want to waste your time. ”
I’m not sure what I expected his response to be, but I certainly didn’t expect him to shrug. Or smirk. Or pull a gun from his coat pocket and dig it into my side under the table.
“I think I’ll get over it,” he says easily.
The bottom drops out of my stomach.
“What are you doing, Gavin?” My brain is moving slow and fast at the same time, unable to process what’s happening.
He pulls out his phone. “Spreading the word.” He texts with one hand, one eye on me. “Don’t look so angry, girl. You got lucky, actually. You were supposed to die in the restaurant bombing. Maybe this way we can spare your life. Well, at least for awhile.”
The cardamom smell turns my stomach. “You… bombed my restaurant?”
“Not me personally, but my people, yeah.” He shrugs again. “Your boyfriend was supposed to marry the boss’s daughter. He didn’t listen then. Maybe he’ll listen now.”
I am shaking, suddenly freezing cold. Is Vin outside watching all this go down? I don’t know if I’m made more nervous by the idea that he might see everything and coming rushing in—or that he might not.
“Text him.”
Gavin gestures at my phone on the table. Has it been 10 minutes since I sat down? If I stall and don’t text, Vin will come in here ready for a fight and I won’t have to feed him whatever misinformation Gavin wants.
“Keep it light. Just get him here.”
I frown. “So you can ambush him? Why do you think I would do that?”
Gavin sighs. “I’m trying to make peace here, Sophie. I want this war to end today. He does right by Ashlyn, honors the agreement, and all of this goes away.”
“I’m not doing that.”
“And why’s that?” He sounds almost bored but he jams the gun harder into my ribs.
“This has nothing to do with me. It’s not my place.”
Gavin’s eyes widen. “Oh girlie, this has everything to do with you. If our boy hadn’t fallen in love with you, he’d be with Ashlyn and I wouldn’t have ever darkened your doorstep.”
I glance down at my hands, pursing my lips. That tracks. Men who use me for food and sex, I’m used to. But men who stick around when I’m giving them neither? I should have known he had an ulterior motive.
“Hey, to be fair, I can see why the guy is in love with you. You’re a good woman, Sophie.” He taps my phone. “And I’m counting on you to do the right thing. You could save a lot of lives if you can help Vin understand what he needs to do to keep the peace.”
He obviously doesn’t know Vin. Not once in my life have I ever been able to convince that man to do something he didn’t want to do.
I pick up my phone and text Vin, showing it to Gavin before I hit send:
Can you pick me up?
The front door opens almost immediately and I look up in surprise. That was fast.
But it’s not Vin. It’s Rocco.
Rocco?
My world tilts as I watch Rocco closely, trying to read him, and realize something’s off.
Rocco’s looking at Gavin, and when Gavin makes eye contact, Rocco nods.
Rocco freaking nods at Gavin like he’s checking-in.
Even more confusing, Gavin dismisses him with a gesture and Rocco stops in his tracks, his hands behind his back.
What?
My head is reeling. Gavin was never really trying to date me, and Rocco has more allegiance to Gavin than he does to me? A wave of iciness washes over me.
“Rocco. What are you doing here?” I’m impressed that I sound as cold and distant as I do. Like I don’t feel like the chump that I am for hiring him back.
Gavin answers for him. “He’s been working for me since right around the time you fired him.
Vin was staying with you, you fired Rocco, and I saw an opportunity.
” He chuckles. “I was wrong about what that opportunity actually was, I’ll admit.
I thought he’d make a good enforcer. His encounter with Vin proved me wrong on that one, though, right boy? ”
Gavin’s words sound friendly but the tone and look he gives Rocco is menacing.
Rocco grimaces and stares straight ahead.
I split a glance between them trying to decipher the meaning of that one.
Did Rocco attack Vin? As far as I know, the only time Vin and Rocco were even in the same room was at my restaurant—before I fired him.
Rocco is mumbling an apology that sounds like “sorry boss.” At first I think he’s talking to me, apologizing to me. But no, he’s clearly fully focused on Gavin.
What. The. Heck.
Gavin is still talking. “He didn’t do great at getting Demonio to fall in line, but once he got back into your kitchen—”
“He got back in my kitchen because I believed in him.” I look at Rocco, keeping my voice level because losing it won’t help me and I need to help myself right now. “I believed in you.”
Rocco scoffs, and I’m immediately taken back to the day I fired him from the old Arsenal. That sneer. The disrespect. “Fuck you, you stuck-up cunt.”
Yep, there he is. Why am I such an idiot?
Gavin checks his phone. He almost looks bored, and I wonder who he’s talking to, who specifically is so invested in who Vin marries. His friend, Ronan? Or someone else?
Then the door explodes off its hinges.