Page 54 of Claimed By the Enemy

I move to her side, taking her arm. “Amara, sit down.”

“I’m fine, I just…” She lets me guide her to the chair.

“Can I get you some water? Do you want to lie down?”

“No.” Amara shakes her head firmly. “I don’t want water. I don’t want to lie down. I just want to know what the hell is happening. Sophie, there are men following me. It started since we began hanging out a lot again. Just tell me what’s going on.”

“Dom?” I look at him questioningly. “Know what this is about?”

“I arranged security for you,” Dom tells Amara directly. “The men following you are bodyguards.”

“Bodyguards?” Amara and I chorus.

“Why would I need bodyguards?”

I turn to Dom, shocked. “You arranged security for Amara without telling me?”

“I should have mentioned it,” Dom says. “But with everything happening, I wanted to make sure she was safe.”

“Safe from what?” Amara demands.

Dom and I exchange another look. This is it. No more half-truths.”

Because Dom and I are in the middle of a family feud that’s turned deadly,” I say quietly. “This is going to be a long conversation. Are you sure you don’t want that water?”

“Sophie.”

I tell Amara everything. About Uncle Enzo and the mission for revenge. About the marriage being forced for protection. About the threatening letters and Dom’s attack yesterday. It must be an hour long.

She listens in stunned silence, her face cycling through shock, disbelief, and finally, hurt.

“You’ve been lying to me,” she says when I finish.

“I wanted to tell you. But the less you knew, the safer you were.”

“Safe from what?”

“From this,” Dom says grimly. “From being used as leverage against Sophie.”

Amara looks between us, processing. “So this marriage… It’s not real?”

I hesitate. After last night, after everything Dom and I confessed to each other, I’m not sure what’s real anymore.

“It’s complicated,” I say finally.

“Do you want to leave?” Amara asks suddenly. “I mean, if this is all about protection and forced marriage and family feuds, do you want to run away from it?”

“I…” The question catches me off guard. A week ago, the answer would have been an immediate yes. But now?

“We’re working together now,” I say softly.

“So that’s a no?”

“That’s… I don’t know.”

“I can’t believe this is your life now,” she says softly. “When we were in college, you used to talk about opening your own firm, maybe traveling, living on your own terms. And now…”

“Now I’m married to my target and learning that everything I believed might be a lie,” I finish.