Chapter 5
SOPHIA
THREE YEARS LATER
“Please don’t,” I plead, begging, practically on my knees.
“Not these ones!” Rosa screams, kicking and screaming in the car seat, throwing her little body to-and-fro.
“The pink ones?” I ask desperately, and Rosa scream–nods, a thing I wouldn’t have thought possible until today.
I pick Rosa up, tucking her under my arm even as she yells and writhes, and grab her pink patent leather shoes from upstairs.
The black ones have been her favorite for months, but apparently that’s over now. Pink is definitely in.
Once I change the dreaded black shoes to the coveted pink ones, Rosa is as happy as can be, buckling herself into her car seat with a little half-grin.
I take her to Aunt Agnes’ house, just down the street.
“Aggie?” Rosa points at the small home, and I smile and nod.
“You’ll be staying with Aggie today and maybe tonight.”
“Maybe tonight,” Rosa repeats, and I turn back to look at her, her green eyes bright and shining as she looks at me.
God, she looks like her father sometimes.
I shake off the empty feeling in my chest, getting out of the car and helping Rosa out of her seat.
I walk up and Agnes meets us at the door. She’s sixty-five and a bit of a hippie. She believes in crystals and astrology. She coos at Rosa and the smell of something like patchouli assaults my nose.
Rosa doesn’t seem to mind, though, practically jumping into Agnes’ arms.
“Aggie! Aggie, my shoes,” she says petulantly and Agnes just praises her.
“Your shoes are beautiful.”
“She had such an attitude this morning. You wouldn’t believe it.”
“My Rosa? With an attitude?”
Rosa grins and wrinkles her nose.
“I guess that’s just your Gemini rising shining through,” Agnes tells her, poking her nose with the tip of her nail.
Rosa giggles and leans against Agnes.
“Have a good day at work, Sophia.”
I nod, exasperated. Rosa only seems to want to act up when I’m almost late for work.
Which is nearly every shift, if I’m honest with myself.
I’m starting to become jaded, I guess.
I do my job, find the perp, take them in. Sometimes I can’t quite collar them, and it bugs me for days.
Sometimes they beg. Sometimes they tell me their stories and I feel empathy. Too much empathy.
But I haven’t been undercover yet.
Not really, anyway. I’ve worked Vice a few times and pretended to be a junkie prostitute, but I haven’t been given any big assignments.
It seems like the lieutenant is just using me for my photographic memory more than anything else at this point.
I kiss the tip of Rosa’s nose.
“Love you, Rosie girl.”
“Love ya, Mama,” she says, almost matter-of-factly, and I can’t help but smile.
As difficult as she can be, she’s the light of my life.
Agnes smiles at me, giving me a side hug. “You look tired. You doing okay?”
I nod, giving her a forced smile. “Just peachy, Agnes. Don’t worry.”
Agnes has been with me since I first fell pregnant. We used to live right next to each other, but I’d had to move into a new place once Rosa came along.
I’d had no one but myself and my father’s unwavering support, and Agnes had been there for me without question through every night-time feeding, every breakdown. She knows Rosa as well as I do.
I wave to Agnes and Rosa and get into the car.
I make my way to the precinct, as much as I don’t want to be there.
Not having Scott around has been harder than anticipated, and generally not being around my other coworkers has given me pause.
Everything’s different in this department, from what building I go into to what uniform—if any—I wear.
And after three years, I haven’t been able to find a rhythm.
It makes me think I never will.
I let out a long breath as I put my purse down on my desk.
Lieutenant Rodriguez raises a bold, dark eyebrow at me.
“You tired, Bianchi?”
“I’m a single mother. I’m always tired,” I say, deadpan, and her lips twitch in a semblance of a smile.
“Well, you should be prepared to lose a little more sleep, detective,” she says, and I slowly turn toward her, my eyes widening.
“You’re not serious.”
She does smile, then, so quick I might have missed it if I wasn’t looking for it.
“You’ve got a mission, Bianchi.” She throws a stack of manilla folders on my desk. “Read over the dossier well. This is a big job, Bianchi. Important.”
“And you’re entrusting it to me?” I can’t help the incredulity in my voice.
“You’ve been here three years. I think you can handle it. Don’t you?”
I nod, dumbfounded, sitting down hard in my office chair as she walks away.
I flip open the dossier, looking at the first page. They want me to go by Angela Ricardo, local mafia groupie. Her life’s goal is to bag one of the big bosses, from one of the big families—Rossi, Cortado, Vitale.
I guess that’s as good a goal as any. It’s no different than girls lining up backstage at a concert, I suppose. Although it may be more dangerous.
The men who run those families don’t care about groupies.
They often don’t care about your life or theirs, and it can be a rush. I guess that’s why girls chase it.
Chase the mob.
I can’t help thinking of Luca. He looked the part, that was for sure, his salt-and-pepper hair swept back from his face, impossibly tailored slacks, a car that looked like it cost more than my apartment.
He was probably in the life, but I hadn’t asked any questions.
I hadn’t done much but moan, if I’m honest with myself.
