Chapter 5 - THE PRICE OF HER LIFE
Alessandro's gun remained aimed at Lucien Vale.
Sophia looked between them.
“What promise?”
Vale smiled.
“Ask him.”
“I am.”
Alessandro's gaze never left Vale.
“Sophia, get behind me.”
“No.”
“Sophia.”
“What did you promise him?”
Vale answered.
“Your inheritance.”
Sophia froze.
“Explain.”
“After Thomas died, your husband came to me. Grieving young man. Newly responsible for an eighteen-year-old bride who didn't know she was a bride.”
Vale's smile sharpened.
“He offered me Meridian.”
Alessandro said, “I offered negotiations.”
“You offered her shares.”
“To buy time.”
Sophia stared at him.
“You tried to give away something that belonged to me?”
“No transfer was ever signed.”
“But you were willing.”
“To keep you breathing?”
Alessandro finally looked at her.
“Yes.”
Vale laughed.
“There it is. The Caruso philosophy. Love someone enough and you earn the right to control them.”
Sophia hated that the words landed.
Because some part of them felt true.
“Let Marie go,” she said.
Vale tilted his head.
“Give me the ledger.”
“No.”
Marie whispered, “Sophia, don't.”
Vale struck her.
Sophia surged forward.
Alessandro's arm caught her waist.
“Don't.”
Vale raised the gun again.
“Ledger.”
Sophia looked at the book.
Then at her aunt.
She threw it across the floor.
“Sophia!” Alessandro barked.
Vale smiled.
One of his men retrieved it.
“Flash drive.”
She handed that over too.
“The letter.”
Sophia hesitated.
“No.”
Vale sighed.
“Your aunt dies.”
Marie screamed, “Don't give it to him!”
Sophia looked at Alessandro.
His eyes were fixed on Vale's men.
Calculating.
She understood.
He needed time.
Sophia lifted the letter.
“Fine.”
She walked toward Vale.
Three steps.
Four.
Five.
Vale extended his hand.
Sophia dropped the envelope.
Everyone's eyes followed it.
Alessandro fired.
Chaos erupted.
Dante's men burst through the service entrance.
Marie dropped.
Sophia threw herself over her aunt as bullets shattered the marble walls.
Alessandro moved through the smoke.
Vale escaped into the elevator.
The ledger remained behind.
But the flash drive was gone.
Dante cursed.
“He has it.”
Alessandro helped Sophia up.
“You disobeyed me.”
She stared at him.
“I saved Marie.”
“You could have died.”
“So could she.”
His anger vanished.
“You're right.”
Sophia blinked.
“Stop doing that.”
“What?”
“Admitting when I'm right. It makes fighting with you extremely inconvenient.”
For the first time, Alessandro laughed.
It was quiet.
Brief.
And so unexpected Sophia forgot where they were.
Then Marie groaned.
They returned to the estate before dawn.
Marie slept under guard while Dante analyzed the ledger.
Sophia sat alone in the library holding her father's unopened letter.
Alessandro entered.
“You should sleep.”
“So should you.”
“I don't sleep much.”
“Why?”
He poured water.
“Occupational hazard.”
Sophia looked at him.
“Did you love me?”
The glass stopped halfway to his mouth.
“When?”
“When you married me.”
He set it down.
“I didn't know you.”
“You had watched me for two years.”
“Protected.”
“That's not less creepy.”
“I know.”
“Did you?”
Alessandro looked toward the fireplace.
“I was fascinated by you.”
“That sounds evasive.”
“It is.”
She waited.
Finally he said, “Yes.”
One word.
Six years hidden inside it.
Sophia's throat tightened.
“You loved an eighteen-year-old girl you barely knew?”
“I loved what I knew of you. Your kindness. Your stubbornness. The way you argued with your father when he treated waiters badly.”
“He did that once.”
“And you made him apologize.”
“He deserved it.”
“I know.”
Sophia looked away.
“Why didn't you come for me?”
“Because you didn't choose me.”
The answer silenced her.
“I signed a marriage certificate without understanding it. Whatever your father and mine intended, I wasn't going to appear at your door and demand you become my wife.”
“So you watched from a distance.”
“Yes.”
“Paid debts?”
“Some.”
“My tuition application?”
His silence answered.
Sophia stared.
“You were the anonymous scholarship?”
“You never used it.”
“Because my aunt's debts exploded.”
“I know.”
“Did you know she was lying?”
“Not until recently.”
She looked at him for a long moment.
“Why didn't you tell me after my father died?”
“Because you were eighteen, grieving, terrified, and free.”
“Legally I wasn't.”
“In every way that mattered, you were.”
Sophia's anger didn't disappear.
But something inside it changed.
She opened her father's letter.
My Sophia,
If you're reading this, then I failed to come home.
She stopped.
Alessandro turned away, giving her privacy.
She continued.
I owe you an apology no father should have to write.
I asked you to sign papers without telling you what they meant.
I did it because I was afraid.
But fear does not excuse taking your choice from you.
Sophia covered her mouth.
The letter blurred.
Alessandro remained silent.
I chose Alessandro because I saw something in him that he did not yet see in himself.
He will frighten you.
He frightens almost everyone.
But once, when he believed no one was watching, I saw him carry an injured dog three miles through a snowstorm because his car had broken down.
Sophia laughed through tears.
Alessandro muttered, “Your father promised never to tell anyone that.”
She kept reading.
He has darkness in him, Sophia.
Do not romanticize it.
Do not excuse it.
But he also possesses loyalty so fierce it may someday save him from becoming his father.
The marriage can be dissolved.
That choice must be yours.
If Alessandro tells you otherwise, kick him in the shin for me.
Sophia laughed again.
Alessandro looked offended.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
She continued.
The evidence I collected has two parts.
The ledger proves the money.
The drive proves the murders.
But there is a third piece.
The name of the person who betrayed me.
Sophia's smile disappeared.
Look inside your mother's music box.
She stopped breathing.
Her mother had died when Sophia was nine.
The music box had disappeared after her father's funeral.
She looked up.
“Marie.”
Alessandro understood instantly.
They rushed upstairs.
Marie's room was empty.
The window stood open.
On the bed lay a note.
I'M SORRY, SOPHIA. I CAN'T LET YOU FIND OUT WHAT I DID.
Then a scream came from downstairs.
Sophia ran.
A guard lay bleeding beside the front doors.
May you like
The security monitors had gone black.
And from somewhere deep inside the Caruso estate came the unmistakable smell of smoke.
