Page 77 of Claimed By the Enemy

“I think you’re scared,” I say carefully. “And I think whatever your uncle told you yesterday has put you in an impossible position.”

“You’re right. It has.”

Raff clears his throat. “Maybe I should go-”

“Stay,” Sophie says without looking at him. “You might as well hear this, too. God knows Dom’s going to tell you anyway.”

“Sophie-”

“Uncle Enzo is planning to kill you,” she says, the words coming out in a rush like she needs to get them out before she loses her nerve. “He’s given me one week to prove my loyalty by destroying you myself, or he’ll do it his way.”

Silence fills the office, thick and suffocating. Raff has gone completely still in his chair, and I can feel my own heartbeat hammering against my ribs.

“When you say destroy…” I begin.

“He wants you dead, Dom. He’s wanted you dead since the day your father died, and he’s been training me to be the weapon that kills you.”

“And yesterday?”

“Yesterday, his people brought me to him because he was starting to doubt my commitment to the mission. He could see that I was… wavering.”

“Wavering how?”

Sophie’s hands are trembling in her lap, but her voice stays steady. “Falling in love with you. Which, according to Uncle Enzo, makes me a traitor to everything he’s taught me.”

“So what did you tell him?”

“I told him what he needed to hear: that I would finish the job. That I would find a way to take you down without killing you, because that was the only way I could protect you from what he was planning to do.”

I lean forward, studying her face. “And now?”

“Now I’m telling you the truth, even though it probably means Uncle Enzo will kill us both.” Sophie’s eyes fill with tears, but she doesn’t let them fall. “Because I can’t lie to you anymore, Dom. I can’t pretend that my loyalty is anywhere but with you.”

“Sophie-”

“I love you,” she says, her voice breaking on the words. “I love you more than I’ve ever loved anything, and I can’t stand the thought of you believing that I’m still trying to hurt you.”

“What about the evidence? The documents you found?”

“Uncle Enzo says they were falsified. That someone planted them for me to find, to make me doubt everything I’ve been taught.” She wipes her eyes with the back of her hand. “But I don’t know what to believe anymore. I don’t know who’s lying and who’s telling the truth.”

“Sophie.” I stand up, moving around the desk to kneel in front of her chair. “Look at me.”

She does, and I can see everything in her eyes. The fear, the love, the desperate hope that I’ll forgive her for the lies and the secrets and the weeks of deception.

“Thank you,” I say simply.

“For what?”

“For choosing me. For trusting me with this.”

“Even though I’ve been lying to you?”

“Especially because you’ve been lying to me. It means telling me the truth costs you something.”

Sophie’s tears finally spill over, and I reach up to brush them away with my thumbs.

“What happens now?” she asks.