20. Sophia

20

SOPHIA

W hen I see Bates attempt to stop Theo from leaving a second time, I'm up on my feet and headed to the door before a prospect appears out of nowhere and blocks me. Only, he grabs my arm, knocking me off-balance. I stumble and jar my hip into the corner of the table, which sends pain shooting down my leg before I fall to the floor.

When the door to church opens, Theo sees me on the ground and storms over to me.

"What the hell happened?" he says.

"It was an accident," the prospect says. "When Bates and Spark stopped you leaving, she tried to get to you."

Theo cocks his fist by his shoulder, then sends the prospect flying to the ground with a single punch. His head hits the wood floor with a thud.

"You ever touch my fucking wife again, I'll kill you. Get the fuck out of here." He turns to me. The speed with which he morphs from feral to caring is staggering. "You okay, Sparrow?"

He reaches for me and assists me to my feet, not letting go until he knows I've found my center of gravity again. I hate that people are watching me. I wish they'd all turn away and pretend they were doing something else.

"Just caught me off guard is all." I minimize how I'm feeling because I can see how concerned Theo is. "I can't seem to rebalance myself when I take a knock. Are you okay?" I look over to where some of the brotherhood are watching us.

"You and I are going to talk to your…family, and then…I don't know. Maybe we're leaving."

I hear the edge to his voice, the struggle for words. "They didn't vote in our favor?"

He glances back at the brothers who are standing behind him. "They did. But it shouldn't have been so fucking hard to convince them to have our back."

I look at my husband, at all the beautiful wedding decorations, and feel…hurt.

I can't explain why I feel so happy being married to a near stranger, but I wish the world could see that I am. Including my family outside and Theo's family in the clubhouse.

"We can figure it out together. But I'll go where you go."

He cups my cheeks. "You sure?"

I nod. "Are we safe?"

Theo turns to Niro. "Are the gates locked?"

Niro nods.

"Yes, we're secure. Unless they shoot at us, but let's face it, it's you they want back."

He takes my hand and leads me to the door, but I stop and turn to the rest of the club. "I don't deserve your help. You're right. You don't know who I am. But Theo deserves better than whatever this is. You should be ashamed that when one of your brothers needed you, when he asked you for your help, you held a contentious vote."

"Sparrow," Theo says.

I look up at him. "It's true. I don't need to know everything you did in the last ten years to know that you'll have done whatever was required for the club. You've done the same for me and you barely know me."

The expression on his face softens. "Sweet that you'd defend me in a clubhouse full of bikers. But I don't need you to speak for me."

I smile up at him. "I know you don't. But I'm going to do it anyway."

He smiles at that. "Want to introduce me to your dad?"

I blow out a breath. "Not really."

He brushes his thumb along my cheek, then kisses me. "You and me against the world, Sparrow," he whispers.

In return, I nod and squeeze his fingers.

The club falls in behind us, but even without them, I'd feel capable of addressing my family with Theo by my side.

Wind whips leaves up as we step into the lot. My father stands by the gate, wrapped in a long, opened overcoat and an immaculate pinstripe suit. I have no childhood memories to fall back on. Only my opinions of him since I first gained consciousness to a larger-than-life stranger at the side of my bed. He'd seemed kind. But now all I see is hardened features and mean narrowed eyes that don't hold an ounce of compassion.

Alessio stands to his right, his dark curls lifting in the breeze. While his arms remain by his sides, he lifts his palm gently, as if he is warning me to tread softly. Leo and Luca stand to Papà's left. Leo bounces on his toes while Luca stands still as a statue.

"Papà," I say. "There's no reason to be here."

But my father doesn't even address me. He looks past me and Theo.

"I want my daughter back, King," he says.

"Papà. I'm right here. And I'm not coming with you." But I might as well be invisible for all the attention he pays me.

King crosses his arms but looks utterly unruffled. "And we're not in the mood to be handing her over to you so you can traffic her to marry some old mobster back in the old country."

"What happens to my family has nothing to do with you." He passes a piece of paper through the locked gates of the compound. King steps forward and takes it. He reads it, then hands it to me.

The words begin to blur with tears, but before it becomes too hard to read, I catch words like conservator agreement . Legal guardian . Unable to make decisions . Brain damage .

"They can't make me go with them, can they?" I ask Theo.

"We'll figure it out." But Theo doesn't look at me as he speaks. His gaze remains focused on Luca and Leo.

"You expect that letter to mean anything to me?" King says.

"It means my daughter is incapable of making decisions for herself. It means your man has taken advantage of a woman, my daughter, because she can't make good choices. You hand her over, and we'll leave here and consider this situation resolved."

King laughs. "Pretty sure the earbashing she just gave us suggests she's more than capable of making decisions for herself, right, Sophia?"

I step forward, fighting the tears that threaten. "I know everything."

"You know nothing," my father shouts.

"Don't do this. I'm happy with Theo. I know what you planned. I overheard Leo and Luca talking about it. Was I ever more than an asset to be traded?"

