Page 3 of Claimed by the Enemy (Moretti Bratva #2)

Chapter Three

Sophie

T he sound of Dom’s car in the driveway makes my stomach clench, but I don’t move from where I’m sprawled across his ridiculously expensive couch.

Let him come find me. Let him see exactly how much I care about his stupid house rules and his threats.

I’ve been lying here for the past hour, staring at the ceiling and plotting seventeen different ways to burn his life to the ground.

The nausea that sent Patrice running to call him has passed, leaving behind a cold, crystalline rage that feels infinitely more useful.

The front door opens with a soft click.

“Sophie?” His voice carries through the foyer, tight with something that might be concern if I didn’t know better.

I don’t answer.

“There you are.” Dom appears in the doorway, still wearing his suit jacket, hair slightly mussed like he’s been running his hands through it. “Patrice said you weren’t feeling well.”

“Patrice worries too much.” I don’t look at him, keeping my eyes fixed on the hand-carved crown molding that runs along the ceiling. “I’m fine.”

“You don’t look fine.”

That gets my attention. I turn my head just enough to give him a withering stare. “Gee, I wonder why. Could it be because the man I’ve been trying to destroy has been playing me like a violin from day one?”

Dom moves into the room, loosening his tie slowly. “Is that what’s bothering you?”

“What’s bothering me,” I say, pushing myself up to sitting, “is that you’re acting like this is all some kind of game. Like my family’s pain, my parents’ deaths, everything I’ve worked for—it’s all just entertainment for you.”

“Your parents’ deaths were a tragedy.” His voice is softer now. “But they weren’t caused by my family.”

“Bullshit.” I surge to my feet, finally meeting his eyes. “You don’t get to rewrite history. I know what happened. I’ve known since I was ten years old.”

“You know what your uncle told you happened.” Dom shrugs out of his jacket, draping it over the back of a chair like we’re having a casual conversation instead of a fight that’s been sixteen years in the making. “That’s not the same thing.”

The casual dismissal ignites something volcanic in my chest. “My uncle raised me. Protected me. Gave me a purpose when I had nothing left.”

“Your uncle trained you to be a weapon pointed at my family.”

“Maybe because your family deserved it!”

Dom doesn’t flinch or get angry. He just watches me with those dark eyes that see too much, understand too much.

“Maybe,” he says finally. “But that’s not why you’re here anymore.”

Something in his tone makes my skin prickle with warning. “What do you mean?”

“Someone wants you dead, Sophie. The threats aren’t going to stop just because I’ve exposed your cover—news travels fast in these parts.”

“What threats?”

Dom moves to the bar cart in the corner, pouring himself two fingers of whiskey like he needs the fortification.

“Anonymous letters. And this morning, a visit from one of my father’s old associates, suggesting that the best solution to my Sophie Bellini problem would be to make you disappear permanently. ”

The blood drains from my face. “You’re lying.”

“I wish I were.” He takes a sip, studying me over the rim of the glass. “They know you’re here. They know what you’re trying to do. And they want both of us dead for it.”

“Both of us?”

“The Moretti-Bellini feud didn’t end with our parents, sweetheart. Someone’s been keeping it alive, and now they want to finish what they started.”

I sink back onto the couch, mind racing. If what he’s saying is true, then my mission has become infinitely more complicated.

“That’s not all,” Dom continues, his voice taking on a harder edge. “You wormed your way into my company under false pretenses, Sophie. Corporate espionage. Identity fraud. Do you have any idea how this makes me look?”

“Like you got outplayed?”

“Like I’m weak. Like I’m a fool who was completely deceived by a Bellini.” His jaw clenches. “People are already talking and questioning my judgment, my leadership. Whether I can be trusted to run this company if I can’t even spot a spy in my own office.”

“So what are you suggesting?” I ask carefully. “That we call a truce? Team up against a common enemy?”

“No.” Dom sets down his glass and turns to face me fully. “I’m suggesting we get married.”

My mouth falls open and I let out a short, disbelieving laugh. “Marriage?” I blink at him rapidly, waiting for the punchline. “You’re joking. You have to be joking.”

“I’m strategic.” He moves closer, and I can see the calculation in his eyes. “Think about it, Sophie. Right now, you’re a corporate spy who infiltrated my company under false pretenses. When this comes out—and it will—it makes me look like either a fool or a co-conspirator.”

I start laughing, because surely this is some elaborate joke.

“So? So, what if it proves something you already are?”

“So marriage changes the entire narrative. Instead of ‘CEO deceived by enemy spy,’ it becomes ‘strategic alliance between rival families.’ Instead of looking weak, I look like a man who’s so powerful he can turn his enemies into wives.”

“That’s sick.”

“That’s business. You marry me, and suddenly your infiltration wasn’t espionage—it was courtship, and I don’t look incompetent to my board members.”

“You are insane and you just want to win.” I cross my arms, armor against whatever game he’s playing now. “And what’s a bigger victory than forcing your enemy to marry you? Making me take your name, wear your ring, pretend to love the man whose family destroyed mine?”

“This wouldn’t be happening if you hadn’t lied your way into my company, faked your identity, or allowed yourself to be brainwashed by your uncle!”

