Chapter 2 - The Man From the Photograph
Luca moved before Sophia could.
He stepped into the corridor and blocked the staircase with his body.
"Stay here."
Sophia followed him.
"No."
His head turned.
"That wasn't a request."
"Good, because I wasn't accepting it."
Elena whispered, "Sophia."
But Sophia was already descending.
The foyer below had changed.
The guards had drawn weapons.
Marco stood beside the open front door.
And between them stood an elderly man in a dark coat.
He carried no weapon.
He didn't appear frightened.
His gray hair was damp from the mountain mist, and a thin scar ran from his temple to his jaw.
Sophia stopped.
The photograph was still in her hand.
The man's face had been scratched away in the picture.
But his build matched.
His posture matched.
Even the scar remained faintly visible beneath the scratches.
"You," Sophia whispered.
The stranger looked at her.
"You have Margaret's eyes."
Luca reached the bottom stair.
"Gabriel."
So Luca knew him.
The man's attention moved to Luca.
"You've gotten bigger."
"You're supposed to be dead."
"Many people found that convenient."
Luca's guards raised their weapons.
Gabriel didn't react.
Sophia came down another step.
"Did you know my mother?"
Gabriel looked at her.
"I loved your mother."
The words hit the room like glass breaking.
Sophia stopped.
"My father—"
"Arthur Bennett was many things."
Gabriel's face tightened.
"But he was never the man Margaret loved."
Sophia shook her head.
"No."
She wanted to reject it.
Not because she trusted her father.
Because accepting one lie meant reconsidering every childhood memory built around it.
Gabriel reached slowly inside his coat.
The guards moved.
"Easy," he said.
He withdrew a small wooden box.
Sophia recognized it.
Her mother had owned one exactly like it.
A little walnut box with a silver flower on the lid.
"Where did you get that?"
"Margaret gave it to me."
"When?"
"The night she died."
Sophia descended the remaining stairs.
Luca caught her arm.
She looked at him.
"Let go."
His hand released immediately.
That mattered.
More than Sophia wanted it to.
Gabriel placed the box on a marble table.
"I didn't come to stop your marriage."
"Then why are you here?"
"Because Arthur knows you're here now."
Sophia frowned.
"He sent me here."
"No."
Gabriel looked at Luca.
"He sent you to the place where he believed you'd be safest."
Sophia laughed bitterly.
"My father has never cared whether I'm safe."
"Perhaps not."
Gabriel's gaze returned to her.
"But he's terrified of the man searching for you."
Silence.
"What man?"
Gabriel pointed to the photograph.
"The man whose face your mother scratched out."
Sophia looked at Luca.
"You know who he is."
Luca didn't deny it.
"His name is Vittorio De Santis."
Elena inhaled sharply.
Sophia noticed.
"Who?"
Luca answered.
"My father's former partner."
"Former?"
"He betrayed my family."
Gabriel gave a humorless smile.
"That's the polite version."
Sophia looked between them.
"And what does he want with me?"
Neither answered.
Sophia's patience snapped.
"I flew across the Atlantic to marry a man I'd never met because my father told me he owed millions to people who would destroy him. I arrived and discovered he lied about who proposed this marriage. Then I found a letter from my dead mother telling me Luca knows what happened to her. Now a supposedly dead man is standing in the foyer telling me another supposedly dangerous man is searching for me."
She looked at Luca.
"So somebody starts talking."
Luca's eyes held hers.
"Your mother witnessed something eleven years ago."
"What?"
"A murder."
"Whose?"
"My father's."
Elena closed her eyes.
Sophia stared.
"Luca..."
"I was twenty. My father was killed at a warehouse near Bellagio."
"By Vittorio?"
"Yes."
"And my mother saw it?"
"She photographed it."
Sophia's fingers tightened around the old picture.
"Then why did she die three days later?"
Luca didn't answer.
She understood.
"Oh, God."
"We don't know that Vittorio killed her."
"But you think he did."
"Yes."
Sophia looked at Gabriel.
"Why were you declared dead?"
"Because I helped Margaret hide the evidence."
"What evidence?"
Gabriel looked at the wooden box.
Sophia opened it.
Inside lay a silver key.
Nothing else.
She picked it up.
A number had been engraved along the shaft.
"What does it open?"
Gabriel shook his head.
"Margaret never told me."
"Then why give it to you?"
"She told me that if Arthur ever delivered you to the Moretti family, I was to return it."
Sophia looked at Luca.
"Delivered me."
Luca flinched.
Good.
He should.
"You knew this?"
"No."
"But you knew my mother."
"Yes."
"And you never told me."
"I intended to."
"When? After the vows?"
"No."
"After I climbed into your bed?"
Luca's face hardened.
"I would never have touched you without your consent."
The certainty in his voice stopped her.
Sophia looked away first.
Gabriel watched them.
"Margaret trusted Luca."
Sophia turned.
"How could she trust a twenty-year-old Mafia heir?"
"Because Luca tried to save her."
That silenced everyone.
Sophia looked at him again.
Luca seemed furious.
Not at Gabriel.
At the memory.
"I failed."
Two words.
Nothing theatrical.
Nothing defensive.
Sophia suddenly saw the twenty-year-old behind the enormous man.
"What happened?"