I take in a deep breath, reading further into my persona.
Angela was a rich girl, one of those “daddy will give me anything” types, and although I can’t exactly relate, I know what it’s like to be a daddy’s girl. I’ve always been close with my father. He’s the reason I’m doing all of this.
He could have been a mobster.
He could have embraced the life, but he didn’t. He chose me.
I flip through the first file and the next is my target—the Rossis. I’m supposed to be Angela, the gig even comes with a blonde wig, which is cheap and sitting on the edge of my desk. I’ll probably just cut and die my hair. It’s about time, anyway.
Not like I’ve kept up with my looks much.
I’ve gained a little weight since Rosa, but I think it looks good on me, all in the hips and a little pouch at the waist.
I haven’t kept up with my hair or nails because, well, who has the time?
But now that I’m Angela...
The next dossier is larger, packed full with pages, and I stare at it with a pout, hoping it can wait until after lunch.
I get a little busy with paperwork from other jobs, and by the time I’m finished, Scott has walked over from the other building.
He looks down at me with his brown eyes bright.
“How are you, Bianchi?”
“Don’t you start. At least you can call me Soph, like usual.” I grin, pulling on the wig and twirling around in my office chair. “Or Angela.”
I make a fake pout and duck face and Scott scoffs.
“Please. That wig is horrible.”
I laugh, removing the wig. “I know. Just gonna cut and dye my hair.”
“I can help you. Like a pixie cut?”
I freeze at the words, and a shiver runs down my spine. For the second time today, I can’t help thinking about Luca, the man I was with for one single night but changed my whole life. He kept calling me pixie.
He gave me Rosa, after all.
“Soph? Earth to Soph?” Scott snaps in front of my face and I startle. “You’re sure in a spacey mood.”
“Sorry,” I mumble, standing and gathering my purse. I shove the dossier into my bag, planning to read through it at lunch. “I just got my first real undercover mission, and I’m a little out of it.”
Scott grins. “You got an undercover gig? Finally.”
“Finally is right. I’ve been working all these small fries, now I get to hang with the big wigs.” I twirl the bad wig along my hand before depositing it in the trash.
“So Angela is your new name? You should go by Angel. Packs a better punch.”
“Good idea,” I muse as we walk into the diner, sitting at our regular spot near the window. I order the home fries with ranch and bacon while Scott orders a burger. He’ll steal fifty percent of my fries and I’ll eat half his burger.
We have a system, you see. It works for us.
“So, I haven’t seen you in forever,” Scott says with a pout. “Where have you been? Making mobster boyfriends?”
“Not yet,” I mutter. “No boyfriends at all.”
He blinks at me. “You’re not telling me the last time you got laid you conceived.”
“That’s kind of…true,” I admit, wincing. I haven’t been with anyone since that night, not since Luca.
I guess I’ve been afraid to get pregnant again, or maybe afraid that it will pale in comparison to that one hot night with Luca, a man I barely knew.
All I know is how he looks, how he feels inside me, and his first name. And that maybe he has a complicated relationship with his father.
That’s it.
And I’d give anything for one last night.
I wouldn’t even tell him about Rosa. After all, what if he is a mobster? If he’s in the life, I cannot trust him to be any kind of father.
It would just be hot and rough and mindless and everything I need.
“Must have been one hell of a night,” Scott says with a chuckle, and I don’t respond, shaking my head and smiling slightly.
Scott has no idea. It’s not even one of those nights I’d told him about in detail while we giggled over wine. I’d kept it to myself, held it close to my heart.
I have to think Rosa was conceived out of something more than lust. Passion, at least. Luca and I had that, didn’t we?
But musing about the past isn’t going to get me any closer to being Angela Ricardo, arm candy of the Rossi family mobsters.
“Guess it’s time to see my first target,” I say to Scott, and I flip open the dossier. The first thing I see is a huge picture, a side profile of a man smoking a cigarette, the smoke floating around him.
He has a Roman nose. A sharp jawline.
My heart starts to race. It can’t be. It’s just that all the Italians in this city look like that, dress like that—
The next photograph he’s looking right at the camera, a half-smile on his face, stubble on his jaw. I could never forget those green eyes, not if I lived a hundred lifetimes.
“Sc-Scott,” I stutter out, grabbing his arm across the table.
Scott looks at me, tilting his head almost like a confused puppy.
“What’s going on, Soph?”
“I’m going undercover,” I breathe.
“Yeah?”
“To take down the Rossis.”
“Yeah?” Scott keeps staring into my eyes and then glancing at my hand tight around his forearm. “What’s the big deal?”
I can’t stop staring into Luca’s green eyes. I remember how they flashed at me when he grabbed my arm, how intense his gaze was when he leaned down to kiss me.
Scott stares at me some more then glances down at the page, whistling.
“He’s cute,” he mumbles, and I hate him at that moment. I hate him and I hate my job and I hate myself.
“I’m going undercover to take down Luca Rossi,” I say flatly, finally, as it washes over me. “The father of my daughter.”