“No.” I’m backing away now, putting distance between us even though the room suddenly feels too small. “Send me to a different country, fake my death for all I care. But I will not marry you.”

Dom watches my retreat with calculating eyes. “Even if your refusal means your aunt and uncle will… let’s say, begin encountering certain difficulties?”

The question stops me cold. “What?”

“Don’t make me spell it out, Sophie.”

“You bastard.” The words come out as a whisper, but they carry the weight of all my rage. “You absolute bastard.”

“I’m a realist.” Dom moves closer, and this time I don’t back away because there’s nowhere left to go. “Your aunt and uncle. Martha and Enzo Bellini. They live quiet, predictable lives. Very… exposed.”

“You’re threatening them.”

“I’m telling you the reality of your situation, and the consequences, should refuse to marry me!

Corporate espionage carries a 10-year federal sentence, Sophie.

I have documentation of every lie you’ve told, every system you’ve accessed, and every piece of information you’ve stolen.

Marry me, and you’ll be my wife, helping me investigate security vulnerabilities.

Refuse…” He shrugs. “Well, a federal prison is no place for a young woman. And accidents happen to elderly couples all the time.”

“No. No.”

“Remember the threats still exist. I’m a man who protects what’s his. Marry me, and you, your uncle, and aunt will become part of that protection. Refuse…” He shrugs. “Well, I can’t be responsible for what happens to people outside my sphere of influence.”

“But this isn’t about protecting me at all.” The pieces click into place with sickening clarity. “This is about controlling me. About making sure I can never move against you because you’ll always have leverage and about your stupid company!”

Dom’s smile is sharp enough to cut. “Bingo.”

The casual cruelty of it—the way he can stand there and admit to using my family as hostages—makes something snap inside me.

“You sick fuck.” I’m moving before I realize it, my hand swinging toward his face in a slap that would leave marks if it connected.

But Dom catches my wrist easily, his grip firm but not painful. “Careful, sweetheart. That’s no way to treat your future husband.”

“I’d rather die first.”

“That can be arranged.” His voice drops to a whisper, intimate and terrifying. “But your aunt and uncle would die with you. Is your pride really worth their lives?”

The fight goes out of me all at once, leaving me hollow and shaking with fury. He has me. Completely, utterly, has me.

I wrench my wrist from his grip, stepping back to look him in the eye. “I am going to make your life hell.”

Dom’s smile widens. “I’m counting on it.”

“Fine.” The word tastes like poison, but I force it out anyway. “I’ll marry you. But I want it done fast. Tomorrow, if possible. I want to get this horror show over with as quickly as possible.”

“Eager to start our honeymoon?”

“Eager to start planning your funeral.”

Dom laughs like I’ve said something genuinely amusing. “There’s my fierce Sophie. I was starting to worry you’d gone soft on me.”

“Never.”

“Good. Soft wouldn’t suit you.” He moves to retrieve his jacket, slipping it back on like we’ve just concluded a successful business negotiation. “I’ll make the arrangements. We can have a simple ceremony, just the legal requirements.”

“And after?” I ask, hating that I need to know. “After we’re married, what then?”

“Then we figure out who wants us dead and make sure they don’t succeed.” Dom pauses at the doorway, looking back over his shoulder. “Oh, and Sophie? Wear whatever you want to the ceremony. But I’d suggest something in black. It seems appropriate for a funeral.”

He’s gone before I can think of a response, leaving me alone with the wreckage of my life and the crushing realization that I’ve just agreed to marry the enemy.

I sink back onto the couch, and I let myself cry.

Not for my parents, or for my mission, or even for my own trapped situation.

I cry for the girl I used to be, before Uncle Enzo filled my head with stories of revenge and family honor. Before I learned to see the world in terms of allies and enemies, debts and retribution.

That girl would have been horrified by what I’ve become. What I’m about to become.

But that girl is gone, has been gone for sixteen years. And tomorrow, whatever’s left of her will die completely when I take Domenico Moretti’s name and bind myself to him forever.

The thought should terrify me.

Instead, it just makes me angry.

Because if Dom thinks marriage is going to make me docile, if he thinks a ring and a piece of paper will turn me into some grateful little wife, he’s about to learn just how wrong he can be.

I’ll marry him. I’ll take his name and sleep in his bed and play whatever role he needs me to play.

But I’ll never stop hating him. And I’ll never stop looking for a way to make him pay for everything he’s taken from me.

***

Morning comes gray and overcast, as if the weather itself is protesting this unholy union.

I stare out the window of the guest room, watching rain streak down the glass like tears.

Appropriate.

Dom left early - “handling arrangements.”

I’ve been awake since five, unable to sleep, unable to eat, unable to do anything but pace the confines of my beautiful prison and think about all the ways this could go wrong.

Actually, ‘ wrong ’ implies that there was a right way for this to go. There isn’t. This entire situation is a disaster from start to finish.

But I’ve made my choice. For Aunt Martha and Uncle Enzo, I’ve made my choice.

The closet Dom had Patrice stock for me contains enough clothes to outfit a small army, but I ignore all of it in favor of the single black dress I brought from my apartment. It’s simple, elegant, and completely inappropriate for a wedding.

Perfect.