The Night Drive
The drive out of Monaco began without conversation, because both Sofia and Lucien understood that whatever waited in Milan could not be treated like another family disagreement. The road climbed away from the coast beneath a moonless sky, and the lights of Monaco gradually disappeared behind them as Lucien kept both hands on the steering wheel. Sofia watched him from the passenger seat and noticed that he had abandoned the tailored jacket he usually wore in public, leaving him in a simple dark shirt that made him look less like a billionaire and more like the exhausted man she had glimpsed beside Henri’s hospital bed. She asked why he had decided to drive himself, and he answered that he trusted very few people with the truth, so tonight he preferred to trust the person si
