Page 133 of Auctioned Innocence
The fear in my voice surprises even me. After years of controlling every emotion, every reaction, the thought of losing Sofia strips away all my careful defenses.
“You won’t.” She kisses me hard. “But I need you to trust me. To let me fight beside you, not behind you.”
“Sofia—” I plead, unable to stomach the thought of losing her. Not when I just got her. Not when I’ve finally found something worth fighting for beyond duty and obligation.
“Choose, Dante.” Her eyes are fierce, blazing with purpose and fury. “Choose to let me be your partner, not your weakness. Choose to believe in what we’ve built together. Choose to trust that I’m strong enough to stand with you.”
More crashes below. We’re out of time.
I look at her—my warrior, my heart, the woman who transformed me into something better than I ever thought I could be.
“Lead the way,” I say finally.
Her smile is brilliant, dangerous. “Nowyou’re learning.”
28
SOFIA
The crashes downstairs make my blood run cold—until I hear Marco’s irritated voice cutting through the chaos.
“What the fucking hell are you idiots doing down there? This is supposed to be a covert operation!”
Oh thankGod. Marco’s men, not Lorenzo’s. I lower my weapon just as Marco appears in the doorway, only to freeze when he finds himself staring down the barrel of my Glock.
“Really, Sofia?” he says dryly. “I was gone for twenty minutes.”
“Sorry.” I holster the gun, but don’t look apologetic. “Your men sound like a herd of elephants. I thought we were under attack.”
“Trust me, if my men were half as competent as elephants, I’d be thrilled.” He shakes his head in exasperation. “Tony just knocked over an entire fucking shelf of paint cans trying to clear the building. Subtlety is not his strong suit.”
“Clearly runs in the family,” I counter.
Marco’s expression turns serious as he takes in the scene—our weapons ready, the research we’ve been doing in hisabsence. “We need to move. Lorenzo’s escalating faster than we anticipated.”
“Where to?” I ask, grabbing our packed gear.
“The estate. There’s a hidden command center beneath the main house—a war room Dad built during the territorial disputes in the ‘90s.” Marco’s expression is stern as he checks his weapons. “If we’re going to coordinate a real counterattack, we need proper resources.”
The drive through the city is tense, multiple route changes and counter-surveillance protocols that speak to just how dangerous our situation has become. We switch vehicles twice, use service tunnels that most family members don’t even know exist, and employ electronic countermeasures that would make the CIA jealous.
But we make it to the estate without incident, slipping through maintenance passages that even Lorenzo doesn’t know about—access points Dad built during construction that never made it onto any official blueprints.
The hidden command center takes my breath away.
I’ve lived in this house my entire life, walked past the innocent-looking utility room door thousands of times, never knowing it concealed an elevator that descends three stories underground. The facility that opens before us is something out of a spy thriller—banks of monitors displaying feeds from across the city, secure communication arrays that can reach anywhere in the world, and enough firepower to outfit a small army.
“Jesus,” I breathe, taking in the scope of it. “How long has this been here?”
“Since before you were born,” Marco says, moving to the central command station with the familiarity of someone who’s spent considerable time here. “Dad started building it during the Torrino war, finished it when the Russian families moved into our territory in ‘98.”
The main screen displays a map of New York with blinking lights indicating family assets, allied positions, and potential threats. Smaller monitors show real-time feeds from our various properties, while communication consoles crackle with updates from field teams.
This isn’t just a safe house—it’s the nerve center of the Renaldi empire. The place where the real decisions get made, where wars are planned and won. And I’ve never seen it before because no one thought the princess needed to know about the ugly realities of how our family maintains power.
Looking at it now, I realize how much of our actual operations I’ve been sheltered from. The security briefings I attended were just the sanitized version. This is where therealbusiness happens.
“What’s going on,” Marco demands as soon as we’re operational, his voice carrying the authority of someone completely in his element.
