The Don's Bride

Chapter 4

Sonia barely slept.

Every creak and shift of the mansion pulled her back awake before she could get anywhere close to rest. The room they'd put her in was larger than her entire apartment, dark furniture, heavy curtains, soft lighting. Beautiful in a distant, untouchable way. But it didn't feel like somewhere a person actually lived. It felt like a room kept ready for people who never stayed long enough to leave a mark on it.

She sat up and checked the clock.

3:12, finally morning.

She pressed her palms against her face and sat there in the quiet. Every time she'd managed to close her eyes, it came back. The body on the floor. The blood spreading slow and dark across white marble. Luca standing in the middle of all that chaos looking like none of it touched him.

She was still sitting up when a soft knock came at the door.

She tensed immediately. "Who is it?"

"Marco."

She crossed the room and opened the door slightly. Marco was leaning against the wall outside, holding a tray with food and coffee, looking completely unbothered by the hour.

"You look terrible," he said.

"Good morning to you too."

"It's the afternoon."

Sonia blinked. "What?"

He walked in without being invited. She shut the door behind him and turned to look at the windows, heavy curtains drawn completely shut, no light getting through at all.

"That explains a lot," she muttered.

Marco set the tray down on the table near the bed. "You didn't eat last night."

"I wasn't hungry."

"You looked like you were about to pass out."

"You kidn*pped me," she said. "Sorry if I lost my appetite."

He dropped into one of the chairs nearby, entirely at ease. "You say you were kidn*pped a lot."

"Because that's what it was."

He considered that for a second. "Fair."

Sonia looked at him. Marco was easier to read than Luca, still clearly dangerous, but without that impenetrable coldness. She found herself studying him the way you study something unfamiliar to figure out if it bites.

"You work for Luca?" she asked.

"That obvious?"

"You follow him around."

"I'm his security."

She nodded slowly. That tracked. "You've known him for long?"

"Most of my life."

"And he's always been…" She searched for the word.

"Terrifying?" Marco offered.

"That's the one."

He smiled. "You'd get used to it."

"I don't think I want to."

The door opened before he could respond.

Luca walked in, and the whole room changed the way a room changes when the temperature drops. He looked refreshed, dark shirt, dark trousers, not a trace of last night on him. Like it had all been someone else's problem.

Marco stood up immediately.

Luca's eyes went straight to the untouched food on the tray. "You still haven't eaten."

"I didn't realize you cared."

"I care when people become problems."

Sonia's eyes narrowed. "Am I a problem?"

"Yes."

No hesitation at all. Marco rubbed a hand over his face like he could already see where this was going.

"You genuinely don't know how to talk to people," Sonia said.

"And you ask too many questions."

"Because nobody tells me anything!"

Luca moved further into the room, unhurried. "There's nothing you need to know."

Sonia let out a short, humorless laugh. "That's rich, coming from the man who forced me into his car."

"You're safer here."

"You keep saying that without explaining why!"

Silence.

Sonia spread her hands. "See? Every single time."

Marco was clearly enjoying himself. Luca ignored him.

"What do you remember from last night?" Luca asked, his tone shifting.

Sonia frowned at the change of direction. "The club. The shooting. You killing someone."

Marco sighed quietly. "Straight to the point."

Luca's face stayed even. "What else?"

"You knew the detective. Harris."

"And?"

"So you're not denying it."

"There's nothing to deny."

Sonia watched him carefully. "You're connected to him."

"No," Luca said. "He's connected to me."

She looked away for a moment, trying to organize her thoughts. Nothing about this situation fits together neatly. The police were involved. Dangerous people knew her name. And then, there was her father, the way Harris had said it, Richard Carter's daughter, like it meant something. Like it changed the math on everything.

She looked back at Luca. "What did my father do?"

The room went quiet in a different way.

Marco looked down at the floor. Luca's expression didn't crumble exactly, but something behind it locked shut.

"What makes you think he did anything?" Luca asked.

"Because every time I mention him, people in this house go strange."

Nobody answered.

"Oh, not this again," Sonia said, frustration finally overtaking everything else.

"Drop it," Luca said.

"No."

His eyes darkened. "I said drop it."

"And I said no."

They stared at each other across the room. Neither moved. Sonia didn't care anymore. She was exhausted and angry and tired of being treated like someone too fragile or too foolish to handle the truth.

"My father died three years ago," she said, quieter now but certain. "And somehow people connected to you already know who he was. So what aren't you telling me?"

Luca opened his mouth.

"More than you should know."

The voice came from the doorway.

Sonia turned. Isabella stood at the entrance, her expression giving away nothing. Sonia still hadn't figured out how someone could look that composed while being that frightening.

Isabella walked in slowly. Marco stepped aside without being asked. Even Luca seemed to pull himself in slightly, more guarded, more careful.

Isabella's gaze settled on Sonia. "You ask dangerous questions."

"And everyone gives suspicious answers."

Something moved briefly across Isabella's face. Not quite a smile, but close. "You're smarter than I expected."

"That doesn't sound like a compliment."

"It isn't."

Marco looked like he was calculating the quickest route out of the room.

Nobody relaxed around Isabella. Not Marco. Not even Luca, which told Sonia more about the woman than anything she could have said about herself.

Isabella turned to her son. "She can't stay here much longer."

"She stays until I decide otherwise."

The air tightened again. They looked at each other the way people look at each other when they've had the same argument so many times it's moved past words into something quieter and more stubborn.

"You're getting careless," Isabella said.

"And you keep repeating yourself."

Marco developed a sudden interest in the middle distance.

Isabella stepped closer to Luca. "I spent years teaching you not to let feelings get in the way of what needs to be done."

Luca's jaw tensed. "This isn't business."

Sonia caught that. So did Isabella.

The older woman's eyes flicked, and what crossed her face wasn't anger. It was something that looked almost like concern. The kind of concern that comes not from caring about someone's wellbeing, but from watching someone break their own rules.

Then, just as quickly, Isabella turned to Sonia and the temperature in her voice dropped back to its usual level. "You should eat something. You look pale."

Sonia blinked at the whiplash. "Thanks?"

Isabella walked toward the door, then paused with her hand on the frame.

"Sonia."

She looked up.

"Don't trust anyone in this house."

Then she was gone.

Sonia stood very still for a moment before turning to Marco.

"Your family is insane."

Marco pointed at Luca. "His family."

Luca exhaled, slow and quiet. And for the first time since Sonia had met him, he looked tired. Not emotionless, not calculated. Just tired.

That, somehow, scared her more than all the rest of it.