Chapter 7 - WHAT SOPHIA WANTED
Z
Sophia did not want Vincent.
That was the revelation none of us expected.
At least, not anymore.
Once Luca’s team reconstructed the messages on her burner phone, the story became uglier.
Sophia had grown up around the Moretti family.
Her father had worked for Salvatore.
When he died, Vincent had been eighteen.
Sophia was sixteen.
Vincent promised at the funeral that she would never need anything.
He kept the promise.
Too well.
College tuition.
Apartments.
Vacations.
Emergency bills that never seemed to end.
Eventually, Sophia stopped seeing Vincent as a friend.
She saw him as infrastructure.
A man whose money could build whatever life she wanted.
Then Marco Ricci entered it.
Marco was charming where Vincent was intimidating.
Reckless where Vincent was controlled.
And ambitious enough to understand the value of a woman Vincent trusted completely.
Sophia gave him information.
At first, small things.
Where Vincent ate.
When security changed.
Which businesses were under pressure.
Then more.
Passwords.
Schedules.
Names.
And eventually, me.
“Why me?” I asked.
Vincent sat across from my bed.
“Because if something happened to me, you inherited a controlling interest in several legitimate holdings.”
I frowned.
“I didn’t know that.”
“I know.”
Of course I didn’t.
Vincent had never discussed his estate.
Apparently my name sat on documents worth hundreds of millions of dollars while I asked permission to move furniture in my own living room.
“The baby changes everything too,” Luca said.
“How?”
“Isabella becomes another heir.”
I looked toward the NICU window.
My fear became rage.
“Did Sophia cause my labor?”
“We don’t know,” Vincent said immediately.
“But you’re investigating.”
“Yes.”
The answer came too fast.
I stared at him.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
Vincent and Luca exchanged a look.
I hated that look.
“Stop protecting me from information.”
Vincent exhaled.
“Sophia sent you something the afternoon you went into labor.”
My blood chilled.
I remembered.
A package.
White envelope.
No return address.
Inside were photographs of Vincent and Sophia leaving a hotel.
I had confronted nobody.
I had simply sat on our bed staring at them while my stomach tightened.
Two hours later, contractions began.
“They were from her?”
Luca nodded.
“According to the deleted messages.”
I closed my eyes.
The pictures were misleading.
Vincent had attended a meeting at a hotel restaurant.
Sophia arrived afterward.
In some photographs, her hand rested on his arm.
In another, she kissed his cheek.
The images were framed to look intimate.
“She wanted to upset me.”
“Yes,” Luca said.
“Enough to trigger labor?”
Vincent’s jaw tightened.
“She knew you had elevated blood pressure.”
“How?”
Silence.
I looked at him.
“How did Sophia know my medical information?”
Vincent turned toward Luca.
“We’re finding out.”
The answer arrived that evening.
A receptionist at my obstetrician’s office had accepted money.
Sophia purchased pieces of my medical information for months.
Blood pressure.
Appointments.
Estimated due date.
Warnings about stress.
Every detail.
I felt violated in a way that had nothing to do with Vincent.
The receptionist was arrested.
The police became involved.
Real police.
Not Vincent’s people.
I insisted.
“You don’t handle Sophia privately.”
Vincent looked at me.
“She endangered my wife and daughter.”
“Then let the law prove it.”
His expression said he hated the idea.
“That isn’t how my world works.”
“It is how Isabella’s world will.”
That stopped him.
After a long silence, he nodded.
“Fine.”
The following day, Isabella opened her eyes while I was touching her hand.
Dark.
Serious.
Moretti eyes.
Vincent stood on the other side of the incubator.
“She looks angry,” he whispered.
“She looks like you.”
His mouth twitched.
It was the first time I had seen him smile since the birth.
I smiled too.
Then immediately felt guilty.
As if one shared moment meant I had forgotten everything.
Vincent seemed to read my face.
“You can smile at me without forgiving me.”
I looked at him.
“That sounded almost emotionally intelligent.”
“I’ve had a difficult week.”
A laugh escaped me.
It hurt my incision.
“Ow.”
He immediately panicked.
“Are you okay?”
“I laughed, Vincent.”
“You grabbed your stomach.”
“Because I had surgery.”
“Should I call someone?”
“No.”
He looked genuinely distressed.
I laughed again.
And for thirty seconds, we were almost the people we might have been if he had not spent five years making love feel like an obligation.
Then Luca arrived.
The softness disappeared.
“We found Marco.”
Vincent straightened.
“Where?”
“Wisconsin.”
“With Sophia?”
“No.”
“Where is she?”
“We don’t know.”
Luca handed him a photograph.
It showed Marco being taken into federal custody.
“The FBI picked him up on an unrelated racketeering warrant.”
Vincent frowned.
“That’s convenient.”
“He wants to make a deal.”
“For what?”
“Information.”
“About Sophia?”
Luca nodded.
“And according to him, she isn’t running.”
A cold feeling spread through my chest.
“What is she doing?”
Luca looked directly at me.
“Coming back.”
Vincent moved closer to my bed instinctively.
“Why?”
“Marco says Sophia believes she still has one thing she can use to control you.”
Vincent’s expression hardened.
“What?”
May you like
Luca’s answer made every protective instinct in my body ignite.
“Isabella.”
