Closer

Chapter 2：Sofia

"You… aren't you already dead?! I threw you into the sea…"

As those words fell, the entire banquet hall fell into a terrifying silence.

I stood there silently and couldn't tell whether he was speaking to me or to some invisible shadow.

I gripped my handbag and tried to keep my voice steady.

"Sir, you've got the wrong person. I'm Elena Moore. Tonight I'm a guest invited by Mr. Damian. Please calm down—"

He didn't hear me.

"Sofia…" He murmured the name, low and hoarse. "No… you can't still be alive!"

Someone nearby gasped. I took half a step back. The air around me had turned icy cold and that was when I noticed: his eyes had changed.

He seemed to have turned aggressive, as if he wanted me dead.

"I don't know who you're talking about." My voice dropped a little lower, afraid of provoking him further. "And I don't know why you're looking at me like that. Honestly, you're really scaring me."

"Stop pretending!" Lorenzo suddenly let out a vicious and short laugh. "You can't fool me. I can remember your face even with my eyes closed."

Just then, Damian stepped forward, placing himself in front of me.

"Lorenzo, my boy, do you know what you're doing?"

His voice wasn't loud, but it made everyone in the hall hold their breath.

However Lorenzo was already out of control.

He lunged at me.

I barely had time to step back before a hand closed viciously around my neck. Pain and suffocation pressed down on me at once. My back hit the edge of a high table. A wine glass wobbled, and cold wine splashed onto the back of my hand.

"Why are you back?!" Lorenzo got close. The smell of cigarettes, wine, and his cold sweat filled every breath I took. "You sank... I watched you sink with my eyes!"

I grabbed his wrist, my nails digging into his skin, but I couldn't budge him.

"Let… go…"

The voice that squeezed out of my throat was broken, nothing like mine.

The crystal chandelier blurred into fragments before my eyes. I heard someone scream, heard chairs scrape loudly, but those sounds felt very far away.

"Lorenzo, let her go." Damian's cold voice fell beside my ear. "Now!"

The next second, he was ripped away.

Air rushed back into my lungs. I coughed so hard tears came to my eyes, and my body started to slide downward. Damian caught my shoulder with one hand while his other hand clamped Lorenzo's wrist with a force that made Lorenzo's face twist in pain.

"You attacked my guest at my banquet and you tried to drag everyone down with your madness. Lorenzo, The dignity I gave you is not for you to treat like this."

"Father, look closely!" Lorenzo struggled, his eyes still locked onto my face. "She's not Elena！She's Sofia! She's a ghost… She came back to deceive us, and she'll destroy all of us!"

"I see very clearly." Damian cut him off coldly. "She is Dr. Elena Moore. She is my guest, and the woman who saved my life."

The hall was dead silent.

He released Lorenzo's wrist and raised a hand behind him.

"Take him to the East Wing. Get him a doctor, sober him up. No one is to let him leave the room without my permission."

Two men in black immediately stepped forward and seized Lorenzo by both arms.

"You can't do this! She'll be the death of you! Father, listen to me, she really came back!"

"Enough." Damian's voice finally deepened. "One more word, and you will no longer call me father."

Lorenzo froze for an instant.

That sentence hit harder than any slap.

As he was dragged away, he twisted around and stared at me with a look of shock and hatred, as if he wanted to tear me apart immediately.

"Sofia! You can't fool me!"

By the third time the name was spoken in the hall, no one dared to react at all.

Damian turned to face the frozen guests. He didn't raise his voice, but everyone instinctively straightened up.

"I apologize for tonight's disturbance," he said. "Lorenzo drank too much and lost his mind. The banquet ends here. The Rosso family will extend our apologies for the poor hospitality."

He paused, his gaze sweeping across the room, and said firmly, "I don't think anyone will be interested in taking what just happened past this door."

No one dared answer.

No one needed to.

The guests were quickly sent away. The music stopped completely. Servants bowed their heads and cleaned up the broken glass. The banquet hall, so dazzlingly bright just minutes before, now felt as empty and cold as a broken dream.

I stood where I was, one hand to my neck, trying to steady my breathing. The harder I tried to seem fine, the more my fingertips trembled.

Damian positioned himself in front of me, shielding me from the lingering stares.

"Elena." He looked down at me, his voice much lower and gentler than before. "Are you alright? Can you breathe?"

"Yes." The moment I said that single word, my throat ached, and my voice came out hoarse.

His gaze fell on my neck, and his expression darkened.

"You don't have to prove you're fine right now."

I looked up at him and forced a smile. "I just thought it might not be polite to break down at a mafia don's banquet."

He looked at me for half a second. There was no smile on his face, but something cold and hard in his eyes seemed to soften just a little.

"The impolite one tonight isn't you."

"Does he do this often?"

"Lorenzo often makes me regret wasting my patience on him."

That wasn't the tone of a father speaking about his son.

Too cold. Too light. Too honest.

Just as the rumors said, Damian didn't like his adopted son, mediocre in ability and volatile in temper. But why did he keep Lorenzo in the family?

