35. Sophia

35

SOPHIA

A lessio was right.

And with Vex's help, I found the most recent files I was looking at on my laptop before the accident. Which seem to show that for every contract my father had with his business partners, he skimmed fifteen percent off the top.

And there is an account, registered in Switzerland, in his name. There are photographs of a laptop screen and papers on a desk that I recognize as Papà's office from my visits to their home.

They were uploaded to the cloud some time on the Sunday before my accident.

Did I stumble across them, or had I gone snooping around his house for evidence? I'm not sure I'll ever know, but the ends are the same.

"Fuck," Theo mutters as he looks over my shoulder. I'm seated at the small table in his room at the clubhouse. I realize it's late, and I'm exhausted.

"That's one way of saying it," I reply.

"Your father knew." Theo's statement is undeniable.

"It makes sense, doesn't it? I mean, from the date stamp, it looks like these photographs were uploaded to the cloud the weekend before my accident." I lean back in my chair. "When I spoke to Alessio the night he gave you the key to my stuff, he told me how I called him the day of the accident. That I'd been working on something that was confusing me. Something to do with spreadsheets and numbers. It must have been this."

I reach for my phone and message Alessio.

Me: Ale, were we at our parents' house the Sunday before my accident?

Ale: Should I be worried why you're messaging me at two in the morning about it?

Me: Just answer the question.

Ale: Yeah. Lunch after mass. What's going on, Sophia?

Me: I think I've found what made me run.

My phone rings, and I don't need to look at it to know it's Alessio.

"Do I answer it?" I ask Theo.

"We're safe here in the clubhouse, so yes."

I answer the phone but put it on speaker so Theo can hear. "Alessio."

"You can't trust phone lines. They aren't secure."

"I found something though."

"Come see me tomorrow. I'll send you my address."

"No," Theo says. "Neutral ground. I'll send you the location. And you come alone."

"That's one hell of a guard dog you got, Puparu," Alessio says.

Theo grins at that. "I've been called worse, pizza boy. Send Sophia the time and I'll send you the place."

Alessio ends the call.

"Pizza boy?" I ask.

"Meh. Not my best insult. Niro would have done better. It was pizza or pasta. Urgh, I should have gone with ‘dough boy.' And I'm proud of you, piecing all of this together." Theo pushes a lock of hair behind my ear. "Beauty and brains. Mighty powerful combination, Sparrow."

Despite the situation, I melt a little at his words. "I feel like someone hit the beauty and brains with a dimmer switch of late, but I'll take the compliment."

Theo kisses me. "Take it. I mean it. You're still badass. I'll need to take this to my club in the morning though. Tell ‘em what we're doing. What we know. Since the vote, they've done nothing but support us. I'll fire a message to King to bring him up to speed, so he knows."

I think about what Theo is saying. "Can we talk to Alessio first? Make more sense of it all?"

"It's the talking to Alessio I'm nervous about. Not as much as I was, given this really incriminates your dad. But I'm smart enough to know that a guy who bragged about having drone cover is most definitely not going to show up tomorrow alone. It would be foolish to attempt to handle this on our own when we can have backup."

I shut down the laptop and tap the lid. "I suppose it would be foolish to take this with us too."

Theo nods. "We can ask Vex to make a copy of the drive. Maybe a virtual one and we give Alessio the link. Or put the data on a portable device or whatever."

I want to push back, but I can't identify why. Maybe it's because there's a deep-down part of me that knows I'm a Viscuso and I know the old me wouldn't have wanted an outlaw motorcycle club to know our business.

But I'm also now a Reavis. Theo's wife. Catalina's aspirational partner-in-crime to reform the club. I'm a friend to the old ladies.

"Okay. Let's talk to the club in the morning." I let out a sigh.

Theo rubs circles on my back. "You okay?"

"In a way, I'm relieved."

He crouches next to my chair. "In what way?"

"When I thought this was about the arranged marriage, it felt like my whole family thought so little of me. That I was an asset to be used and traded. But I think I understand why I might have been okay with it in the context of who I used to be. If I thought Papà was stealing money, being married to the godfather's son would have given the family some stability after Papà was found out. It feels like a balance sheet I would have been okay with."

Theo raises his eyebrow. "An arranged marriage is looking more appealing to you now?"

"God, no," I say, wrinkling my nose. "But it feels better to know I might have been okay with it than thinking my entire family was willing to hand me over like a sacrificial goat. And knowing the accident was most likely caused by me trying to escape my father than the clutches of strangers makes more sense too. It means my brothers weren't complicit. At least, not all of them."

