Chapter 53 SOPHIA #2
Cat leans back against the handrail, deadpan. “And a proper agenda. With timestamps.” Then her fingers fly, typing something sweet and absolutely not what she’s feeling. “I adore being told to be good like I’m a golden retriever.”
Gigi flicks her eyes up from her own screen, all business. “They can have their meeting.” She lifts her chin at me. “We’ll have ours.”
Violet blinks, "What do you mean?”
Gigi crosses her arms, hip cocked, mouth pure trouble. “I mean, I don’t like that if, say, Enrico and Marcello get into it, we’re supposed to stay away from each other like we’re extensions of their egos. We didn’t sign a treaty. They did.”
Izzy tucks her hair behind her ear. “Okay… but what can we actually do?”
I look around the mirrored box, my girls, my shadows, my family. “Gigi’s right. I don’t like it either. I don’t want to be at war with any of you because of something the men decide in a room we’re not invited into.”
Scarlet’s mouth curves. “So we don’t go to war.” She pauses. “We go Greek.”
We all stare. She lifts her brows, pleased with herself. “You know—My Big Fat Greek Wedding. The mom says, The man is the head, but the woman is the neck. And she can turn the head any way she wants.”
Gigi’s grin breaks first. “Neck it is.”
The doors whisper open into the quiet penthouse.
High glass gives a view of desert gold and the Strip glittering like fallen sequins.
Two guards peel off to sweep the balcony; the other two take the hall.
Violet gestures us inward with that calm nurse-command that makes everyone obey without thinking. “Living room. Sit. Drinks.”
We scatter to sofas and low chairs. Ice clinks; glass sweats against my palm. The city hums far below, a beehive we could tilt with a finger.
“Let’s talk,” Violet says, taking the arm of a chair like a throne. “Compare notes.”
“Put it all on the table,” Cat adds, practical as a checklist.
We look at each other, and no one moves. My throat tightens. These are my friends. But Raffael is my life. There are lines I won’t cross, even for them.
Violet sees it—of course she does—and boxes me in with the cleanest question on earth. “Do you want to see Marcello and Raffael go at it?”
The room goes very still. I picture it for half a heartbeat—two men I love, teeth bared out of pride and old ghosts—and my stomach drops.
“No,” I say. “I don’t.”
“Then we need to know enough to turn the neck,” she says softly. “We can’t influence what we don’t understand.”
Gigi’s already got her phone face down on the table, which for her is the same as a vow. “Ground rules. No operational specifics that burn our men. No names that don’t need saying. Only what changes outcomes, alliances, lines that can’t be crossed, tells we can use.”
Gigi taps her nail against her glass. “And a pact: none of us freeze each other out just because the head turns left or right. The neck sticks together.”
Scarlet raises her drink. “Neck Council.”
Izzy smiles, nervous and brave. “Feathered necks,” she murmurs, and we all snort, which helps.
Violet nods once, satisfied. “So, who goes first?”
Scarlet doesn’t hesitate; she points at me. “Sophia.”
My pulse jumps. I feel six kinds of loyalty tug at once: blood, love, friendship, survival, the girl I was, and the woman I’m becoming.
I take a breath that tastes like ice and neon.
“Okay,” I say. “Here’s what I can put on the table.
” My mind works feverishly. I don’t want to betray Raf's confidence, but I don't want him to go to war with Marcello either.
This is what they mean by being stuck between a rock and a hard place.
Okay, so I know, Raf is going to tell the men tonight about Don Leonardo and Donna Margarita, so that's safe to divulge.
In my haste, I don't mince my words. "Donna Margarita is his mother. Don Leonardo was his father.”
For a heartbeat, the room forgets how to breathe, and I realize what kind of grenade I just threw out there. It would be almost funny, watching my friends' faces turn incredulous, if it weren’t so serious.
“What?” Gigi’s glass clinks against her teeth.
“Whoa—slow down,” Scarlet mutters, already scooting forward like she’s about to take notes.
Izzy’s hand flies to her mouth. “Oh.”
Cat blinks twice, then she looks like she's recalibrating. “That makes… several things make more sense.”
Violet doesn’t speak. Her eyes soften—understanding slotting into place.
I give them the shape of it. Not the veins, just the bones: how it fits with the timelines, the whispers, the way doors opened that shouldn’t have. How the edges around Raffael’s life suddenly look less like luck and more like a shadow that had a name.
Violet clears her throat once. “There’s something I have to add.” She looks… uncomfortable, a nurse breaking a confidence she wishes didn’t exist. “When Marcello killed Donna Margarita—”
“Wait.” The word leaves me in a gasp. “She’s dead?”
Violet nods, small. “Yes.” She pauses, takes a deep breath, “Some of what she said before—some of what she spilled—wasn’t meant to die with her.”
The room goes still again. Cat's eyes tick to the door, then back, reading the air.
Violet glances at me for permission. I nod. “Say it.”
“She said Igor Pavlov was her brother,” Violet says quietly. “Not a myth. Not a rumor. Her blood.” She exhales. “And he wasn’t just an enforcer. He was an insurance policy. The kind that opens doors and closes mouths.”
Scarlet sits back with a low whistle. “So the bedtime story was real.”
Gigi’s brows knit. “Where did Margarita even come from? Who or what turned her into the kind of monster she was?”
We all shake our heads. No one knows. No one ever has.
“I’ll have Leo or Raffael dig into it,” I say. “They can check for… what? Birth records. Marriage licenses? Church registers? Whatever she scrubbed, there will be fingerprints.”
Scarlet clears her throat, looking uncomfortable as well, "We found out that Margarita had something on Edoardo. That’s how she forced him to marry her daughter, Isabella.”
“Leverage,” Cat murmurs, approving of the logic. “What kind?”
Scarlet shrugs, "We don't know yet."
"I bet it has something to do with Leonardo's death," I theorize the same thing Raf and I had last night. "If she helped Edoardo get rid of Leonardo, it would make sense that she blackmailed him."
"Let's not guess, let's find out for sure," Gigi cautions, and she's right. Theorizing is all good, but sometimes you come up with a narrative that you want to fit all the pieces in without realizing a square peg won't fit into a round hole.
Izzy recovers enough to find her pen. “So… ledger, letters, records. The Ghost as brother. Isabella as leverage over Edoardo.” She glances up. “Anything else we’re missing?”
Cat lifts her voice, "Margarita was the one running the Giordano family for years.
She set Giovanni up to be killed by Enrico to cause trouble and to deter people from looking at her.
That's why she had Izzy kidnapped by the Ghost. She thought she could control Roberto better," she sends an apologetic look Izzy’s way and gives her an assuring smile.
We fall quiet, then Gigi snorts, sudden and wicked, cutting the tension. “Look at us. Badass secret parliament, going behind our men’s backs.”
Scarlet tips her glass. “For their own good.”
“For everyone’s good,” Violet corrects, a laugh warming the edge.
Izzy grins, nerves easing. “The neck turns the head.”
“Feathered neck,” Gigi reminds her, and we all laugh, a bit nervously, because none of us wants to betray our men. But we also want to keep them alive—safe from each other.
I catch my reflection in the window, women in a circle, drinks in hand, shadows at the doors, the Strip blazing below like a dare, and feel it click: this is my tribe. Raffael is my life, yes. But these women are my spine.
Violet exhales, tension unwinding in her shoulders. “We’re not trying to outplay them,” she says, half to herself. “We’re trying to make sure the people we love don’t get played by them.”
“Exactly,” I say.
Our phones light up again—meeting running late.
We clink glasses—quiet, conspiratorial.
Let them have their council. We'll have ours for the men and for the children some of us are already carrying.