Page 58 of Ruined By the Enemy
Dom cocks his head, saying nothing. But it’s the silence that unnerves me. Not knowing what he thinks and walking blindly throughhisdarkness makes me falter.
A corner of his mouth twitches—more in mock amusement than a smile. He folds his arms behind him. “I see why you became a lawyer. You’re pretty good at making up stories, Miss Greco.”
He didn’t buy my act. Not a single lie.
Then he shrugs, pursing his lips too. “I’ll take your word for it, though. Because everything in this room is confidential and Patrice knows better than to enter without my permission.”
“Which means,” he arches a brow, “if there’s a leak, I’ll know who it’s from. So if you were planning anything, I’ll suggest you drop it.” He gestures openly with his fingers as his voice softens. “Let’s conclude that you wandered in and stumbled on the document by accident.”
A shiver racks through my body as he turns, and I grip the edge of the desk to keep from falling. He stops, hearing my gasp, and I straighten immediately.
“Oh, I forgot to tell you,” he says quietly. We’ll be flying to Italy tomorrow. I have something to do there, and I’ll need you… as usual.”
Italy??
My mind is spinning even before the door closes. I whirl around, dragging a chair quickly to save myself. Italy?
I haven’t been to the country in ten years. My parents died when I was ten, and I moved to the States with my uncle and his wife when I turned fifteen.
Why Italy? Why now?My fingers scrape against wood, digging into the smooth grain of the desk as if the pressure could slow the panic rising in my chest.
I can’t ignore the pattern at this point. One Construction company is affiliated with my uncle’s company. The party where mutual friends of both families were in attendance. And now, this?
“It’s a country, Sophie,” I say when a moment of clarity hits through the panic fog. Not a city. Besides, he’s Italian. There’s nothing suspicious about going to the country where he’s from.
It’s me,I realize. I’m falling apart because it’s too close to home. We might end up being miles away, but we’ll still be closer to the place where I lost everything.
Grief prickles at the back of my throat, sharp and metallic, like the aftertaste of old memories. We might end up miles from the house where everything I knew collapsed—but even then, I’ll know.
And I’m not sure I can survive it all over again.
***
My eyes are closed for most of the flight there, mainly to catch up on sleep I didn’t get the night before, and to shut Dom out.
The plane lands on the private airstrip, and I slip into the backseat of the car waiting to pick us up, shutting my eyes promptly as it hits the road.
The smell, however, sweeps nostalgia like a flood into my stomach. I grind my teeth and blink back tears as echoes of voices and glimpses of the past torture my thoughts and fill my mind.
My mom, standing in the vegetable garden behind the house, pruning herbs. My father, on the kitchen porch, making her laugh.
Unshed tears sting the corners of my eyes, but I don’t blink. I refuse to let them fall—not yet. My chest rises in shallow bursts as I swipe one away, then another, each breath quieter than the last. I’m not crying. I won’t cry.Not in front of him.
Terrified he might catch a glimpse of the storm behind my eyes, I turn toward the window, trying to ground myself in the blur of vineyards and hills.
But the world outside won’t be still. Everything swims, distorted through a veil of grief and panic I can’t hold back.
I don’t realize we’ve stopped moving until the car gently rolls to a halt.
I blink slowly—once, then again. The sight that greets me knocks the air from my lungs.
No. It screams in my head.
But the familiar sloping hills aren’t a figment of the past or a hallucination, and neither is the gentle, honey-colored stone building nestled between rows of vines.
The wrought-iron gate is still intact, bearing a different color but with my family’s crest. The Bellini crest.
I know this place. I can see every stone, every stretch of soil, even when I close my eyes. It’stheirvineyard.