"Leo and Luca have a lot to answer for." Theo takes my hand and helps me stand before pulling me close.

The scent of him, his comforting warmth and reassuring strength settle me. "But even then, they were doing what my father told them, operating on twenty percent of the story. And I find myself trusting Alessio."

Theo rubs his hands up and down my back. "I don't know that Alessio and I will ever be the best of friends, but my trust in him is growing too. We need to get some rest. You've been working all day and look exhausted."

"Oh no. We didn't get our day," I say. "I'm so sorry."

Theo drags his lips along the side of my neck. "There will be lots of other days."

"But we talked about playing with the pinwheel we were going to buy." I tilt my neck to give him more access.

I was intrigued by the Wartenberg pinwheel with its little spikes that looked like a cross between a pastry chef tool and a medieval torture implement. Theo was excited by thoughts of how it would feel pressed into his skin.

"That was fourteen hours ago, before all this came to light, and you stared at your laptop screen without a break."

"I ate the food you brought."

He smiles, his eyes so incredibly kind. "Because I forced you. You have quite the degree of focus."

"I was looking forward to focusing on your back with that wheel."

Theo kisses me soundly. "And I look forward to that at a time when I'm not worried about you falling asleep standing up. We'll get a pinwheel eventually. And it might do me good to have to wait for it."

"That sounds a little like you are dominating yourself."

He kisses the tip of my nose. "I've stopped trying to put a label on it. Just putting it all under the heading of Shit that Makes Me Feel Good."

"Well, for the record, you always make me feel good."

Theo slips his hand around the back of my neck and grabs a fistful of hair firmly. "I know. Which is why you're going to get naked while I send Alessio the details of the meet-up point. Go get ready for bed. We'll sleep here at the clubhouse tonight."

I do as he says. "Be nice."

"Can I have a little bit of fun with him first?"

"No," I say. As I reach the door to the bathroom, I pause and turn. "We're not really a fake husband and wife anymore, are we?"

Theo grins. "No, Sparrow. We're not."

When I re-emerge, the text must have been sent as Theo is stripping his clothes.

I tug the sheets back and climb beneath them. "Do you remember when we slept here the first night? We barely knew each other."

Theo slips beneath the covers and rolls me onto my side before pulling me close. "We've come a long way."

"It's been fun getting to know you."

His hands roam my skin, the callouses on his palms tickling me. "You feel like letting me get to know you some more?" he asks.

His breath whispers across my ear, making me shiver. "Is that a euphemism for sex?"

Theo chuckles behind me. "If I need to speak more plainly, I'd really like to fuck you so we both sleep well."

I tilt my head, giving him room to plant more delicious kisses along my neck. "In that case, yes, please."

His hand dips between my legs. At first, he simply cups my pussy while he kisses and gently bites along my shoulder. I can't help but roll my hips against his palm. It feels so good.

It feels even better a moment later when he slides one of his fingers into me, then drags the wet digit out over my clit, before repeating the action all over again.

Theo rubs his cock along the crease of my ass. He's hard. Thick and heavy.

I reach behind me and scratch my nails over his hip. His gasp of breath tells me he likes it. Theo grabs my wrist and forces my nails harder into his skin. His cock twitches between us.

Creating an urgency, a need in someone else is heady. That this strong biker forgets himself when pleasure and pain combine at my hands amazes me. And for reasons I don't understand, I enjoy it. Not because I enjoy hurting him, but because he does.

"Soph." He grunts as I follow his lead and dig in harder.

Theo slips another finger inside me, pushing them in up to his knuckles. I visualize his tattooed fingers sliding deep inside me.

Suddenly, he removes his fingers, and my back is cool for a moment as I hear the bedside table drawer open then slam shut. There's a moment while he puts the condom on, then his palm strokes over my ass before slapping it.

"I really need to fuck you, Soph."

He pushes me onto my front, then slides two pillows from the bed beneath my hips. On instinct, I open my legs, and it takes less than a second for Theo to ruthlessly enter me.

"Fuck," he cries out as I moan. "This okay?"

I mentally check my body. My hips are supported by the pillow. It feels a little strange being face down in the mattress this way. But my clit aches with a fury that only Theo can ease.

"Yes," I gasp.

Theo grips my hips and begins to pump furiously into me. My whole body vibrates with need. It's overwhelming, borderline too much.

Not pain, but the all-consuming need for release.

Theo lowers himself down, his chest brushing my back. He kisses my neck, then bites my earlobe gently. I catch sight of him in the mirror above the desk, his hips hammering into me. There are long, red scratches along his hip and thigh. And I can't explain what seeing him like this does to me.

