Married To The Devil I Hate

Chapter 20

The bedroom door swings open with a loud bang, smashing hard against the wall.

Three men in heavy tactical gear rush into our room. They hold heavy black rifles, pointing them right at us. Behind them, an older man in a neat gray suit walks in. He has cold gray eyes and a humorless mouth. This is Special Agent Miller, the head of the federal RICO task force.

He looks at Luca first, then his cold eyes lock onto me.

"Luca De Santis," Agent Miller says, his voice flat and hard. "And Sophia Romano. Or I guess I should say, Mrs. De Santis."

Luca doesn't move an inch, Standing in front of me, his big shoulders blocking their view, his hand resting calmly inside his jacket where his own gun is hidden.

"You're trespassing on private property, Miller," Luca growls.

"You have five seconds to get your armed men out of my house before I have my men throw you out the damn window."

Agent Miller didn’t give a reaction. He pulls a folded paper out of his jacket pocket and holds it up.

"We have a federal warrant signed by a federal judge, De Santis," Miller says, a smug smile touching his lips. "We aren't leaving. And we aren't here just for a chat. Sophia, you are under arrest for conspiracy to commit arson, destruction of federal-backed property, and racketeering."

The words hang in the air like a cloud of heavy smoke.

For a second, everything goes quiet. I look at the steel handcuffs dangling from the agent's belt. My heart beats hard against my ribs.

I step out from behind Luca and look right into Agent Miller’s cold gray eyes.

"Arrest me under what evidence, Agent?" I ask, my voice calm and steady, echoing the room.

Miller raises an eyebrow, clearly surprised that I'm not crying. He pulls a small digital tablet from his coat and taps the screen.

"We received a complete digital package this morning," Miller says smoothly. "Audio recordings from of you. Financial ledgers showing millions in mob money moving through The red Room. And your own voice, loud and clear, giving the order to burn the vault to the ground. Your father handed you to us on a silver platter, Sophia. You're done."

"My father is a desperate, lying coward," I snap back, taking another step forward. "He ran away killer, because he tried to gas a church full of people yesterday. Anything he gave you is forged garbage."

"Maybe," Miller replies, not caring at all. "A judge can decide that in a courtroom. Cuff her."

Two of the armed agents take a step forward, raising their zip-ties and cuffs.

"Touch her, and you die in this room," Luca whispers. It isn't a threat. It is a promise of murder. The air in the bedroom turns cold, with pure rage that the agents actually hesitate, their boots stopping dead on the floor.

I reach out and place my hand gently on Luca’s arm. I look up at him, shaking my head just a little bit.

If Luca starts a firefight with the FBI right here in our bedroom, we will never win. The whole city will come down on us. My father wants us to panic. He wants Luca to make a stupid mistake.

I won't give him that satisfaction.

"Luca," I say softly. "Look at me." His bright blue eyes snap down to mine, burning with a wild, terrifying fire.

"I am not going to let them lock me away," I tell him. "And I am not going to run. But I am not going to let you start a war today, either. Call our lawyers. Let these idiots play their little game."

Luca stares at me for a long, hard moment. He hates this. Every single instinct in his body screams to pull his gun and kill every agent in the house. But he sees the fire in my eyes. He sees that I am not scared anymore.

Slowly, the deadly tension in Luca’s shoulders drops just an inch. He takes a deep breath, his jaw locked tight.

"Fine," Luca spits out the word. He looks at Agent Miller. "We go downtown. But I am riding in the front seat right behind your car, Miller. And if one of your agents so much as breathes wrong on my wife, I will tear your badge off and feed it to you."

Miller gives a stiff nod. "She has the right to legal counsel. Let's move."

The agents step forward. They didn’t put cuffs on my wrists—probably because Luca is staring at them—but they surround me tightly on all sides.

As they lead me toward the bedroom door, I look back one last time.

Luca stands in the middle of the bedroom, giving me the "it’s going to be okay" look. Before i leave.

Two hours later, I am sitting in a cold, dark interrogation room at the downtown federal building.

The room is tiny. There is a greasy metal table in the middle, two hard plastic chairs, and a one-way mirror on the wall where I know Agent Miller and his team are watching every single move I make.

The door opens, and Agent Miller walks in, carrying a paper cup of black coffee. He sits down across from me, setting the cup on the table with a soft clink.

"Nice place you had out there, Sophia," Miller starts, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms. "It must be hard going from a nice, rich mafia princess to a jail cell."

I keep my hands folded neatly on top of the table. I don't say a word. I just stare at him with a blank, cold expression that I learned from watching Luca.

Miller frowns, leaning forward. "You think you're tough because you married the Devil of Chicago? Let me tell you something about men like Luca De Santis. When things get real, when the government brings down a full RICO case with forty years in a supermax prison attached to it, guys like Luca cut a deal. They always save themselves. You're just a pawn to him."

A small, cold smile touches my lips.

"You don't know a damn thing about my husband, Agent," I say, my voice steady and quiet.

Miller's eyes narrow. "We have the audio file, Sophia. We have your voice. That's a federal felony. Unless you want to go to jail for the next thirty years, you're going to tell me everything about Luca’s money laundering, his drug routes, and his hidden accounts."

"I have nothing to say to you," I reply simply.

Before Miller can open his mouth to yell at me, the door of the interrogation room flies open with a loud crash.

A young federal officer stumbles into the room, looking pale and completely panicked. He doesn't even look at me. He rushes straight to Agent Miller, leaning down to whisper frantically in his ear.

Miller’s face goes from smug to shock in a fraction of a second. His coffee cup nearly tips over as he jerks back.

"What do you mean, they dropped it?!" Miller barks out, his voice cracking with anger.

"The U.S. Attorney General's office just called down," the officer stammers, sweating under his collar. "A federal judge downtown just granted an emergency writ of habeas corpus. They filed a motion claiming our warrant was illegally obtained because of a jurisdictional error on the search grid. They are ordering an immediate release."

I have to bite the inside of my cheek hard to keep from laughing out loud.

Luca didn't waste a single second. While I was sitting in this stupid room.

Miller slowly turns his head, glaring across the table at me. His hands are shaking with frustration. He thought he had caught the big fish. He thought he had broken the De Santis empire.

"This isn't over, Sophia," Miller hisses, leaning over the table so his face is inches from mine.

"Your little mafia game is going to crash and burn."

I stand up slowly from the plastic chair. I smooth down the front of my dress, looking down at him like he is a piece of trash stuck to the bottom of my shoe.

"You can tell my father when you see him," I whisper coldly, "that he should have done better."

I turn my back on Agent Miller and walk out of the interrogation room.

When the doors swing open to the main lobby of the building, I stop. Waiting for me past the security desk.

Luca.

He stands leaning against a pillar. The moment his eyes lock onto mine, He pushes off the pillar in one long stride.

Before the security guards can even blink, Luca reaches me. His warm arms wrap tightly around my waist, lifting me slightly off the floor as he pulls me hard against his chest. He buries his face into my neck, breathing heavy against my skin.

"You okay?" Luca growls softly. "Did they touch you? Did they say anything?"

"I'm fine, Luca," I whisper, wrapping my arms around his neck, burying my face in his shoulder. I breathe in the familiar scent of his. "They didn't touch me."

Luca pulls back just enough to look at my face. His large hands cup my cheeks, his thumbs gently wiping away a speck of dust. The fierce, unhinged devotion in his eyes is blinding.

"Let's go home," Luca says, his voice low and dangerous. "Your father is still out there. And I am done playing games with him."

I nod, taking his hand as we walk out of the building together, ready to finish what we started.