Page 21 of Bound to the Enforcer

A flash of guilt crosses her eyes, but it is quickly replaced by the previous annoyance. "What is it you always say to me? I did what I needed to do for the good of the family?"

She is trying to be cute, but this shit is not acceptable. What she has done has not only risked her safety but the organization's safety.

I stride across the room, tossing the paper onto her desk. "You sent this to Carlo Vittorio. Do you have any idea what you've just done?"

Sophia rises from her chair, meeting me head-on. "I'm looking for answers, Alessio. Answers you refuse to give me or keep hiding. And don't say you aren't hiding anything from me because I know you are. Since no one here will give them to me, I don't have much choice, do I?"

"Vittorio is a serpent, Sophia. I could have told you that if you had just come to me," I say, my tone cold. "He deals in leverage, and he is not to be trusted. What possessed you to even think of sending him highly sensitive information? Do you even know what he did to your father weeks before his death? He is pure evil, Sophia, and that says a lot coming from a man who has been dubbed the Reaper. There are operations that we performed against him that he will seek retaliation for. And now, thanks to this stunt, he has you by the throat."

My words hit her like a two-ton truck. I can see it in the way her mouth slightly parts into an O shape, and then she schools her features.

"Well, if you had just spoken to me and told me all I needed to know, I wouldn't have felt the need to seek out a man who has been friends with my father since the time I was in diapers," she fires back, trying to justify her stupidity. "You don't tell me anything, Alessio!"

I take a step closer, my presence looming over her, though she doesn't flinch. "What you have just done proves to me that you will NEVER be able to handle the real hard truth. None of this has ever meant to be about control, Sophia. All I have ever done from the get-go was make sure that you are safe, physicallyand mentally. You make keeping you alive harder than it needs to be."

Sophia's chin tilts up defiantly. "It wouldn't need to be so hard if I felt like I could fully trust you. You keep feeding me half-truths, Alessio. My father died on your watch. How can I trust you to truly keep me alive?"

Her words land like a slap, though I don't let it show. My jaw tightens, my hands curling into fists at my sides. "Maybe you don't understand the world you're in, Sophia. This isn't a game. Every move you make is a gamble, and the stakes are your life and the lives of everyone under you. You just sold out names and secret intel to a deranged man who is going to want blood for blood."

She is taken aback. The weight of what she has done is finally hitting her. I see the exact moment the regret washes over.

"I can fix this," she retorts.

I laugh bitterly, the sound sharp and hollow. "You can't even see the enemies at your door, and you think you can put out the bomb you just lit?"

The tension between us crackles like a live wire. She steps closer, her face inches from mine, her dark eyes blazing with fury. "Then stop suffocating me. Stop hiding things from me. Let me fight for myself. Let me fight with you!"

For a moment, neither of us speaks. The air between us is heavy, charged with more than just anger. Her chest rises and falls with each breath, her lips slightly parted.

I force myself to take a step back, breaking the pull between us. "We're leaving," I say, my tone clipped.

"Leaving?" she echoes, her expression shifting to disbelief.

"It's too dangerous here," I say. "We're going to a safe house until I can put out all the damn fires you just lit."

She crosses her arms, a defiant glint in her eyes. "I'm not going anywhere with you."

"You don't have a choice," I reply. "You've already made your move. Now, it's my turn. You're the queen on this board, remember? You are to be protected at all costs. So you can either come with me on your own free will, or I am throwing you over my shoulder and marching us down to the car. Your choice."

We stand toe to toe, and neither one of us breaks our deadlock. If she is angry, then I am livid. There is no way that she is winning this. I have allowed her to do her own thing. Now it is time to revert things to how they have always been. Me in charge and her following my orders.

After another argument or two, I have her in the car, and we are driving away from her childhood home while my men get to work.

War is imminent, and I need to make sure that we are fully equipped.

The car cuts through the night, the quiet hum of the engine doing little to mask the weight of the air inside. Sophia sits rigidly in the passenger seat, her arms crossed tightly over her chest. The anger from our confrontation still lingers between us, a storm brewing just below the surface.

"Where exactly are we going?"

"To a safe house," I reply curtly, my eyes fixed on the road. "It's quite far from here, so get comfortable."

She lets out a bitter laugh. "I guess I don't get a say in this either—like everything else."

I grip the steering wheel tighter, my knuckles whitening. "You're right," I say, my tone even, though the anger simmers underneath. "You don't have a choice. Because your decisions are reckless. Do you have any idea what your actions have done? The entire organization is at risk, Sophia. You fucked up, and instead of owning it, you are sitting there all high and mighty, trying to fight me. Hate me? Fine. But can you not for a second think about how your leaking personal info on our personnelputs their family members at risk? Trevor's grandmother and sister?"

The car falls silent. It feels suffocating, pressing in on all sides. I can feel her focus, heavy on me, but I keep my eyes fixed on the road, the hum of the tires the only sound filling the space.

"I... I shouldn't have done that," she says quietly. "I was just trying to find answers, but I should have come to you first."

---