Sofia's POV

My bare feet made no sound on the cold marble floor as I tiptoed toward the elevator. Three in the morning was the perfect time to escape. Dante would be asleep in the guest room, and the penthouse was finally quiet.

I pressed the elevator button and held my breath. The soft ding seemed as loud as a fire alarm in the darkness.

"Going somewhere?"

I spun around so fast I almost fell over. Dante stood in the shadows by the kitchen, fully dressed like he'd been awake for hours.

"I... I couldn't sleep," I lied. "I wanted some fresh air."

"At three in the morning? Carrying a purse and wearing shoes?"

I looked down at my feet. Stupid. I'd forgotten I'd put on my sneakers.

"The roof has fresh air," Dante said, walking closer. "Twenty floors down has bullets."

"I can't stay locked up here forever!"

"You can if you want to live."

The elevator doors opened behind me. For a second, I thought about making a run for it. But Dante was already too close. He'd catch me before I hit the buttons.

"My life is over anyway," I said, stepping away from the elevator. "What's the point of being alive if I can't actually live?"

"Ask the three people who tried to collect Vincent's bounty on you today."

My heart stopped. "What?"

Dante's green eyes looked darker in the dim light. "You didn't think I'd tell you? A woman at your coffee shop. A man who worked at your gym. Your old professor from college."

Each name hit me like a punch to the stomach. "Professor Williams? But he's... he's a nice old man who teaches art history."

"Was. Past tense."

The room started spinning around me. Professor Williams had always been kind to me. He'd helped me through my hardest classes and written recommendation letters when I graduated.

"You killed him," I whispered.

"He pulled a knife on you outside the museum yesterday. I stopped him before he could use it."

"I don't remember any knife!"

"Because I made sure you didn't see it. That's my job."

I backed away from Dante until I hit the wall. "You're a monster. A heartless, cold-blooded monster."

Something flickered across Dante's face. For just one second, his mask slipped and I saw something that looked like hurt in his eyes. But then it was gone, replaced by that same icy stare.

"Yes," he said quietly. "I am."

"Doesn't it bother you? Killing people?"

"Should it?"

"Yes! Normal people feel bad when they hurt others!"

Dante was quiet for a long moment. When he spoke again, his voice was softer. "Normal people don't have to choose between killing a professor or watching him stab a twenty-four-year-old girl in the heart."

"You could have just stopped him! You didn't have to kill him!"

"And then what? Let him go so he could try again tomorrow? Or the day after that?"

I wanted to argue, but I didn't know what to say. Everything felt wrong and twisted and impossible.

"This is exactly why I can't do this," I said, sliding down the wall until I was sitting on the floor. "I can't live knowing that people die because of me."

Dante crouched down in front of me. "Those people chose to die when they decided your life was worth money."

"But they're still dead."

"And you're still alive."

"What if I don't want to be?"

The words came out before I could stop them. I didn't really mean it, but everything felt so hopeless. My best friend was a spy. My whole life was fake. People were dying because someone wanted me dead.

Dante's face changed completely. The cold mask fell away, and suddenly he looked almost... scared?

"Don't say that," he said firmly. "Don't ever say that."

"Why do you care? I'm just another job to you."

Dante stared at me for a long time. "You're not just a job."

"Then what am I?"

Before Dante could answer, his phone buzzed. He pulled it out and looked at the screen. His face went white as paper.

"What is it?" I asked, getting to my feet.

Dante's hand was shaking as he read the message again. "They found us."

"Who found us? Vincent's men?"

"Worse." Dante grabbed my arm and pulled me toward the stairs. "Much worse."

"What do you mean worse? Who could be worse than Vincent Romano?"

We ran up the stairs two at a time. Dante was moving faster than I'd ever seen him move, like something was chasing us.

"The message," I panted as we reached the next floor. "What did it say?"

Dante didn't answer. He just kept pulling me up more stairs.

"Dante, tell me!"

He stopped so suddenly that I crashed into his back. When he turned around, his face was full of something I'd never seen before. Fear. Real, honest fear.

"It said your mother sends her love," he whispered.

My heart stopped beating. "That's impossible. My mother is dead."

"I know."

"Then who sent that message?"

Dante's phone buzzed again. Another text. His hands shook as he opened it.

This time, he showed me the screen.

The message was simple: "Hello, baby girl. Mommy's coming home."

But it wasn't the words that made my blood turn to ice. It was the photo attached to the message.

A picture of my mother. Not an old picture from before she died. A new picture. Taken today. She was standing outside our building, looking up at our penthouse windows.

And she was smiling.

"That's not possible," I whispered, grabbing Dante's arm. "She's been dead for five years. I went to her funeral. I saw her buried."

"I know."

"Then explain this!"

Dante looked at me with eyes full of secrets and pain. "Sofia, there's something about your mother's death that your father never told you."

"What?"

"She didn't die in that car crash."

The words hit me like lightning. "Yes, she did. I saw the car. It was completely destroyed."

"You saw a car. But your mother wasn't in it."

The hallway started spinning around me. Nothing made sense anymore.

"Where is she then?" I asked.

"That's what I've been trying to figure out for five years."

Dante's phone buzzed a third time. Another message. Another photo.

This one showed my mother walking into the lobby of our building.

"She's here," Dante said, his voice hollow. "She's in the building right now."

"But that's good news, right?" I said, even though something deep in my stomach told me it wasn't. "My mother is alive!"

Dante looked at me with the saddest expression I'd ever seen on anyone's face.

"Sofia," he said quietly, "if your mother is alive, then everything your father told us about Vincent Romano was a lie. And if that's true..."

He didn't finish the sentence, but I understood what he meant.

If my mother was alive, then the biggest threat to my life wasn't Vincent Romano and his bounty hunters.

It was the woman who gave birth to me.