Blood and Sorrow

Chapter 7: The Silence Before the Storm

Sofia

Elena and I rush to mop it up with towels. In the confusion, as I'm bent over, I slip the USB drive into the secret pocket I sewed months ago, out of defiance, into the lining of my robe. An invisible gesture.

When Elena leaves, with a professional smile and a knowing look for me, the key is on me. Burning. Accusing.

Marco comes up to check.

"Everything all right, Signora?"

"Better, thank you, Marco. I think I'll try to sleep."

He nods and leaves. The door closes.

The real battle begins now.

I count the minutes, sitting in my bed in the dark. I listen to the sounds of the house. The television downstairs. Marco's footsteps on his rounds. I know his route. He passes by Lorenzo's office every twenty minutes.

His office. The lion's den. Forbidden. I have the key. I have the opportunity. And I have a fear that twists my guts.

An hour passes. Then another. The night is deep. I get up, my robe wrapped tight around me. I slip silently into the dark hallway. The house is a sleeping giant. Every creak of the floorboard is a thunderclap.

Lorenzo's office door is there. Massive. Menacing. I reach a trembling hand towards the handle. Locked. Of course. But there's the key. The physical key he hides under the bronze bust of his father. A flaw he thinks no one dares to exploit.

I lift the heavy statue, my muscles crying with effort. The key glints in the darkness. My breathing is a hoarse wheeze. I insert it into the lock. The click seems deafening.

I enter.

The smell of leather and cigar is even stronger here. The moon illuminates his large desk, his computer turned off. My heart beats so hard I feel it will wake the whole house.

I sit in his chair. My chair, now. I turn on the computer. The blue light of the screen illuminates my face, turning me into a ghost in his sanctuary. The password. My final obstacle. I try dates. Our wedding anniversary. Denied. The founding date of his "business." Denied.

Sweat beads on my forehead. Time is running out. Marco will do his rounds.

And then, I remember. One night, drunk on power and whiskey, he told me, lips against my neck: "You are my only talisman, Sofia. Everything begins and ends with you."

I try my name. "Sofia." Denied.

I try the day we first met. Denied.

My mind spins empty. And then, an intuition. Crazy. I type: Mia_Vita. My life.

The screen flickers. The desktop appears.

My breath catches. He used that. The name he whispers in our most intimate moments. The key to his digital empire.

I pull the USB drive from my pocket. It's cold and burning at the same time. I plug it in. The small red light turns on. A pulse of betrayal.

I start copying. Folder after folder. Cryptic file names: "Naples Delivery," "Agreement with the Corsicans," "Zurich Accounts." Each transfer is a volcano of guilt and terror exploding inside me. I am destroying the man who sleeps in our bed. The man who, in a sick, distorted way, would give his life for me.

Suddenly, a noise. Footsteps in the corridor. Heavy. Approaching. Marco.

Panic engulfs me. The progress bar is slow, too slow. It's only halfway full.

The footsteps stop outside the door. The latch rattles.

My world collapses in an instant of absolute silence.

---

The latch rattles. A minuscule sound, amplified by the silence and fear, resonates like a gunshot in the closed room.

My blood freezes in my veins. The progress bar on the screen taunts me, stuck at sixty percent. Sixty percent betrayal. Not enough to save him, Luca. Just enough to lose us, Lorenzo and me.

The world shrinks to this door, to this handle turning with unbearable slowness. My body is stone, sealed in the leather chair that smells of his cigar and his power. I see our life flash before me, not like a film, but like shrapnel – fragments of stifled laughter, of kisses that tasted of blood, of nights when I deluded myself watching the devil sleep.

The door opens.

The silhouette framed in the doorway is not Marco's. It's broader, more still, saturated with an authority that needs no words.

Lorenzo.

He says nothing. He simply stands there, dressed in his dark silk robe, arms at his sides. The light from the hallway outlines a menacing silhouette, but his face remains in darkness. It's worse. My mind projects every possible fury, every possible violence onto it.