Leo curses.

Luca says nothing.

A muscle in my father's jaw twitches.

"I wasn't alone when I overheard them either. There were other witnesses. Everyone in this clubhouse knows."

At this, my father casts a sideways glance at Leo, who blanches. I guess the power my father has is happily exerted against his own sons too.

Suddenly, his mood shifts. "You're talking about things you don't understand yet, Puparu . This is not how Viscusos do things. In front of strangers. Enemies. Just come home with us, and we can talk about this."

I hate the soft tone to his voice, as if I'm a child throwing a tantrum who can be placated with an ice cream.

"That sounds like an admission," I say. "And, no, I'm not coming home."

"You forget who we are, Sophia. I can have a warrant to search this clubhouse and rescue you within the hour. I'll have a witness statement from your doctor at the center saying you are mentally unstable within the same. That this man kidnapped you under pretenses to gain leverage over my family. You're vulnerable. Not thinking straight."

"You can't do that," I shout. "It's not…"

Fair.

The word hits me hard. Nothing about this has ever been fair. I'm permanently injured, for life. "Do you know more of what happened the day I crashed than you are saying?" I ask him.

"No one knows anything," he replies.

I look into the face I had come to trust and love in my own way. I see no evidence that he is lying, but there is so much I've missed. "I don't think I can trust you."

"Yet you trust him? A biker?"

I look up to Theo, and a very real truth settles in my gut. "I do. And I'll fight everything you try to do to take me away from here."

"You ready to let me step in?" Theo asks.

I nod, grateful that he gave me the opportunity to speak with them first.

"Anything else you need to say to my wife will be said through me," Theo says. "First, if you think for a second everything you just threatened to do wasn't recorded by one of our cameras, you're a fool. Go get your judge, and we'll hand over the tape. Second, in the hour it takes you to get the warrant, we'll get the conservatorship destroyed. You think you got contacts? Well, I swear to God, ours go deeper. And third, you step foot on our land, we'll defend it."

Niro and Catalina step in front of me, their hands on the weapons in their holsters, and I'm eternally grateful. I guess up until this moment, I always felt there had been the tiniest sliver of a window for there to have been a mistake or misunderstanding.

But no.

I don't have a family. I'll face a legal battle to try to reclaim what was mine. And I have no support system in place…for life or for ongoing medical treatment.

Hell, I don't even know if I have any kind of medical coverage. I know Theo said he has lots of money, but I can't bring myself to ask for any of it. He saved me. He shouldn't have to fund me too.

I thought I felt lost when I first woke up in the hospital and couldn't remember any facet of my identity. Then, as friends began to extricate themselves from my life, I thought that was as alone as I was going to feel.

But in this moment, I know this is the bottom.

I've never felt more alone.

And yet…

Maybe this is where I meet myself. Maybe this was what Niro was talking about.

"Soph." It's Alessio; he's left my father's side. While the bikers are focused on my father, Alessio is focused on me.

I go to walk toward him, but Niro puts his hand out to stop me. "Don't go too close, sweetheart."

"What?" I ask my brother.

"You would have wanted this," he says. "I knew you better than anyone else in this family. You knew this was your destiny. You embraced it. You felt pride that you could do something for the family like this. I don't know why you got in the car, but it wasn't because of the prospect of marriage."

His words seem sincere. "I find it hard to accept that."

He runs his hand over his jaw. "I'm sure you do. Just as I find it hard to accept that you really want this. It's going to come back to you in a flood of memories why you shouldn't be here. And when it does, I want you to call me. I'll come get you."

"So you can get me on an airplane to Sicily?"

"When it comes back to you, you'll want to go."

I look over to Theo, who is calmly watching my father rant about getting me back, about lawyering up, about suing the Outlaws.

"I doubt it," I reply.

"It was something else that made you run that day. You never ran, Sophia. Not once. Not even when our enemies broke into our house. You always fought. You were as ruthless as the rest of us. More accurate an aim than any of our brothers. Whatever you learned that day scared you enough to flee. It must have been serious. And I'm determined to find out what it is for the sake of our family."

I shake my head. "I have no answers for you. But this isn't the way you get them. And assuming everything you say is true… Who's to say that what I heard wasn't connected to the wedding? Who I was marrying?"

He glances in the direction of our father, then lowers his voice to a whisper. "I know it wasn't. You said something to me that morning. Call me, Soph. There's more I have to tell you that Papà doesn't?—"

"Back the fuck away from the gate," Theo says as he comes to stand by my side. He's staring my brother down, but I put my palm to his chest.

"It's okay, Switch," I say. "I'm done here."

He looks down at me. "Switch, huh?"

"I think the circumstance calls for it. I want to go back inside. Alessio, if you really care for me, you need to persuade Papà to drop this. To leave me alone and let me heal. Accept I'm married. Otherwise, you don't really care for me at all."

We turn to walk back inside, but my brother's voice echoes through the lot. "Think about what I said, Sophia. You know I'm right."