22. Sofia

22

SOFIA

I smooth my dress and take a deep breath before entering Dad’s study. The familiar scent of leather and cigars fills my nose as I find him behind his massive mahogany desk.

“Daddy, I need to talk to you about the wedding.”

He looks up from his paperwork, steel gray eyes fixing on mine. “What about it?”

“I can’t marry Paulie.” My voice cracks. “I’m not happy with him. He’s cruel and controlling, and I deserve better.”

Dad’s jaw tightens. “This isn’t about happiness, Sofia. It’s about family, about business. The wedding goes ahead as planned.”

Tears spill down my cheeks. “But I don’t love him! I... I have feelings for someone else.”

“What did you just say?” His voice drops dangerously low.

I wrap my arms around myself, shoulders shaking. “There’s someone else. ”

“Who?” When I hesitate, he slams his palm on the desk. “Tell me who!”

“Tyson,” I whisper. “The carnival ringmaster.”

Dad’s face turns purple with rage. He stands so fast that his chair crashes against the wall. “A carnival worker? Have you lost your mind? You’re a Moretti! You’re better than some piece of carnie trash!”

“He’s not trash! He’s kind and makes me feel?—”

“Enough!” Dad roars. “No daughter of mine will throw away everything for some circus freak. You will marry Paulie, and that’s final.” He stands and moves toward me, eyes ablaze with fury.

I stumble back from Dad’s desk, my vision blurred by tears. All these years, I thought he actually cared about my happiness. Every time he bought me presents, every moment he seemed proud of my achievements - was it all just because I was his perfect little puppet?

My throat tightens as memories flash through my mind of him teaching me to ride a bike. Holding my hand at Mom’s funeral. Cheering the loudest at my dance recitals. How could that same man now look at me with such cold, calculating eyes?

“I’m your daughter,” I choke out. “Doesn’t that mean anything?”

“It means everything.” His voice cuts like ice. “Which is exactly why you’ll do as you’re told. The Moretti name comes with responsibilities.”

The weight of his words crushes my chest. I wrap my arms around myself, trying to hold the pieces together as my world crumbles. All those times I defended him to others, insisted he was different from other mob bosses because he loved his family first - I was just fooling myself.

“I thought...” My voice breaks. “I thought you wanted me to be happy.”

“Happiness?” He scoffs. “You think your mother was happy when we first married? She learned to be content, just like you will.”

That strikes deep. Mom always told me to follow my heart to never settle. Now I wonder if those private conversations were her way of trying to save me from her own fate.

Tears blur my vision as Dad’s words about Mom cut deep. The familiar ache in my chest returns - the same hollow feeling I’ve carried since that rainy Tuesday morning when I found her twelve years ago.

Mom had always struggled with depression, but none of us saw the signs getting worse. She hid her pain behind perfect makeup and designer clothes, just like Dad wanted. The perfect mob wife on the outside. But inside, she was drowning.

I was twelve when I discovered her in the master bathroom, empty pill bottles scattered across the marble counter. Her final note read: “I’m sorry I wasn’t strong enough. Be braver than me, my sweet girl.”

Dad never spoke about it. He packed away her photos and donated her clothes and expected me to bounce back just as quickly. He’d send the housekeeper to check on me when I cried myself to sleep at night instead of coming himself. His solution was to shower me with expensive gifts—as if diamonds could fill the void Mom left behind.

“Your mother understood duty,” Dad continues now, his words reopening old wounds. “She knew what it meant to be a Moretti.”

My hands clench into fists. “Mom killed herself because of that ‘duty.’ Because you forced her to be someone she wasn’t, just like you’re doing to me.”

The truth I’ve never dared speak hangs heavy between us. Mom’s death shaped everything—my relationship with Dad, my fears about marriage, my desperate need for genuine connection. She taught me through her absence that living a lie slowly kills your soul.

I touch the delicate gold locket around my neck—the last birthday gift she gave me. Inside is a tiny photo of us laughing together at the beach, back when her smile still reached her eyes before Dad’s world of control and appearances consumed her entirely.

“I won’t end up like Mom,” I whisper, more to myself than to him. “I won’t let this life destroy me too.”

Something flickers in his eyes for a moment—pain, regret maybe—but it’s gone so fast I might have imagined it. The mask of the mob boss slides back into place, and my daddy disappears completely.

He grabs my arm forcefully. “This foolishness ends here.”

“I won’t marry him!” I try to wrench my arm away from Dad’s grip. “You can’t force me!”

“The hell I can’t.” Dad grabs me again, his fingers digging into my flesh. “I’ve given you everything. This is how you repay me?”

“By being honest?” I try to pull away again. “By telling you what I want?”

“What you want?” He laughs humourlessly. “You’re my daughter. Everything you are belongs to me.”

“No!” I slam my fist against his chest. “I’m not your property!”

Dad drags me across the study, my heels scraping against the hardwood floor. I fight him every step down the hallway to my childhood bedroom, but his grip is iron. Once we reach the door, he grabs my cell phone from my jeans pocket and pushes me inside.

“You’ll stay here until you remember who you are. Until you come to your senses.”

I rush for the door, but he slams it shut. The lock clicks.

“Daddy, please!” I pound my fists against the wood. “Don’t do this!”

He ignores my pleas. Through my tears, I hear him pull out his phone and dial.

“Paulie? Yeah, we’ve got a problem.” Dad’s voice carries through the door. “That carnival trash has been sniffing around my daughter and your fiancée... Yeah, the ringmaster... Tyson.”

“No!” I slam harder against the door. “Daddy, stop!”

“Handle it,” Dad continues. “Make him disappear. Permanently.”

I slide down the door, my sobs wracking my body. “Please don’t hurt him! Please! ”

“Keep it clean,” Dad says into the phone. “No traces.”

My screams echo through the room as I hear Dad’s footsteps fade away down the hall, leaving me locked in my gilded prison. At the same time, he orders the death of the only man who’s ever made me feel truly alive.