Chapter 11
Vittorio
Istood at the window of my study, watching the first light of dawn break over the estate grounds. The sky bled from black to purple to a soft orange, but the beauty was lost on me. My mind was elsewhere—with the woman sleeping upstairs and the ghosts that wouldn't leave me alone.
Livia's face appeared in my mind, unbidden. The woman I had loved years ago. Beautiful, headstrong, determined. The similarities to Sophie were striking, and that terrified me more than I cared to admit.
I closed my eyes, the memories flooding back with brutal clarity.
The explosion that tore through my previous estate.
The flames that reached toward the sky. The knowledge that Livia was inside, despite my explicit instructions to stay at the safe house.
She'd come back for something—a necklace, a memento, something trivial—and paid with her life.
I'd found her body myself, broken and burned beyond recognition. Only her ring had identified her.
My hands tightened around the tumbler of whiskey I'd been nursing for the past hour. I hadn't slept. Couldn't sleep. Not after what had happened with Sophie.
When I'd burst into that warehouse and seen her tied to that chair, blood trickling from her split lip, her eye swollen shut—something inside me had broken loose.
Something primal and violent and terrifying in its intensity.
I'd killed before, countless times, but never with such raw, unfiltered rage.
"You're getting soft," I muttered to myself, draining the last of the whiskey.
But this felt different from what I'd felt for Livia.
With Livia, I'd carried guilt—guilt that I couldn't protect her, guilt that my lifestyle had put her in danger.
With Sophie, there was guilt too, but something else entirely.
Something that clawed at my chest and made it difficult to breathe when I thought about how close I'd come to losing her.
I'd left her sleeping in my bed an hour ago, unable to face what had happened between us.
The way she'd clung to me, desperate and needy.
The way I'd responded, equally desperate, equally needy.
The way we'd torn at each other's clothes, seeking reassurance in the most primal way possible that we were both alive, both whole.
I wasn't supposed to care this much. She was supposed to be a pawn, a means to an end. A way to get to Antonio. Not this—not someone who made my chest ache with a mixture of desire and fear.
My phone vibrated on the desk, pulling me from my thoughts. Enzo's name flashed on the screen.
"What is it?" I answered, my voice rough from lack of sleep.
"Package just arrived at the gate. Courier dropped it and left immediately."
My blood ran cold. "Scan it."
"Already did. It's clean. No explosives, no biological agents. Just a phone and some papers."
"Bring it to my study."
Five minutes later, Enzo placed a small package on my desk. I cut the tape with a letter opener and emptied the contents onto the polished mahogany surface. A burner phone and a manila envelope.
The phone showed one message and one voicemail. I opened the message first.
Listen to the voicemail, then open the envelope. We need to talk, brother.
Antonio. Of course.
I pressed play on the voicemail and held the phone to my ear. My brother's voice, cold and calculating, filled the silence.
"Jonah told me everything, how far you'd fallen before Falco killed the little traitor. My surveillance did the rest. Father would be ashamed, Vittorio. You're destroying three generations of Ricci honor for a thief who corrupts our bloodline. I won't let you dishonor everything we built."
I frowned. What did he mean by "everything"? Jonah was a traitor, yes, but what could he possibly have told Antonio that would matter now?
With a growing sense of dread, I opened the envelope. Photographs spilled out—surveillance shots taken during the rescue operation. Sophie being carried from the warehouse, blood on her face. Me, my expression raw with an emotion I rarely allowed myself to show—fear. Fear of losing her.
The last photo made my blood run cold. It was Sophie in the medical suite, Dr. Rossi standing beside her bed, holding what appeared to be a medical chart.
The photo quality was grainy, taken from outside through a window—evidence of Antonio's reach extending even to medical staff who could be bought. Text was highlighted in red marker:
Pregnancy: 6-8 weeks
The room seemed to tilt on its axis. I gripped the edge of the desk, my knuckles turning white.
Sophie was pregnant. With my child.
