Page 32 of Vows Made in Silence
And I betrayed it.
I keep thinking about Giuliana’s eyes. The fear that had been building in her for weeks. The way her hands shook every time she left the gallery. She didn’t talk about what haunted her—butI saw it. I ignored it. And when the men came to me, I thought I could outsmart them.
I was wrong.
Footsteps. Loud. Unhurried. The kind that only a man like Luca Moretti makes. I know it’s him before the door even opens.
He steps into the room like judgment in a suit. The guards fall back, but I feel the air tighten.
“I told you everything,” I say quickly.
He doesn’t blink. Just looks down at me with a stare that freezes my spine. "Intentions don’t fix outcomes, Sophia."
I swallow hard. "What are you going to do to me?"
He moves closer, the space between us shrinking until his shadow is the only thing I see. "Nothing... yet."
Tears prick my eyes, but I hold them back. He wants fear, but I owe Giuliana more than that.
“I’ll give you names,” I whisper. "Real ones. The ones even your people don’t know."
Luca tilts his head. "You’re not in a position to negotiate."
"I’m not negotiating.” "I’m praying I can still be useful. Because if she’s dead, Luca, I won’t be far behind."
Luca’s phone vibrates. He lifts it, reads, and looks back at me—expression unreadable.
“She’s alive. But barely.”
—
The air leaves my lungs like a punched breath.
Alive.
The word crashes into me with a messy mix of relief and dread. She’s still breathing—but for how long? And what did they do to her?
Luca turns away, barking something to Turk over the phone—coordinates, orders, names I don’t recognize but know are lethal. Then he rounds on me, darker than before.
“You said names,” he growls.
I nod, forcing the words past the lump in my throat. “There’s a contact. Russian, based in Red Rock. He handled the digital traffic, the drops. Goes by Malenky.”
Luca signals a man outside the room without breaking eye contact. “Bring me every file we have on Red Rock contractors. Now.”
I continue, voice shaking. “The others are harder. They move through offshore banks, front galleries. Some of the art we’ve received—those weren’t donations. They were trades. For secrets. For movement.”
Luca’s eyes narrow. “You’re saying Giuliana’s gallery was being used to move products?”
I nod. “Not drugs. Information. They were laundering intel through artwork. QR codes hidden in brush strokes, UV-marked canvas layers. She didn’t know. But someone on the inside did.”
His gaze cuts through me like a blade. “Who?”
I close my eyes, pulse pounding. “Your father’s old buyer. The one who handled the black collection. He’s the one who put me in touch with them. And he still has access to the gallery.”
—
Luca doesn’t move, but something in the air shifts.
