Chapter 7 - The Woman He Chose Pointed a Gun at Our Daughter
For one second, neither Sophia nor I moved.
The fire alarm screamed above us.
Red emergency lights flashed along the hallway.
Smoke drifted beneath the ceiling from somewhere near the service stairs.
People were moving past me toward the main exit, confused and frightened, but Sophia stood perfectly still.
Her hair was hidden beneath a dark cap. Her face looked thinner than I remembered.
The gun in her hand did not shake.
Mine did.
“Sophia,” I said.
She smiled.
“You finally look afraid of me.”
“I’ve been afraid of what you’re willing to do for a long time.”
Her smile disappeared.
“Walk toward me.”
I glanced toward the stairwell.
“Claire.”
My eyes returned to hers.
“Don’t make me ask twice.”
I moved slowly.
One hand remained beneath my coat, spread over my stomach.
My daughter shifted inside me.
The sensation nearly broke me.
Sophia noticed.
Her eyes dropped to my belly.
Something ugly passed across her face.
“So obvious now,” she whispered.
“Please don’t do this.”
“You think I wanted any of this?”
“You mailed me a sonogram and forged medical records.”
“I wanted you to understand.”
“Understand what?”
“That you walked into a life that was supposed to be mine.”
The words were so childlike that for a moment I forgot the gun.
“Sophia, nobody promised you another human being.”
“My whole family did.”
“That doesn’t make Alexander yours.”
Her jaw clenched.
“You don’t know anything.”
“I know he married me.”
Her eyes flashed.
“And look what happened.”
The cruelty landed, but I refused to show it.
Behind me, a door opened.
Sophia lifted the gun.
“Keep moving.”
I did.
She guided me through the service stairwell and down one level to a maintenance corridor. The smoke was thinner there.
My phone was still in my hand.
She took it and threw it into a utility sink.
“Where are we going?”
“You’re going to help me get my life back.”
“There is no version of your life that requires my baby.”
Her expression cracked.
“Stop saying baby.”
I stared at her.
Then I understood.
The old sonogram.
The miscarriage she had hidden at nineteen.
For all her manipulation, all her cruelty, that wound was still open.
“Sophia,” I said carefully, “I know about your pregnancy.”
She froze.
“Alexander told you?”
“No. Records did.”
Her face went white.
“You had no right.”
“You sent me the sonogram.”
“It was mine.”
“I know.”
Her breathing turned shallow.
“I know you lost the baby.”
“Shut up.”
“I’m not mocking you.”
“Shut up!”
Her voice cracked so sharply that she almost sounded nineteen again.
I stopped walking.
“Sophia, grief did not make you do this.”
Her eyes filled.
“You think you’re better than me.”
“No.”
“You got everything.”
“No.”
“You got him.”
“I got a marriage where I was afraid to disagree with my husband.”
That silenced her.
“I got five years of being told your insults were jokes. I got my mother humiliated at my wedding. I got shoved into a table while pregnant. I got left on the floor while my husband walked away with you.”
Sophia’s face twisted.
“I didn’t know how bad you were hurt.”
“You knew I was pregnant.”
She looked away.
“You saw the ultrasound.”
“I didn’t think—”
“That is the point. You didn’t care enough to think.”
She raised the gun again.
“Walk.”
I did.
At the end of the corridor, a side door opened into the parking garage.
A dark sedan waited with the engine running.
The driver was a man I recognized from the photograph Mercer had shown me beside Dominic Russo.
My pulse jumped.
Sophia opened the rear door.
“Get in.”
I looked at the man behind the wheel.
“This isn’t your plan.”
Sophia’s eyes narrowed.
“What?”
“You’re working for someone.”
“Get in.”
“Victor?”
Her expression gave me the answer.
The driver turned around.
“Enough talking.”
Sophia shoved me toward the seat.
I climbed in because my daughter was more important than pride.
The man drove.
Twenty minutes later, the federal agents outside my building realized I was gone.
Thirty minutes after that, Alexander received a call.
Not from me.
From Sophia.
He was in a conference room with prosecutors when his private phone rang.
According to Mercer, every person in the room watched his face change.
Sophia did not waste time.
“I have Claire.”
Alexander stood.
“If you hurt her—”
“Don’t threaten me. You’re not in a position to threaten anyone.”
He forced himself to sit again.
“What do you want?”
“The original recorder from the dinner. The drive containing Victor’s financial records. And a written statement saying you fabricated evidence against him under pressure from Claire.”
Alexander looked at Mercer.
The agent was already signaling technicians.
“You want me to destroy a federal case.”
“I want my family back.”
“Victor used your father.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“He paid him.”
“My father protected your family.”
“Your father was trapped by Victor the same way you are.”
Sophia’s breathing sharpened.
“You always do this.”
“Do what?”
“Choose her words.”
Alexander closed his eyes briefly.
“This has nothing to do with Claire.”
“It has everything to do with her!”
“No,” he said. “It has to do with me.”
The room went silent.
