Chapter 9
SOPHIE
PLAYLIST: TAKE ME TO CHURCH – HOZIER
We drive down a long gravel path after a half-hour drive outside Palermo.
The path is framed by yellow lights and perfectly trimmed bushes.
For miles upon miles around the estate, there is absolutely nothing but nature.
Wine yards and trees and palms—I can only imagine how far it goes in the darkness.
And I know, there will be no getting away.
It’s a fortress where they see anyone outgoing as much as incoming from miles away.
In other words, I’m fucked.
Another gate opens, leading into the courtyard of a house. Well, if one can call it a house. It is more like a castle, probably big enough to host a hundred people. There must be more than twenty cars parked in the courtyard, ranging from Range Rovers to sports cars.
The building around us is a typical Sicilian building. I thought I would remember it, but I don’t. Not until the car door is opened for me and I step out. My feet meet the ground, I scent the air, and it is as if I am back here when I was a child.
I spin around, and there is this single olive tree in the courtyard in the midst of a beautiful flower bed. Back then, the tree was so small. I walk over to it like pulled towards it by an invisible rope. My fingers find its branches with the small, firm leaves on them.
“You remember,” says Giuseppe behind me.
“We planted it together,” I say. “With my father. It was a celebration for a new chapter.”
“Yes,” he says. “Antonio was my right hand; the man I entrusted with my life and my business.”
“But—“ I stutter, because I don’t understand.
“For the outside world, he needed to be someone else. Someone with access, someone without traces to me, someone who looked trustworthy.”
I scoff.
“He was the man I designated to take over when I am gone, but my little sister learned what I was planning to do and killed him.”
So Rosalia was right, my father was a liar. And probably everything else she said he was. A horrible man, who did horrendous things. I’m sick to my stomach. He was always so perfect to me. I mean, yes, he was gone a lot, but I was always his little princess, wasn’t I?
“What’s the matter with her?” I ask. “Your sister.”
“A power-hungry woman who believes she has earned the right at the table, but my father knew what she was, a buono a nulla, a wastrel only good for fucking.”
I hate men like him; they disgust me. And yet, I cannot show any of it, because I am not a fool. I am walking on dangerous grounds—to an extent I never thought I would.
I somehow slid into the midst of a family war, and all I want is to go back to London and forget about what happened and what I learned. Blissful ignorance is a wonderful tool I’d like to apply. Only I can’t.
“And where do I fit in? Am I just a toy for fucking, too?” I say, trying to keep my voice from becoming snide.
“No,” he says without further elaboration and puts a hand on my back, steering me inside through a massive arch with a heavy, wooden door that is opened for us.
I am walked down a long brick corridor to a door right in front of us.
“You do not fit in,” he says. “You belong here.” And he opens the door. I step inside, and my mouth drops open.
“I—I don’t understand,” I say while my eyes dart from the photos of me on one wall to the massive art piece on the other side of the corridor, showing me in a dress as I pick an orange from a tree.
“Your father was supposed to take over,” he says. “And therefore made you and your children his heir.”
“But—“ I say as I process what he said. “You have a daughter, an heir.”
He laughs a rich, derogatory laugh.
“Adria?” he asks. “A donkey has more sense than she,” he says. “That girl cannot lead an empire; the only thing she can do is open her legs and murder decently.”
I blow my cheeks and suck in my lips to keep myself from exploding. But I finally understand why Adria was so aggressive toward me. I also understand why she wants to murder her father.
“You want me to take over your—“ I begin, hesitate, and add, “business?”
“That depends on whether you turned out to be the woman we prepared you to become. We planned a long time ago for you to become everything I need you to be.”
I snort out, because this is the most absurd thing I have ever heard. Me, the woman with the panic attacks and all her fears.
“Is that so funny?” he asks.
“It’s hard to believe any of this is true. You don’t know me—didn’t see me for what, sixteen, or what years? And have this strange room with my pictures—“
“Do you believe I didn’t watch you? It was my protection that made you vanish, so my sister couldn't locate you. My protection, which brought Lusia and her family into your life, it was—“
“You what?” I shout as my life crumbles into pieces. This can’t be. Luisa—her parents, they have been so kind—
“You needed a friend, a close one. One with parents that would be able to protect you, because your mother is useless.”
Useless.
How dare he speak—
My head twitches.
Luisa.
“Does Luisa know?” I bring my lips over.
“Of course she knows,” he says, and with it, my entire life falls apart.
All of it was a lie.
Faked.
I roll back my shoulders.
The world zooms out.
I squint my eyes as my heart races.
That heavy rock appears in my stomach.
“I—“ I stutter out. “I need—bathroom,” I bring over my lips.
“Down the corridor, he says, second to the left,” he says, far away.
It takes me a moment to process, and then I run.
What did he say?
Second room to the left.
I make it to the door, rip it open, lock it behind me, and slide to the floor with my back against the door.
I pull my legs close and hide my head in my arms on them. This is a nightmare. I have to wake up. All of this must be a really bad dream.
I start rocking myself.
My fingers get cold, and my body shudders.
This can’t be happening.
Recite what you learned about fear, I tell myself.
Fear gets worse when suppressed.
Invite the fear.
Fear can’t kill you.
My neck burns in pain. Whenever I get a panic attack, my neck feels like someone is stabbing it with a knife.
“It’s not real,” I tell myself in a whisper. “The fear is not real. You survived the flight. You survived that dungeon. You survived the pigeons. You will survive everything else.”
I draw my head back up and my shoulders back. I stand up.
You survived the pigeons.
