8. Blood in the Water #3
It's on my desk when I walk into the study — centered, precise, placed with the deliberate care of someone who wanted me to see it the moment I sat down. Not Marco. Not Enzo. Neither of them would enter this room and leave something without telling me.
Which means someone else was in my house.
I pick it up.
Sofia. Walking alone on the sidewalk. The hospital is visible in the background—Massachusetts General, with its main entrance and the awning, she passes under every time she visits Lucia.
She's wearing jeans, a gray zip-up hoodie she bought to replace the jacket she lost in the alley, and the sneakers she refuses to replace, and she's looking at her phone, and she has no idea someone is watching her.
The photograph is timestamped. Yesterday. 2:47 p.m.
No note. No demand. No signature. Sebastian doesn't need any of those things. The photograph is the message. I know where she goes. I know when she's alone. I know how to reach her.
I stare at the image. My hands are steady — they're always steady, they've been steady through ambushes and interrogations and the systematic dismantling of my brother's business. Steady is what I do. Steady is the floor I stand on when everything else is falling apart.
My hands are steady. But something behind them isn't.
Something behind my ribs, in the space where the scar runs, where the jasmine lives, and where the memory of her pulse under my thumb is stored — something in that space is trembling.
Not with rage, though the rage is there, building like pressure behind a dam.
Not with strategy, though the strategist in me is already mapping responses, countermoves, and security protocols.
Fear.
For the first time in as long as I can remember — since the alley, since the baton cracked against my skull and I thought this might be it — I am afraid.
Not for myself. Not for the empire. Not for the succession or the family name or the throne I've been fighting to claim.
For her.
I set the photograph down. I pick up my phone. I call Enzo.
"My study. Now."
He arrives in ninety seconds. I hand him the photograph without a word. He looks at it. His face goes through three expressions in rapid succession — confusion, recognition, and then something cold and lethal that I've only seen from him a handful of times in twelve years.
"How did this get in the house?" he asks.
"That's what you're going to find out. And then you're going to make sure it never happens again." I pause. "She doesn't walk alone anymore. Not to the hospital. Not to the bus. Not to the end of the driveway. She is never unprotected. Do you understand?"
"I understand."
"Enzo."
He stops at the door.
"If Sebastian touches her — if anyone touches her — there won't be a conversation. There won't be a warning. There won't be a receipt. There will be nothing left to send a message to."
Enzo looks at me. He's known me for twelve years. He's heard me threaten. He's heard me promise. He knows the difference.
This is a promise.
He nods and leaves.
I sit alone in my study. The photograph lies on the desk, face up. Sofia's face. Her jacket. Her sneakers. Her phone in her hand, her attention somewhere else, her guard down in the one place she should feel safe.
The war just became personal.
And the man in the garden — the liability, the weakness, the version of me that almost kissed her under a dogwood tree — is the only one who can keep her alive.
I pick up the photograph. I stare at the photograph until the edges blur beneath the force of my grip.
Sofia.
Five days ago, I stood in this study and told her this was business. A contract. A clean arrangement with rules sharp enough to keep both of us from bleeding.
I told myself the distance was necessary.
I told myself the walls were smarter.
I told myself caring about her would make her vulnerable.
I was wrong.
She is already vulnerable. Already exposed. Already being watched by men who think sending me her picture will make me hesitate.
It does the opposite.
My fear goes cold. Precise. Useful.
I set the photograph on the desk and reach for my phone.“Double the men around the estate,” I tell Enzo when he answers.
“No one gets near her without my permission. No deliveries, no staff changes, no blind spots. I want every camera checked, every gate watched, every name verified.”
“And Sofia?” he asks.
My jaw tightens.
Sofia deserves the truth. She deserves more than guards in the shadows and decisions made behind closed doors. But if I walk to her now, with this fear still burning through me, I will not be careful. I will not be measured.
And careful is the only thing keeping her alive.
“For now,” I say, my voice low, “she doesn’t leave my protection.”
I end the call and look at the photograph one last time.
Whatever I told her in this study five days ago — whatever distance I built, whatever lies I dressed up as business, contracts, and control — none of it matters now.
Sofia Marino is a target.
And before I tell her what that means, before I let my feelings make this messier than it already is, I will make sure there is no corner of this estate where danger can reach her.
I will find the threat.
I will close every door.
And then I will decide how much of the truth Sofia needs to hear.