The realization hit me like a physical blow. The timing matched our encounter in my office, that first time when I'd taken her on my desk in a moment of uncontrolled passion. I hadn't used protection. Neither of us had been thinking clearly.
And now she carried my child. My heir. My vulnerability.
I collapsed into my chair, the photographs scattered before me. This changed everything. Antonio wasn't just threatening Sophie now—he was threatening my unborn child. A child Sophie hadn't even told me about.
The hurt of that realization was quickly overwhelmed by a surge of protective rage so intense it left me breathless. I thought of Falco's hands on her, his fists connecting with her face, her body. He'd beaten a pregnant woman. My pregnant woman.
I was glad I'd killed him. If anything, his death had been too quick.
I paced the halls of my estate, restless energy making sleep impossible. The house felt alive with Sophie in it—during those hours when she'd been missing, the emptiness had been suffocating.
I found myself outside her door, pressing my palm against the solid wood. The memory of her tied to that chair, bloodied but defiant, burned through me. The desperation that had driven me to risk everything for her—it was unlike anything I'd experienced before.
I wasn't planning for when this ended anymore. I was planning how to keep her. She'd become my obsession, my weakness, my everything.
Livia's death had taught me that love was a liability in my world. But Sophie… losing her would end me. Let Antonio come. She was mine now. And the child she carried—my child—was mine too.
The security alert on my phone pulled me from my thoughts. I checked the screen and frowned. Motion detected at the perimeter. I pulled up the security feed and spotted it immediately—a small drone hovering just beyond the property line.
"Enzo," I barked into my phone. "We've got surveillance at the northwest corner. Take it down."
"On it, boss."
I made my way to the security room, where multiple screens displayed feeds from cameras positioned around the estate. As I watched, Enzo appeared on one screen, rifle in hand. A single shot, and the drone dropped from the sky.
"Got it," Enzo's voice came through my phone. "Want me to retrieve it?"
"No. It might be rigged. Mark the location, and we'll send the bomb squad later."
I scanned the other security feeds, my eyes narrowing as I spotted a black SUV parked on the road beyond my property. It hadn't been there yesterday.
"Enzo, we've got a vehicle on the east access road. Run the plates."
While Enzo worked on that, I continued scanning the feeds. There—another vehicle, this one a nondescript sedan, parked within sight of the main gate.
We were being watched. Antonio was making his move, setting up surveillance, gathering intelligence. Planning his attack.
The realization should have filled me with dread. Instead, a cold calm settled over me. This was familiar territory—strategy, tactics, the chess game of power. I knew how to do this. I'd been doing it my entire life.
But the stakes had never been higher.
When Enzo returned to the security room, his expression was grim. "Both vehicles are rentals, boss. Paid for with cash, fake IDs. Definitely professional."
I nodded, unsurprised. "Double the guard rotation. I want men on the perimeter at all times. And get the tech team to sweep for bugs—the whole estate, top to bottom."
"You think we've been compromised?"
I gestured to the screens. "I know we have. The question is how badly."
Enzo hesitated, then asked the question I knew was coming. "Is this about the girl? She still Antonio's woman?"
"She's not Antonio's," I snapped, the words coming out harsher than I intended. "She's mine."
Enzo's eyebrows rose slightly, but he was too professional to comment further. "What's our play here, Boss? We staying defensive or taking the fight to him?"
I stared at the security feeds, at the evidence of Antonio's surveillance, at the clear escalation of his threat. I thought of Sophie upstairs, sleeping in my bed, carrying my child. I thought of Livia, dead because I couldn't protect her.
I wouldn't make the same mistake twice.
"If he wants war," I said, my voice deadly quiet, "I'll send him to hell. This ends now."
Enzo nodded, a slow smile spreading across his face. "I'll alert the men."
As he left, I returned to my study and spread the surveillance photos across my desk again. I stared at the image of Sophie, at the medical chart revealing her pregnancy—revealing my weakness to the world.
My jaw clenched, determination hardening within me like concrete setting.
"He has no idea what he's really threatening," I murmured to the empty room. "But he's about to find out."