This will be my new mantra.
I walk over to the sink, and only then do I realise in what a bathroom I am. Classic Sicilian shapes and colours meeting modern elements—it’s the bathroom my father had in his portfolio.
I splash cold water on my face and dry it with a towel. When I look in the mirror, I don’t see my father much in me. I have my mother’s hair and body, but then—my eyes. My nose. My way of speaking and gesturing—It’s my father’s.
“Okay,” I tell myself. “What do we do when backed against a wall? We move forward. We are staying positive. Everything happens for a reason.”
And so I do.
I walk out of the bathroom. One of his men is waiting silently for me, with no expression. He follows me back to where Giuseppe is waiting, the exact spot where I left.
“Why now?” I ask him when I return.
“Why now what?” he asks.
“You could’ve brought me here years ago. Why now?”
One corner of his mouth tugs up.
“Let’s just say the timeline has moved up,” he says.
“The timeline,” I repeat. “What is it?”
“The cancer spread,” he says without looking at me.
“All the money, and yet, you can’t buy life,” I say.
“I have lived everything life has to offer. What I need is to know that my life’s work will be continued.
“And you think I will?”
“You will,” he says.
“What makes you believe that I am carved out to do so?” I ask. At this point, I just try to gain as much knowledge as possible.
“Because you will be the one who kills my sister,” he says, plain as that.
I scoff and shake my head slowly in disbelief.
“I am no killer,” I say.
“And that is where you are wrong, mia bella, Antonella.”
I don’t know if I am more irritated by the fact that he calls me ‘my beautiful’ than the fact that he believes I am a killer.
“What makes you think that?”
“Because you already killed,” he says. His words reach my ears, but I don’t process them.
No words come over my lips.
I take a step back.
This is not true.
I did not—
“You may not remember, because you were only eleven,” he says.
Eleven- This can’t be.
Rosalia was right.
“I didn’t—“
“You did,” he says, and you meant to. “Because you would do everything to please your father. And you will do the very same for me.”
“I—what? I didn’t—”
I am Sophie Brooks. I am people’s sun and moon, I laugh, I am happy, and I make the best out of everything. I encourage people and help them believe in themselves. I laugh and joke. I am warm. Kind. Caring. I am no killer.
“You heard me,” he says. “Let me show you something. Sometimes the eyes must see.”
He walks me through the estate, two of his men following us everywhere. Endless corridors and rooms, stairs leading up and down.
We stop in a room in the basement that would be best described as a study. A scent of cold smoke and male perfume trails up my nose. There are maps with routes, probably shipping routes on the wall, and photos of people connected with red strings.
A shelf filled with leather ledgers on the opposite side, where a stack of alcohol bottles resides behind crystal glass, and three leather armchairs in front of it. A dark wooden table in the middle, on it an ashtray with a half-smoked cigar on it.
“This here was your father’s,” he says. “You spent many hours down here with him.”
I can’t remember it.
I shake my head.
“Nothing?” he asks, as if he knew. He opens a drawer, pulls out an envelope, throws it onto the desk and nods for me to take it.
I open it. A photo. There I am, sitting on one of the armrests of the very armchair in this room with my father sitting in it. He has his hand around my bum. I must be eight or nine. I don’t remember my childhood well.
But that’s normal, says the academic voice in me. Humans forget much when they become older. We are no good at remembering. Our memories are so faulty. But why don’t I remember this here? Even now that I see it?
“Well,” he says, and removes the first photo. “Then you should look at that.”
I gasp, and my stomach plummets. It is the same photo Rosalia has shown me with the dead young man on the floor, blood splattered around him, a puddle underneath. He seems to have been shot several times.
It is true.
I killed her son.
I killed someone.
I should panic. And yet, I feel nothing.
“You shot him with your father’s gun,” Giuseppe says. “He tried to touch you, and you killed him. That’s when we knew.”
“Knew what?” I whisper.
This is a nightmare.
This can’t be real.
“That you will be able to take over one day,” he says.
My eyes pop.
“You don’t believe me,” he says, and my mind can’t catch up. “But you should. You should, because the proof lies buried underneath the tree we planted.”
I am falling as I swallow down the information I just got.
“Let us see if you are worthy,” he says, rather amused. “I have two tasks for you. The first is that you will kill my bastard sister.”
I stare at the photos.
“I don’t want to take over—“
“You don’t want to, huh?” he scoffs. “There is no choice. You will take over. Because your second task is to continue my line. You will fulfil the duty of your father's heritage. You will carry my heir, a worthy one.”
And with that, he grabs me by the neck, and I am pushed front-facing onto the desk.
“Nooo!” I scream, kick, and try to wiggle myself free, but he has a force in his grip I am powerless against. He closes his fingers around my neck, pushing a certain point, and pain shoots through my body.
I am fixed to the desk by his men with cable ties, my wrists and legs bound.
I can’t move. I try, but there is nothing I can do against the three of them.
Giuseppe’s other hand pushes up the dress and pulls my thong aside.
This can’t be happening—
This is too much.
His zipper opened.
Everything is too much.
I need to wake up from this nightmare. I must have fallen asleep while listening to one of my podcasts.
His fingers slip into me.
I want to vomit, so disgusted am I.
Or murder him.
I scream.
I scream more.
But he doesn’t stop.
I close my eyes.
He removes his hand, and I feel his cock at my entrance.
I’m falling.
Just let me hit the ground so I can wake up, I plead.
But instead of hitting the ground, a loud bang rips through my ears and the ceiling above us trembles.
I scream.
Again.
And again.
And again.