Chapter 6 - The Choice
Sophia woke with her wrists tied.
She did not scream.
Rosa had apparently passed stubbornness down like an heirloom.
She listened.
Traffic.
A train horn.
Water.
Ferrante entered twenty minutes later.
He wasn't what she'd expected.
No theatrical scars.
No shouting.
A gray-haired man in an expensive coat.
“You look disappointed.”
“I expected someone taller.”
He smiled.
“I understand Moretti's fascination.”
“You kidnapped me for conversation?”
“I kidnapped you because Dante has a weakness.”
“His mother.”
“Two weaknesses now.”
Sophia hated the implication.
Ferrante sat.
“Rosa humiliated my father.”
Understanding hit her.
“The men searching for Elena.”
“My father was one.”
Ferrante's smile disappeared.
“He spent years in prison after Moretti found him.”
“And that's Rosa's fault?”
“She lied.”
“She protected a pregnant woman.”
“She chose a side.”
Sophia leaned back.
“So this isn't business.”
“Everything is business.”
“No. This is a grown man angry because my dead grandmother was braver than his father.”
Ferrante slapped the table.
Sophia flinched but smiled.
“There you are.”
He left furious.
Good.
Angry people made mistakes.
Sophia studied the room.
Old office.
Radiator.
Metal desk.
Her wrists were bound with plastic ties.
Rosa had once shown her a trick using a shoelace.
Sophia had laughed at the time.
Now she pulled one lace free.
It took eleven minutes.
The plastic finally snapped.
She searched the desk.
Phone.
Locked.
Window.
Third floor.
Then she found shipping paperwork.
A company name.
Pier 41 Cold Storage.
She remembered Dante mentioning the Brooklyn waterfront.
Sophia turned on the phone.
Emergency call.
She dialed 911, gave the location and left the line open beneath the desk.
Then she heard footsteps.
She retied the broken restraint loosely around her wrists.
Ferrante returned.
Across Brooklyn, Dante Moretti was becoming the man everyone feared.
Enzo had located the van.
Pier 41.
Dante loaded a pistol.
Elena stood in the doorway.
“Bring her home.”
“I will.”
“And Dante?”
He looked at his mother.
“Do not become your father to save the woman you love.”
His face changed.
Elena continued.
“Your father loved us. Sometimes so much that he turned love into a locked door.”
Dante looked down.
“I bought her debt.”
“Yes.”
“I investigated her.”
“Yes.”
“I doubted her.”
“Yes.”
“Mama, you're terrible at encouragement.”
“Come home alive and I'll lie to you.”
Despite everything, he smiled.
Then left.
At Pier 41, police sirens approached before Dante's convoy did.
Enzo looked surprised.
“Someone called them.”
Dante knew.
“Sophia.”
Inside, Ferrante heard the sirens.
He grabbed Sophia.
“You called them.”
She drove her heel down on his foot.
He cursed.
She ran.
A man blocked the hallway.
Sophia slammed a fire extinguisher into his knee.
He dropped.
She ran again.
A door burst open.
Dante appeared.
Sophia nearly collided with him.
For one second, neither moved.
“You took your time,” she gasped.
Dante pulled her behind him.
“You called the police?”
“Try sounding less surprised.”
Ferrante emerged.
Everything happened quickly.
Enzo's men.
Police entering below.
Ferrante realizing he had nowhere left to go.
Dante could have killed him.
Sophia saw it in his face.
Ferrante saw it too.
“Do it,” Ferrante said.
Dante raised the gun.
Sophia touched his arm.
“No.”
Ferrante laughed.
“She controls you.”
Dante lowered the weapon.
“No.”
He looked at Sophia.
“She reminds me I have a choice.”
Police took Ferrante alive.
Vanessa was arrested two days later for her role in providing confidential information, though investigators established she had not participated in Sophia's kidnapping or the warehouse fire.
Carlo Genovese refused to protect her publicly.
That hurt Vanessa more than prison ever could.
Before she was taken away, Sophia visited her.
Vanessa sat behind glass.
“Why are you here?”
“To understand.”
Vanessa laughed bitterly.
“Did you win?”
“This wasn't a competition.”
“It always was to me.”
Sophia studied her.
“That's why you lost.”
Vanessa's eyes filled.
“My father won't answer my calls.”
Sophia felt sympathy.
Not forgiveness.
They were different things.
“You did terrible things to me.”
“I know.”
“I hope one day you become someone who doesn't need your father's approval badly enough to destroy strangers.”
Vanessa looked away.
Sophia left.
Anthony entered a gambling rehabilitation program.
He didn't ask Sophia to forgive him.
For once, he did something without making her responsible for the outcome.
And Dante?
Dante tried.
For three days.
Then Sophia packed.
He found her suitcase beside the staircase.
His face fell.
“You're leaving.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
She looked around the estate.
“Because I don't know who I am here anymore.”
“Sophia—”
“I care about you.”
He went silent.
“I care about your mother. More than I expected.”
She smiled sadly.
“But you bought my debt before asking what I wanted. You investigated me. You doubted me. You protected me until protection started feeling like permission I needed to live my own life.”
Dante looked down.
“I know.”
“And if I stay now, how do I know I'm choosing you?”
That hurt.
He understood anyway.
Sophia lifted her suitcase.
Dante could have offered money.
A house.
Security.
He could have reminded her the debt still belonged to him.
Instead he opened the front door.
Sophia stopped beside him.
“You're not going to argue?”
“Would it change your mind?”
“No.”
“Then I'd only be proving your point.”
Her eyes filled.
Dante's did too, though he would deny it until death.
“Goodbye, Dante.”
He wanted to say don't go.
He didn't.
“Goodbye, Sophia.”
She walked down the steps.
Elena waited beside the car.
She hugged Sophia fiercely.
“This isn't goodbye.”
“No.”
“You're coming Sunday.”
Sophia laughed through tears.
“I haven't even left.”
“Sunday.”
“Fine.”
Sophia got into the car.
Dante remained at the door.
He watched until the vehicle disappeared.
May you like
For the first time in his life, loving someone meant letting her leave.
And it nearly broke him.