Seeing just how much he wants me.

How much he wants what we are when we come together like this.

His hands find mine and grip them over my head.

I can't respond. He has me pinned down in every way that matters.

My orgasm slams into me, blinding me for a moment with flashes of light and a pure out of body pleasure that I can't begin to describe.

"Theo," I cry out as I come harder than I thought possible.

"Fuck, yeah, Soph," he says. "I feel it. I fucking feel it."

"Then come for me, Theo. I want to hear you come too."

"Soph," he barks as he loses his rhythm. I feel his cock twitch inside me as he does. His strokes shudder then slow. "Jesus. Every time it just gets better."

I agree. "It does. I hope it always feels like this."

Theo gently reaches between us and pulls out of me. Before he deals with the condom, he helps me lift my hips and removes the pillows. When I roll onto my back, he kisses me softly.

"I didn't hurt you, did I?" he asks.

I shake my head. "No. Far from it. Did I hurt you? I mean, more than you wanted?"

Theo smiles. "Definitely not. I don't think you could ever hurt me, Soph."

And I hold on to that eight hours later when we meet Theo's club brothers in the large room he refers to as church.

Bizarrely, it's not that I feel bad about what we're going to tell them. Theo told me it makes me interesting that things like this don't turn me into a quivering wreck. Instead, I pull my shoulders back, take a deep breath, and hold Theo's hand as we enter the room.

"You causing mischief again, sweetheart?" Niro asks as Theo pulls out his chair for me to sit on.

"If we keep having old ladies coming in here to explain why their presence is causing chaos, we're going to have to get a spare chair for this fucking table," King says, winking at me.

Clutch chuckles. "Life would be boring without them."

Theo stands behind me, his hand on my shoulder. "Tell ‘em, Sparrow."

"Thanks to Vex, we were able to find evidence on my phone and laptop that suggests I was trying to evade my father when my accident happened. That I'd found evidence at my father's home. I called my brother that morning to say I was up to my neck in figuring something out."

"Why are you telling us all this?" Clutch asks.

Theo squeezes my shoulder. "We're meeting with one of her brothers this morning to hand over the information."

Spark leans forward. "Why are we handing it over? Feels like we should let the Cosa Nostra tear themselves apart."

"You don't have to be a Mafia expert to know what happens when a family is suspected of stealing from the famiglia . I can't let all my brothers, and by extension, me, go down for something they aren't involved in. If I give this to Alessio, he can clean house. I had faith in him, before, when I remembered."

Bates rubs his hand over his chin. "So, you're saying, if we ignore this, and some mob boss finds out, that they might come for you seeing you were part of their organization, and by association force our hand to look out for you?"

I shake my head. "I don't know exactly what I'm saying. I may be spinning conspiracy theories. But I do know my father intended to make it look like his thefts were my fault. And I need to get ahead of that by giving this proof to my brother."

King looks to Theo. "What's your take on all this?"

"If you park club business, I think Alessio is good on his word. And I'd rather nip Cosa Nostra business in the bud before it comes for my wife."

"So, what do you need from us, Switch?" Halo asks.

"Don't fancy heading uptown to meet Alessio without backup. I told him to come alone, but we all know the chances of that happening are slim. And while I believe he isn't gonna fuck with Soph, I'd like backup to make sure it doesn't happen."

"How do we explain this to the Irish?" Saint asks.

King's brow furrows. "We don't. Cillian fucked us over." He glances in my direction. "And this isn't the time nor place to discuss it. We go because Switch asked for our help. We are going solely with the goal of getting Switch and Sophia there and back in one piece. I do not want a war with the Sicilians, but I'm inclined to believe Sophia and Switch that Alessio is trustworthy. All in favor?"

I blow out a breath of relief when all the hands rise without discussion.

"Gimme the address," Halo says. "I'll set the route."

"Catalina's gonna be pissed she can't ride with us," Niro says. "But I'm in the mood for evening the score."

"Killing is a last resort," King says.

Niro huffs. "Well, you're no fun."

"We need pictures of your family if you have any. I want to know who all the key players are. Your brothers, your parents, any members of the crews you might be aware of," Spark says.

"I only have my family, and you've met them already, but I can happily show you photographs as a refresher," I say. "In hindsight, I think my father wanted to keep me far away from the family business because he knew I knew, and he didn't want me to do anything to jog my memory. But if I could ask one thing? Don't hurt my brothers."

King stands. "That will depend on whether they try to hurt you or us. If they succeed, I'll kill them myself."