Chapter 4 - The Lake Forest Redoubt
The De Luca estate in Lake Forest was not a home; it was a fortress dressed up in limestone and ivy.
Surrounded by a ten-foot stone wall and shielded from the road by dense acres of old-growth oak trees, the mansion sat above the cliffs of Lake Michigan, its windows dark and unyielding against the gray morning sky. Security cameras rotated silently on the iron gates, and two men with German Shepherds patrolled the gravel driveway as the convoy pulled up to the side entrance.
Sophia was taken immediately to a private medical wing on the third floor.
A severe, white-haired doctor named Dr. Aris processed her injuries with the cold efficiency of a battlefield surgeon. He set her split lip, bandaged her bruised ribs, and applied a soothing ointment to her swollen eye without asking a single question about how an accountant had acquired the wounds of a torture victim.
By evening, she was moved to a bedroom at the end of the hall. It was beautiful, filled with antique French furniture, a massive fireplace that crackled with birch logs, and a king-sized bed with silk sheets. But when Sophia tried the handle of the heavy mahogany door, she found it locked from the outside.
A cage is still a cage, even if the bars are gold.
She sat by the window, watching the dark waves of Lake Michigan slam against the stone seawall below. She had changed into a soft silk nightgown left for her in the closet—a deep emerald green that matched the color of the sweater she had worn the night Enzo had disappeared.
At 9:00 PM, the lock clicked.
Lorenzo stepped into the room. He had changed his suit, now wearing a dark gray wool trousers and a black cashmere sweater, the sleeves pushed up to reveal the heavy white bandages on his right hand. He carried a silver tray with a bowl of chicken broth and a glass of water.
He set the tray on the table near the fire, his gray eyes tracking her movements as she stood up from the window seat.
"Eat," he said.
"I'm not hungry," she said, her voice still raspy.
"Your body needs the nutrients to heal the tissue," Lorenzo said, his tone entirely administrative. "I don't need my asset fainting when the lawyers arrive on Monday."
Sophia walked over to the fire, her bare feet silent on the thick Persian rug. She didn't look at the food; she looked into his face, searching for the crack she had seen in his expression back in the warehouse.
"Why did you leave, Lorenzo?" she asked quietly. "Four months ago. You left a note on my kitchen counter. You didn't even have the courage to say it to my face."
Lorenzo’s jaw tightened, his hands sliding into his pockets. "I told you why in the note. My world is a disease, Sophia. I thought if I stayed away long enough, you would find a nice, boring man from the suburbs who could take you to dinner without checking the basement for explosive devices."
"I didn't want a boring man," she said, taking a step closer to him, ignoring the dull ache in her ribs. "I wanted you. I wanted the man who stayed up until three in the morning helping me organize my grandmother’s medical bills. I wanted the man who memorized my coffee order."
"That man was a fiction," Lorenzo said, his voice rising into a sharp, dangerous register. He stepped closer, his gray eyes flashing with a sudden, uncontrolled heat. "Do you want to know what I did the morning after I left your apartment, Sophia? I sat in a warehouse in Rosemont and watched my men execute three captains who had skimmed from our gambling rings. I didn't blink. I didn't feel a single pang of regret. That is who I am. The man who helped you with your bills was a mask I wore because I wanted, just for a moment, to remember what it felt like to have clean hands."
He reached out, his bandaged hand catching her jawline, his grip firm but entirely devoid of the tenderness he used to carry. He forced her to look up into his cold, aristocratic face.
"But my hands are not clean, Sophia. They are covered in Marcone’s debt, and they are covered in your blood because you couldn't stay in your lane. Tomorrow morning, Thomas Greer—my attorney—will be here with the decryption terminal. You will give him the password. And then, I will have my security detail escort you to O'Hare airport. You will take a one-way flight to Lisbon, and you will never return to the state of Illinois."
Sophia looked into his gray eyes, her own green gaze steady despite the tears threatening to spill over.
May you like
"You're lying," she whispered.
Lorenzo’s fingers tightened on her jaw for a fraction of a second before he dropped his hand away, turning his back to the fire. "Eat your soup, Sophia. The lawyers don't like to wait."