I didn't ask further and rubbed my still-throbbing throat. "I understand. In the ER, we see plenty of people who lose control."

"Do they also choke you?"

"Occasionally," I looked up at him. "But the patients don't usually wear such an expensive suit."

He finally gave a low laugh, and it eased the tension in the air.

"The car is at the door. I'll walk you out."

When the night breeze blew in from outside the estate gates, I realized I had broken out in a cold sweat down my back.

Damian personally walked me to the car.

"I'm sorry." He inclined his head slightly, showing genuine sincerity. "I only meant to invite you to thank you for saving me that night. I didn't expect you to encounter something like this."

"I've received your gratitude." I smiled, trying to appear at ease. "Though the delivery was a bit unusual."

His gaze swept over the red marks on my neck, and his expression turned cold.

"What do you need?"

"What?"

"Money, gifts, favors at work, or anything else." His tone was steady, as if everything in the world was merely a price tag waiting for his nod. "Just name it, and it's yours."

I looked at him.

The lights outside the estate fell across his sharp brow and nose bridge, making him look more alert than the night itself and more dangerous.

"Mr. Rosso, I saved you that night because I'm a doctor," I said seriously. "And what happened tonight, you weren't the one who choked me. You don't owe me anything, and I won't take anything from you."

"A thousand women would ask for a large sum of money right now." He smiled, a hint of coaxing in his voice. "Or a chance to get close to me."

"That's a pity." I looked up at him with my steady voice. "It seems I'm not that kind of woman."

He looked at me in silence for a long time.

His gaze was deep, carrying a hint of surprise and also a nearly dangerous appreciation.

"Sorry, I spoke out of turn." He nodded and didn't insist. "But this debt of gratitude will remain with me until you decide what you want me to do for you."

He opened the car door for me, his movements impeccably gentlemanly.

Just as I bent down to get into the car, he suddenly asked, "Did you know Lorenzo before?"

My fingers tightened.

Lorenzo's twisted and pale face flashed through my mind, with a crazed look in his eyes as if he wanted to drag me back into the sea.

I looked up at Damian. My voice still carried a trace of unspent hoarseness.

"No. Before tonight, I didn't even know what he looked like. If I'd known this would happen, I wouldn't have come."

Damian looked at me and didn't respond immediately.

After a few seconds, he said quietly, "Then I apologize again."

I nodded and got into the car.

Just before the door closed, I heard him instruct the driver, "Take Dr. Moore home. Drive slowly."

It wasn't until the car had passed through the iron gates that I slowly unclenched my hand. The palm was marked with crescent-shaped indentations from my nails.

When I returned to my apartment, the living room light was still on.

Marcus sat on the sofa with a medical journal on his lap, but he hadn't read a word. The moment he saw my face and the red marks on my neck, he stood up immediately.

"My God, Elena, what happened?" He walked quickly to me, keeping his voice low but unable to hide his urgency. "Who did this? Weren't you at a banquet?"

I stood in the entryway and finally allowed myself to lean against the door.

Lorenzo's ghostly white face once again appeared in my mind.

He demanded to know why I had come back.

He said I watched you sink with my own eyes.

I closed my eyes. When I opened them again, my voice was steady.

"Marcus, congratulations to me. I finally got the answer I wanted."

I quickly, though in fragments, told him what had happened tonight.

When I finished, Marcus's face changed.

"Elena..."

"Lorenzo Vitale." I looked at him. "It's him. I can finally begin my revenge."

The living room fell silent for a few seconds.

Marcus took off his glasses and pressed his fingertips to his brow. "He nearly choked you to death tonight. Are you sure what you heard was a beginning, not a warning?"

"I've waited too long for this warning."

"He was crazy enough to attack you in front of Damian—that means he's beyond caring about consequences." Marcus looked at me, his voice still gentle but heavier than reproach. "Elena, this isn't in a hospital. You can't solve problems with these people by staying calm, stitching wounds, and making diagnoses. They'll shoot first, then ask if it hurts."

"Then I'll learn their rules."

"But you shouldn't have to learn this!"

"Don't say anymore." I cut him off. "I've made my decision. No one can change it."

Marcus looked at me with resignation and deep concern in his eyes.

"I know I can't stop you," he said. "But I hope you'll at least remember: revenge isn't the only thing that keeps you alive."

I smiled softly. "Thank you, Marcus."

He didn't stop me again.

I went into my room, closed the door, and didn't turn on the light.

The city's glow seeped through the gap in the curtains, falling beside the bed. I walked over, reached under my pillow, and felt the cold metal.

It was a pocket watch. The surface was rusted, the edges corroded by seawater, the hands stopped at a time I could never return to.

I turned it over.

A name was engraved on the back.

Sofia.

The rust had nearly eaten away the last letter, but I saw it at once.

That name stung my eyes.

I held the watch and stood in the darkness for a long time.

Finally, I heard myself whisper, "Lorenzo, you were right. Sofia is back."