"I got her out of the warehouse. I put her in a car with someone I trusted."
"Who?"
"Arthur."
Sophia's blood went cold.
"My father?"
"Yes."
"Then three days later she died."
Luca nodded.
Sophia backed away.
Her mother had supposedly died when her car went through a guardrail outside Milan.
Arthur had told twelve-year-old Sophia she'd fallen asleep while driving.
There had been a funeral.
A closed coffin.
Years of silence.
"Was the accident real?"
Gabriel said, "The car went over the guardrail."
"That isn't what I asked."
"No."
Sophia closed her eyes.
Luca moved toward her.
She raised a hand.
He stopped.
That mattered too.
"Did my father kill her?"
"I don't know," Luca said.
"Eleven years. You had eleven years to find out."
"I tried."
"You're Luca Moretti."
Anger cracked through her voice.
"People are terrified of you. You have guards, businesses, money, contacts. You're telling me you couldn't discover who murdered one woman?"
Pain crossed his face.
"Not one woman."
Sophia stopped.
Luca looked at the photograph.
"She saved my life."
The anger inside Sophia shifted.
"How?"
"When Vittorio shot my father, I went after him. Your mother stopped me. She knew it was a trap."
Gabriel nodded.
"Margaret dragged Luca through a service exit while bullets were coming through the windows."
Sophia imagined her mother.
Small.
Gentle.
The woman who had taught her how to knead bread by letting her stand on a chair.
Running through gunfire with this giant of a man when he had been barely more than a boy.
"I owed her everything," Luca said.
"Is that why you agreed to marry me?"
"No."
The answer came too quickly to doubt.
"Then why?"
Luca looked at everyone else.
"Leave us."
The guards departed.
Marco followed.
Elena hesitated.
Gabriel took her arm.
"Come."
Soon only Sophia and Luca remained.
Luca approached the marble table.
"When Arthur contacted me, he didn't ask me to marry you."
Sophia waited.
"He offered information."
"About what?"
"Vittorio."
"In exchange for clearing his debt?"
"Yes."
"But then?"
"He sent me your photograph."
Sophia blinked.
"Why?"
"He said Vittorio had been asking questions about Margaret Bennett's daughter."
A chill traveled through her.
"And you decided marrying me would protect me?"
"No."
Luca's mouth tightened.
"I offered you Moretti protection. Arthur refused."
"Why?"
"He said protection could be withdrawn."
Sophia understood.
"But family..."
"Could not."
Her stomach twisted.
"So he suggested marriage."
"Yes."
"And you agreed."
"I made sure the contract gave you every possible way out."
Sophia remembered the clauses.
Every escape route.
Every protection.
"You expected me to refuse."
Luca gave a small nod.
"Then why arrange a ceremony?"
"Your father insisted."
Sophia almost laughed.
This entire nightmare had been constructed by a cowardly father, a dead mother's secret, and a man so accustomed to rejection that he'd prepared a wedding he never believed would happen.
She looked at Luca.
"Five women."
His expression closed.
"Elena told me."
"She shouldn't have."
"Were they arranged marriages too?"
"No."
"Then?"
"Introductions."
"And every one rejected you?"
"Eventually."
"Because you're tall?"
A bitter smile.
"My size frightens people."
Sophia studied him.
His enormous hands.
His shoulders.
The careful distance he kept between them.
"You frightened me when I first saw you."
He looked away.
"But not because you're big."
His eyes returned.
"Because everyone told me you were a monster."
"And now?"
"I've known you forty-five minutes."
That almost-smile returned.
"Ask me tomorrow."
A sudden crash came from upstairs.
Luca turned instantly.
Another crash.
Glass.
Then Elena screamed.
Luca ran.
Sophia followed.
They reached the bedroom.
The window was shattered.
Curtains moved in the cold air.
Elena stood beside Sophia's open suitcase.
Everything had been thrown across the floor.
Clothes.
Shoes.
Documents.
The suitcase lining had been cut open.
Gabriel crouched beside it.
"What happened?" Luca demanded.
"I left for thirty seconds."
Sophia stared at the destroyed luggage.
Someone had searched it.
"For what?"
Gabriel held up the silver key.
"Not this."
Luca looked at the photograph in Sophia's hand.
"Give me the picture."
She handed it over.
He studied the back.
Then held it toward the light.
Something became visible beneath the writing.
Faint numbers.
Coordinates.
Gabriel swore.
Luca's phone vibrated.
He read the screen.
His expression changed.
"What?"
Luca didn't answer.
Sophia grabbed the phone.
A photograph had arrived.
Taken seconds ago.
From outside the broken bedroom window.
It showed Sophia standing beside Luca.
Beneath it was one sentence.
MARGARET HID IT IN THE PLACE HER DAUGHTER WOULD ALWAYS RETURN TO.
Sophia stared.
"What does that mean?"
Then she understood.
Her bakery.
Chicago.
Her mother's first bakery.
Sophia reached for her own phone.
Before she could dial, it rang.
Her bakery manager.
She answered.
"Claire?"
Nothing.
Then breathing.
A man's voice replaced Claire's.
"Hello, Sophia."
Her blood froze.
Behind the voice came the unmistakable sound of something heavy being dragged across her bakery floor.
May you like
Then the man whispered:
"We found the door your mother hid beneath the oven."
