Page 14 of Deceit
An annoying, shrill noise registered in my brain, and it took a few seconds torealize my phone was ringing beside me on the couch. Pushing the nightmare to the back of my mind to join the rest of the nightmares I’d been plagued with since Theo’s death, I grabbed my phone before it could ring off. “Yeah?”
“Mr. Wolfe,”the familiar voice said.“I’m sorry to disturb you, but I thoughtyou would want to knowthatMs. Bianchi messaged a few minutes ago. She’s on her way to the bar.”
I scrubbed a hand down my face.
Fuck sake.
Fucking Sofia.
The brat gave zero fucks about the risk she was putting herself in. Granted,she didn’t know about the recent threat to her life from the Mexican cartel after her father and brother insisted it was in her interest to keep her in the dark. But still. She was a mafia princess; she should haveknownthatsneaking out withjustone bodyguard was a stupid fucking risk.
And yet, she continued to do it.
Whatever Sofia wanted, Sofia got.
“Thanks for letting me know. Keep my booth free,”I grumbled, standingfrom the couch and heading to my bedroom to throw on some clothes, no part of me hesitatingthatI shouldn’t go.
Once I was dressed, I fired a quick message to Jane, who was no doubtasleep, letting her know I was headed out in case Angel woke up and I wasn’t home.
My cousin, Kai, and his wife, Riley, were away on their belated honeymoonin the Maldives, and had left Angel, Riley’s Deaf little sister, under mine and Jane’s watchful eyes. Jane was Angel’s nanny— notthatwe were allowed to call Janethatanymore, according to Angel, she was too old, and too cool for a nanny.
I didn’t particularly like the idea of leaving Jane and Angel at home alone,but the house was manned twenty-four-seven by guards, all of whom were armed to the hilt and would lay down their lives to protect the Wolfe family.
Sofia only had one guard to watch over her selfish ass.
Thatwould change as soon as she became a Wolfe. For reasons I wouldneverunderstand, her father, Georgio, had refused my offer to provide our men as additional protection for Sofia, claiming his men were more than capable of protecting her.
Call me cynical, but these were the same men who had allowed our enemy tolaunch a full-scale attack on the Bianchi property, resulting in both Riley and Sofia being kidnapped. Sincethen, I had a few issues trusting them to do their jobs properly.
The drive to Bar Forty-Four wasjustacross the border in the city of ForestPoint. Thanks to our impending nuptials, I could freely cross into the city without worrying about getting a bullet in my head. In times gone by, Wolfes didn’t dare cross into Forest Point territory, and Bianchis wouldn’t dream about setting foot into Hollows Bay.
How times had changed. I was certainthatif our great-grandfathers—theidiotsthatstarted the war between the two families decades ago—got windthata truce had been made, and a Wolfe was marrying a Bianchi, they’d be turning in their graves.
As I negotiated the country roads, I kept one eye on the in-car computerscreen fitted into my dashboard. The screen showed a little dot moving closer to the bar; the dot representing the tracker I had installed on her bodyguard car a while back. It showedjusthow seriously Gus took Sofia’s safety. The fucking moron had never checked the car for trackers or bombs; if he had, he would have found it.
Aside from the tracker in the car primarily used to take Sofia places, I’dcloned her phone, her laptop, and hacked into the security camerasthatcovered the Bianchi mansion so I could keep tabs on her.
I had turned into a goddamn stalker, bordering psychopath.
Ifthatwasn’t bad enough, I’d also developed a nasty little habit of followingher from a distance while monitoring radio comms between her Gus, and the rest of the Bianchi guards, reassuring myselfthatif anything happened to her, I’d only be seconds away.
Since the day she’d been kidnapped and held hostage in Kai’s basement, I had become obsessed with making sure no one could hurt her. Whether it was because I failed to protect Theo when he needed me, or because the look of utter terror on her face when I found her in the basement was ingrained in my brain, I didn’t know.
It didn’t matter.
I couldn’t stop myself from monitoring her every move.
But for the last few days, she’d obeyed Georgio’s orders and had stayed athome while he and Rafe went away for whatever business they had to deal with in New York. I stupidly thought she’d obey him until he returned, but shejustcouldn’t help herself.
As the dot on the screen moved closer to Bar Forty-Four, I pressed my footto the gas, my car speeding up as I made up the distance between us. When her car pulled into the parking lot for the bar, I was only a few minutes behind.
Firing a text to the manager, Paul, I headed to a side doorthatwould allowme to sneak into my reserved booth with minimal eyes on me. When I first found out Sofia was a regular at the bar, I paid Paul a hefty sum to keep my identity a secret, and to make sure no one else sat atthatbooth whenever Sofia sang.
The booth was perfect, hidden in the shadows where I could keep one eye on Sofia and one eye on her surroundings, unlike her useless bodyguard, who was usually too busy glued to his phone.
Itseemedlike I’d made itjustin time; as I slid into the seat, my face hiddenby the shadows, the last singer strolled off the stage to claps from the audience. The band—made up of a drummer, guitarist, and keyboard player—shuffled papers in front of them, and a few seconds later, the next singer walked on.
Sofia.