“I spent years letting you believe there was still some claim between us because I was too weak to draw a boundary. That was my failure. Not Claire’s.”
Sophia said nothing.
Alexander continued.
“If you need to punish someone, punish me.”
Mercer looked up sharply.
Alexander ignored him.
“Let Claire go. I’ll bring you what you asked for.”
Sophia’s voice softened.
“You’d trade yourself for her?”
“Yes.”
My eyes filled when Mercer told me this later.
Not because it proved Alexander loved me.
I already knew he loved me in his own damaged way.
It mattered because, for once, he placed himself between danger and me without making that protection another form of control.
Sophia gave him an address.
An abandoned banquet hall in Cicero that had once belonged to her father’s company.
Federal agents wanted Alexander nowhere near it.
He refused to stay behind.
They compromised.
He would go in wearing a wire and carrying decoy evidence.
No weapons.
No private soldiers.
No Moretti men storming the building.
Alexander agreed.
Old Alexander would never have agreed.
The man who arrived forty minutes later did.
I was sitting in a chair near the center of the old ballroom when he entered.
Dust covered the dance floor.
The chandeliers were dark.
Sophia stood behind me.
The driver stood near a side door.
My wrists were not tied.
Sophia had not needed rope.
The gun had been enough.
Alexander walked in alone carrying a messenger bag.
When he saw me, his face went still.
Then his eyes dropped to my stomach.
I saw relief move through him.
“Claire.”
I swallowed.
“I’m okay.”
Sophia laughed bitterly.
“Of course that’s the first thing you ask.”
Alexander looked at her.
“You have me. Let her leave.”
“Where’s the recorder?”
“In the bag.”
“The drive?”
“In the bag.”
“The statement?”
“In the bag.”
Sophia nodded toward the floor.
“Put it down.”
He did.
“Kick it over.”
He did.
The driver picked it up.
Sophia looked at Alexander.
“Do you remember when we were sixteen and your father told everyone we would marry?”
“Yes.”
“I believed him.”
“I know.”
“My mother bought me a wedding dress sketch when I was seventeen.”
Alexander’s expression softened with sadness, not love.
“That was wrong of them.”
“Don’t pity me.”
“I’m not.”
“You replaced me with her.”
“No.”
Sophia’s eyes narrowed.
“I grew up. I met Claire. I loved her.”
Sophia flinched.
“You humiliated me.”
“I should have been honest with you sooner.”
“You should have chosen me.”
“No.”
The single word echoed through the empty room.
Sophia raised the gun toward me.
Alexander stepped forward.
“Don’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because none of this is Claire’s fault.”
“She took you.”
“No. I chose her.”
Sophia’s hand shook for the first time.
Then the driver opened the messenger bag.
His expression changed.
“These aren’t the files.”
Sophia looked toward him.
Alexander moved one step closer to me.
The driver pulled out a phone.
“No signal. Something’s wrong.”
Panic flashed across Sophia’s face.
Then another voice came from behind the ballroom curtains.
“Of course something’s wrong.”
A man stepped out.
Not Victor.
One of Victor’s oldest enforcers, Paul Greco.
He looked at Sophia with contempt.
“You were supposed to get the evidence, not hold a reunion.”
Sophia stared at him.
“What are you doing here?”
“Cleaning up.”
Her face changed.
The truth arrived too late.
Victor had never intended to save her.
She was another loose end.
Greco reached inside his jacket.
Alexander shouted, “Claire, down!”
I dropped.
Everything happened at once.
A deafening crack.
Sophia screamed.
Alexander moved toward me.
Another shot.
His body jerked.
He fell to one knee directly in front of me.
For one second, I did not understand.
Then I saw blood spreading across his shirt near his shoulder and chest.
“Alexander!”
He looked at me.
“Stay down.”
Federal agents flooded the room from two entrances.
Greco was tackled before he reached the side door.
The driver dropped to the floor with his hands over his head.
Sophia stood frozen, the gun hanging uselessly at her side.
Mercer shouted for her to drop it.
She did.
I crawled toward Alexander.
Blood covered my hands when I pressed them against his shirt.
“No. No, no, no.”
His face had gone pale.
“Claire.”
“Don’t talk.”
“The baby?”
I started sobbing.
“You were shot and you’re asking about the baby?”
A weak smile touched his mouth.
“Seems important.”
“Alexander, stay awake.”
Agents surrounded us.
A medic knelt beside him.
They tried to move me back.
Alexander caught my wrist.
Not hard.
Never hard.
“Claire.”
“What?”
“If I don’t—”
“Stop.”
“If I don’t get another chance—”
“You will.”
His eyes held mine.
“I’m sorry I left you on that floor.”
My breath broke.
Then the medics pulled him away from me.
Sophia was handcuffed ten feet away.
She watched the blood on my hands.
For the first time since I had known her, she did not look jealous.
She looked horrified.
“I didn’t want this,” she whispered.
I turned toward her.
My whole body shook.
“Neither did I.”
May you like
Then I walked away from her.
For good.
