Page 31 of Vows Made in Silence
Turk continues, “Security cam shows her pacing the window, restless. She’s expecting someone. But not us."
Luca doesn’t flinch. “Then we don’t give her a chance to run. Get her out fast.”
Turk nods once more, already issuing the order into his comm.
Luca’s glare sharpens. “Then don’t knock. Don’t give her the chance to bolt. Take her fast and quiet”.
Minutes later, Turk’s men pull Sophia from the motel, panic in her eyes. She’s dragged into the safehouse.
Luca stares at her from across the room, arms crossed, silence colder than steel.
“Where is she?” he asks.
Sophia’s face crumples. “I don’t know. I swear—”
“Don’t lie to me.”
Tears stream down her cheeks.
“They came to me weeks ago and threatened the lives of my family. They said if I didn’t tell them where Giuliana lived, they’d make me disappear. I thought I could protect her by controlling what they knew.”
Luca steps forward, his stare cutting like a blade. “You didn’t just put Giuliana in jeopardy. You put my son in the crosshairs.”
Sophia freezes, the weight of his words hitting her like a gunshot. “Your… son?”
Her eyes widen in disbelief, breath hitching. “She never told me she—”
“She couldn’t,” Luca snarls. “Because trust like that could get a child killed.”
Sophia’s lips tremble. “She said it was bad, but… she never told me everything.”
Luca leans in, voice low and venomous. “Because she was trying to protect you. And you sold her out.”
Sophia drops to her knees. “Please… I didn’t know they were going to hurt her.”
He pauses, then turns to Turk without looking away from her. “She doesn’t leave the compound. And if anything happens to Giuliana… you make her the first to pay.”
9
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Her Blood, My Guilt (Sophia)
The inside of the compound is colder than I remember. Not in temperature—but in silence. In threat. In the way every guard’s stare pins me like a dead woman walking.
Each step sinks in like I’m walking my own funeral march.
I betrayed her. Even if I didn’t mean to, I did. And this is Moretti ground. Regret means nothing here. Mercy means even less.
This isn’t a place for second chances. It’s where penance is paid in blood.
Because no matter how many times I say it—I didn’t know—I still betrayed her and put Daniel in harm's way.
I sit on a hard leather bench in one of the holding rooms, hands trembling in my lap. I’ve seen men killed for less than what they think I’ve done.
My chest still hurts from the rough pull into the SUV. My cheek is bruised from the floor of the motel room, where they pinned me before blindfolding me. But it’s not the bruises that ache. It’s the guilt.
Giuliana trusted me with so much, but she’d kept that one truth locked away. Now I understand why.
