Page 59 of Claimed By the Enemy
And it’s working.
I grab my keys and head for the door. I need air. I need space. I need to think without Sophie’s perfume clouding my judgment and her accusations ringing in my ears.
I drive through the city aimlessly, taking random turns, hitting red lights, watching people live their normal lives through my windshield.
The same thought won’t leave me alone.
What if she’s right? What if I’m so desperate to find someone to blame for my parents’ deaths that I’m willing to destroy the only good thing in my life to get answers?
What if the real enemy isn’t Enzo Bellini at all, but whoever’s been playing us against each other from the very beginning?
And what if, by walking away tonight, I’ve given them exactly what they wanted?
I end up at a bar downtown, the kind of place where nobody cares who you are as long as your money’s good. Three whiskeys in, I’m still seeing Sophie’s face when I accused her uncle of murder. Still hearing the break in her voice when she asked what would happen to her if everything she believed was a lie.
My phone has been buzzing constantly—texts from Sophie, missed calls, voicemails I haven’t listened to. But I’m not ready to go home yet.
Because the truth is, I don’t know what happens if Enzo Bellini is the killer. I don’t know how Sophie and I can come back from this kind of betrayal. I don’t know how to love someone whose family destroyed mine.
And somewhere in the space between my third and fourth drink, I realize that’s exactly what this is.
Love.
I’m in love with Sophie Bellini. Maybe since the moment she walked into my office with fire in her eyes and lies on her lips.
Which makes walking away from her tonight either the stupidest thing I’ve ever done, or the only way to protect us both from destroying each other completely.
The bartender refills my glass without being asked, and I stare into the amber liquid like it might hold answers.
It doesn’t.
But somewhere in the back of my mind, a voice is whispering that none of this feels right. That someone’s been pulling our strings from the beginning, feeding us information designed to turn us against each other.
That maybe the real enemy has been watching us tear ourselves apart while they sit back and wait for us to finish the job they started sixteen years ago.
I down the whiskey and signal for another.
Because if that’s true, then walking away from Sophie tonight might be the biggest mistake of my life.
And I might not get the chance to fix it.
Chapter Fifteen
Sophie
Iwake up alone in my own bed for the first time in a week, and the emptiness feels like a physical ache.
Dom never came home last night. I stayed awake until nearly three, listening for his car in the driveway, for his footsteps on the stairs. Nothing.
My phone shows seven unanswered calls I made to Dom throughout the night, but he hasn’t returned a single one. Each call went straight to voicemail, and I’m too proud to leave a message begging him to come home.
I was wrong to accuse him of lying. Wrong to slap him when all he was doing was showing me evidence I’d been too scared to face. The look on his face when my palm connected with his cheek - hurt, confusion, disappointment.
I’ve pushed away the one person who’s been trying to protect me, and now I’m alone with the sickening possibility that everything Uncle Enzo taught me might be built on lies.
My stomach churns again, and I have to grip the edge of the bed to keep from being sick. Everything feels wrong - my emotions are all over the place, my body keeps betraying me, and I can’t tell if it’s stress or something else entirely.
All I know is that I need Dom to come home so I can apologize. So I can try to make sense of this mess together instead of tearing each other apart over secrets and lies.
