SOFIA POV
Morning comes grey and cold.
Sofia wakes having slept four hours and dreamed things she can't remember but that left her tense in her shoulders. She showers. Dresses in her clinical whites like armor. Walks to the breakfast room expecting to find it empty at this hour.
Dante is already there.
He's sitting at the head of the table with coffee and a laptop and the encrypted drive positioned precisely beside his cup. He looks like he hasn't slept. He looks like he's spent the entire night doing something that required absolute focus.
He looks at her the moment she walks in.
"Sit," he says. It's not a suggestion.
Sofia sits across from him. She doesn't pour coffee. Doesn't touch anything. Waits.
"The compound modification wasn't Enzo's work," Dante says without preamble. "Enzo operates on a transactional model. He pays for results. He pays for reliability. He would never spend the resources to design a targeted biological weapon when a generic one would accomplish the same goal."
Sofia listens.
"Which means someone else modified it. Someone with pharmaceutical expertise and access to my private medical data. Someone who wanted this job done faster and more definitively." He pauses. "Someone who had their own reasons for wanting me dead."
The realization hits Sofia like a physical blow.
"There are two separate conspiracies," she says.
"Yes. Enzo is one. The mole is another. They may be working together. They may not know about each other. Either possibility is dangerous because it means the threat level has doubled while the timeline has compressed." Dante closes his laptop. "You are not just bait for Enzo anymore. You are the only person who can identify the difference between what Enzo gave you and what someone modified it into. You are the forensic link between two conspiracies."
Sofia absorbs this. The implications cascade through her mind. Two separate enemies. Two separate plans. One targeting Dante through Enzo's approach. One targeting him through medical precision.
"What does that mean for my position here?" she asks.
"It means you are more useful to me than before," Dante says. "It also means you are more at risk than before. The mole does not know I am aware of the modification yet. When they realize I am not declining as scheduled, they will start looking for the leak. You are the most likely candidate."
Sofia's hands feel cold.
"I became a target the moment I walked through your gates."
"Yes," Dante says. He pauses. "I am sorry for that."
The apology is so direct, so completely without softening, that Sofia goes quiet for a moment. She didn't expect that word from him. She expected strategy. Expected calculation. She didn't expect genuine acknowledgment that her presence here has made her vulnerable.
"Where do we start?" she asks.
Dante pulls out a second laptop. He opens the estate's access log system and walks her through the structure. Clean. Sophisticated. The kind of security system that logs every access to sensitive files while appearing completely routine.
"Seven accounts have access to my private bloodwork history," he explains. "Seven people who could have provided the information needed to create a targeted compound."
He pulls up the list.
Sofia reads the names. She doesn't recognize most of them. They're staff members. Medical professionals. Support positions within the family operation.
Except for one name that makes her stomach drop.
"Carla," she says.
"My cousin. Head of family operations. She has had access to this level of the system for four years." Dante doesn't sound angry. Just factual. "The absence of anomalies in her access logs reads as evidence of innocence. That is exactly what she designed it to read as."
Sofia thinks about Carla. The few times she's seen her at the estate. The way she moves through the corridors like she owns everything. The quiet confidence of someone positioning herself for something bigger.
"How do you know it's her?" Sofia asks.
"I don't. Not yet. But I will." Dante closes the laptop. "We are going to examine the access logs in detail. We are going to cross-reference timestamps. We are going to find the moment someone accessed your medical file for the specific purpose of understanding my condition well enough to modify a compound."
"And then?"
"And then we find out why Carla wants me dead badly enough to modify a weapon herself instead of just trusting Enzo's approach."
Sofia stands. She walks to the window that overlooks the estate gardens. Outside, the morning is ordinary. Staff moving through their routines. Everything calm and controlled and perfect.
Inside, there's a traitor.
"If Carla finds out you know," Sofia says, "she'll escalate. She won't wait for you to weaken. She'll move directly."
"I know," Dante says.
"And if she figures out I'm the one who discovered the modification—"
"She will target you." Dante stands. He walks to where she's standing at the window. "Which is exactly why you are not going to be alone again until we have resolved this."
He doesn't touch her. He stands close enough that she can feel the space between them like it's a living thing. Close enough that she can hear him breathe. Close enough that she's acutely aware of every place their bodies could be in contact but aren't.
"I will not let anyone use you as a weapon again," he says quietly. "Against me. Against anyone. Not again."
Sofia doesn't respond. Can't respond. The certainty in his voice is absolute. It's the certainty of a man making a decision about something that matters more than strategy.
It's the certainty of a man who's already decided to protect her regardless of cost.
And Sofia realizes in that moment that Luca was right. Once Dante decides someone is worth protecting, he doesn't just protect them. He makes them essential. He makes it impossible for them to leave because the cost of leaving becomes higher than the cost of staying.
She's starting to understand that she might not want to leave anymore.