Page 69 of Claimed By the Enemy

I watch her face carefully, looking for signs of deception. Looking for proof that she’s still the enemy, still playing games, still protecting the man who might have destroyed both our families.

What I see instead breaks my heart.

Sophie looks terrified. Not of me, but of something else. Something she’s not ready to tell me.

“I don’t know what’s true anymore,” she whispers. “I thought I did, but I don’t.”

“Then we’ll figure it out together.”

“Will we?”

“Sophie.” I cup her face in my hands, feeling how fragile she seems. “Whatever your uncle told you, whatever you’re hiding, we can work through it. But I need you to trust me.”

“I do trust you.”

“Then tell me what happened yesterday. Tell me what you’re not saying.”

For a moment, I think she’s going to confess everything. Her lips part, and I can see her struggling with the words.

Then she looks away.

“I’m tired, Dom. Can we talk about this tomorrow?”

“Sophie-”

“Please. I just… I need some time to process everything.”

I want to push. Want to demand answers right now, while the fear of losing her is still fresh and raw. But looking at her exhausted face, her trembling hands, I realize that whatever’s coming, whatever truth we’re dancing around, it can wait one more night.

“Okay,” I say. “Tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow.”

She starts to move toward the stairs, then turns back.

“Dom? When you couldn’t find me… were you worried?”

The question is so quiet I almost miss it. But there’s something vulnerable in her voice, something that needs reassurance.

“Worried?” I let out a dry laugh. “Sophie, I turned this city upside down looking for you. I nearly got into a fist fight with my uncle. I threatened a man who’s been like family to me for thirty years.”

“Oh.”

“I thought I’d lost you. And I realized that losing you would destroy me.”

The admission hangs between us, honest and raw and completely true.

Sophie’s eyes fill with tears. “Dom-”

“Go get some rest. We’ll figure everything else out tomorrow.”

She nods and disappears upstairs, leaving me alone with my thoughts and the growing certainty that tomorrow is going to change everything.

Because whatever Sophie learned yesterday, whatever Uncle Enzo told her, it’s big enough to make her look at me like she’s seeing a stranger.

And if Caruso is right, if someone’s been playing us against each other for sixteen years, then Sophie and I are about to discover that everything we thought we knew about our families was a lie.

The only question is whether we’ll survive the truth.