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Sofia
Ifeel as if all the breath has been sucked out of my body.
I’d suspected something like this when the nurse had said Rossi was in critical condition. But I hadn’t wanted to think about it. With Luca in charge—I don’t want to think about what will happen next. If he’ll become harder, crueler, and impatient with me, if he’ll expect me to fulfill the same kind of role that Giulia did, that of a good mafia don’s wife. I know he’d hoped, even expected for it to be years before anything like this happened.
“I thought I’d have more time to prepare you,” Luca says quietly, confirming my suspicions. “I will be don—at least acting, but most likely for good, even if Rossi recovers. It’s doubtful that he’ll be able to take up his duties again.”
Looking at his face, I can’t tell if he’s happy about it or not.
“You’ll have responsibilities too,” he says. “Although I don’t expect that you’ll willingly take up many of them,” he adds, a touch of bitterness in his voice. “But if you can at least try to be a good friend to Caterina during this time, it would help.”
“I’d already planned to talk to her,” I say defensively. “After all—”
“You know about dead parents. Yes, I’m well aware. As do I,” Luca reminds me. “I need you to think less about your issues with me in the coming days, Sofia, and more about all of our survival.”
“Who was it?” I manage to keep my voice from trembling. “Do you know?”
“Not for certain, yet. But I would put money on the Bratva,” Luca says tightly. “It’s them that we’re fighting with, after all. Boston has no reason to bother us. If it didn’t have something to do with Viktor and his men, I’d be shocked.”
I’ma little shocked, too, if only because that’s the most open he’s been with me since the day he brought me back to his penthouse. “So what now?”
“Now,” he says, standing up and smoothing his hands down the legs of his pants, “we go see Rossi. And then we go home.”
Something in my stomach clenches every time he sayshome. I do a decent job of hiding it, though, looking away as the nurse comes in to get me ready to leave. Luca brought my bag in with him, and I manage a mumbled “thank you” as I grab it and head into the bathroom. I feel overcome with nerves suddenly, facing going back to the penthouse with him and seeing Rossi before that. All of this has been some kind of awful, escalating nightmare ever since the Bratva kidnapped me, and I can’t take anymore.
But clearly, things are going to get worse before they get better.
I emerge a few minutes later, in jeans and a blue sleeveless top, my hair scraped up into a ponytail. I desperately need a shower and feel worse than I have in recent memory. I’m almost grateful to be going back to Luca’s place if it means I can wash my hair and get a good night’s sleep in a real bed.
Luca is waiting for me when I step out, and he takes my hand without bothering to ask, holding it tightly as we walk out into the hall. It’s not so much a romantic gesture as a possessive one, and even when I try to wriggle my hand free of his grasp, it’s clear that he has an iron grip on me. “I’m not going to run away,” I say through gritted teeth. “I’m not that stupid.”
“You might,” he says coolly. “Rossi is in the hospital, and I’ll be the don shortly. You might decide that now is as good a time as any to make a run for it. But I’ll warn you, while I wouldn’t have you killed, I can certainly have you picked up and brought back to me. Just about every cop in this town is on our payroll. No one in this hospital will help you either,” he adds, seeing me look around. “Our grip on this city is strong, Sofia. You can’t escape me, just as you couldn’t escape Rossi. The difference is that he would have had you killed. I’ll simply make you regret trying to leave.”
The cool indifference in his voice chills me as much as his words do. I have to almost trot to keep up with his long strides as we make our way towards the elevator, and I feel like I might be sick. I’d thought that Rossi dying would mean I might be able to get out of this, but I can see that tiny loophole narrowing until I’m not sure if it even exists anymore. This really might be for the rest of my life—or at least until Luca dies.
I hadn’t knownuntil death do us partwas supposed to be something I wished for. Ten minutes ago, I’d been glad he survived. Now I’m not so sure anymore.
Luca doesn’t say a word to me as we ride up to the floor Don Rossi is staying on. He remains silent until we walk into the room, where Caterina and Franco are already waiting for us. Franco is uncharacteristically somber, giving Luca a quick but tight hug, and Caterina is visibly a mess. I’ve never seen her without makeup before, but she’s completely bare-faced, her eyes red and swollen from crying, her lips bitten, and her face deathly pale. I notice that she’s standing a little apart from Franco, who doesn’t seem to be paying much attention to his grieving wife at all. I can feel how lonely she is just from looking at her. It radiates off of her like an aura.
I remember that feeling all too well after my own mother died and left me all alone. It breaks my heart to see her like that, especially when Franco should be the one who’s there for her through this. He’s not even injured, not a scratch on him, since he was still in his hotel room when the attack happened—too hungover to come down.Lucky him,I think bitterly. I wonder how Caterina feels about that—glad that her fiancé is unharmed, or bitter that out of all of us, her mother is the one who had to die?
“Luca.” Rossi’s voice is hoarse and cracked, but it still retains some of its old power nonetheless. “Come stand by me.”
Franco goes with him, standing at Luca’s side as they walk around to the other side of the hospital bed, leaving me next to Caterina. She glances over at me, and I reach out instinctively, taking her hand. I wonder if she’ll pull back—we’re not that close, after all, but her fingers lace through mine instead, squeezing back. Her face is still pale and somber, but when her eyes meet mine, I can see that she’s grateful for the support.
“If circumstances were different,” Rossi says, “there would be a formal ceremony to pass the title on to you. But since they’re not, and I’m not leaving here anytime soon, this is the best we can do.” He takes a deep, rattling breath, and I wince just hearing it. I can see from everything about him that Luca was right when he guessed that Rossi probably won’t ever be in any shape to lead again. Even if he survives, he won’t ever be strong again. He’s already an old man, and this was a massive blow.
“I, Vitto Rossi, in the presence of these witnesses—my daughter Caterina, your wife Sofia, and my consigliere Franco Bianchi—renounce my seat at the head of the family and my title as Don. I pass it on to you, Luca Romano, son of Marco, heir to my place. You will hold this title, preserve and defend it and the family you lead, until such a time as you pass on or see fit to step down. You will pass it on to the first son of my blood, born of the union between my daughter and Franco Bianchi.”
He tugs at the ring on his finger then, a thick band with a ruby embedded in the top of it, and I swallow hard. The energy in the room is tense. Everyone focused on the two men—one in the hospital bed, one standing beside it—and the transfer of power taking place there.
“I, Luca Romano, accept this title and the place that it gives me at the head of the table. I vow to uphold the alliances you have built, defend against all enemies, and give my blood and life if need be in defense of the family. I will hold, preserve, and defend all who serve with and under me, and when the time comes for the title to pass on, I vow to give it to the first son of your blood, the child of Caterina Rossi and Franco Bianchi.”
Those last words, repeated by Luca loud and clear, are a cold reminder of the contract I signed and my place in this family. A reminder that I won’t even have children to love, no family to console me while my husband is off killing and torturing and fucking other women. Mrs. Rossi had that, at least, a beautiful daughter to love and cherish even if she couldn’t have a husband who cared for anything other than his power and greed.
I’ll have nothing. No husband, no children, barely even my best friend. No real purpose other than sitting down and shutting up and holding onto Luca’s arm in public when need be. I’m a trophy wife, a decoration, a means to an end. A card taken out of play.
My happiness doesn’t matter at all.
