Dinner with Dante's grandmother, Rosa Castellano, had been nothing like Sofia expected. Instead of the formidable matriarch she'd braced herself to meet, Sofia found a warm, sharp-witted woman with Dante's eyes and a disarming directness that cut through pretense. Rosa had welcomed Sofia with a kiss on both cheeks and immediately engaged her in conversation about her legal career, showing genuine interest rather than suspicion.
"So you defended the Harriman boy," Rosa had said over homemade pasta that put most of Little Italy's finest restaurants to shame. "Good. That prosecutor overreaches. Always has."
Sofia had been startled. "You follow the courts?"
"At my age, following the courts is more interesting than those reality shows." Rosa's smile had been conspiratorial. "Besides, a woman should understand the systems of power around her."
Throughout the evening, Sofia caught glimpses of something she hadn't seen before, Dante relaxed, even playful with his grandmother. He deferred to her opinions, laughed genuinely at her stories, and watched with unmistakable pleasure as Sofia and Rosa connected over discussions of Italian poetry and New York politics.
Now, two days later, Sofia couldn't stop thinking about how Rosa had taken her hands at the evening's end.
"You're good for him," the older woman had said quietly, her eyes searching Sofia's face. "He needs someone who sees clearly."
The words had left Sofia speechless, guilt twisting in her chest at the deception, not just to Rosa, but increasingly to herself.
"You look a million miles away."
Sofia blinked, returning to the present moment. She was sitting across from Gabriella at a café two blocks from the courthouse, their weekly lunch ritual maintained despite Sofia's increasingly complicated schedule.
"Sorry. Big case on my mind." Another lie, becoming far too easy to tell.
"Uh-huh." Gabriella's skepticism was evident. "And this big case has dark eyes and a family fortune, I'm guessing?"
Sofia sighed. "Let's talk about something else."
"Fine. How about the Moretti hearing? Judge Watkins seemed receptive to your motion."
Sofia gratefully dove into case discussion, the familiar territory of legal strategy a welcome distraction from her personal complications. They were debating witness credibility when Gabriella's expression changed, her eyes tracking something, or someone, over Sofia's shoulder.
"Twelve o'clock," Gabriella murmured. "Expensive suit, cold smile. He's been watching you for the past five minutes."
Sofia casually reached for her water glass, using the movement to glance in the direction Gabriella indicated. A man sat alone at a corner table, impeccably dressed in a tailored suit that rivaled Dante's in quality. Mid-forties, salt-and-pepper hair, with features that might have been handsome if not for the calculating hardness in his eyes. When he caught Sofia looking, he raised his espresso cup in a small salute rather than pretending not to notice.
"Do you know him?" Gabriella asked.
"No." But something about him seemed familiar, like a face from a case file she couldn't quite place.
"Well, he definitely knows you. And now he's coming over."
Sofia straightened as the man approached their table, his movements deliberate and unhurried.
"Ms. Ricci." His voice was smooth, his smile not reaching his eyes. "I hope I'm not interrupting."
"Not at all," Sofia replied professionally, though she hadn't invited the interaction. "Have we met?"
"Not formally. Victor Valenti." He extended his hand.
Sofia froze for a millisecond before accepting the handshake. Valenti. The name from the storage room at La Luna. The rival family Dante had mentioned. The man Tony had betrayed Dante for.
"Mr. Valenti. What can I do for you?"
"I simply wanted to introduce myself. Your reputation precedes you, one of the city's most brilliant defense attorneys." His smile widened slightly. "And now, I understand, a friend of the Castellano family."
The way he emphasized "friend" made it clear he knew exactly what role Sofia was playing.
"I don't discuss my personal life with strangers, Mr. Valenti."
"Of course. Discretion is a virtue." Valenti placed a business card on the table. "But should you ever need legal counsel outside your current... associations, my door is always open."
"I have plenty of colleagues, thank you."
"Colleagues, yes. But sometimes we need allies who understand certain complexities." Valenti's gaze was penetrating. "The Castellanos have a particular way of handling relationships. Once you're in their orbit, extraction can be... challenging."
Sofia maintained her composure, though her pulse quickened. "Is there a specific point to this conversation, Mr. Valenti?"
"Just extending professional courtesy. One never knows when circumstances might change." He straightened. "Enjoy your lunch, ladies."
As he walked away, Gabriella leaned forward. "What the hell was that about?"
"I'm not entirely sure," Sofia lied, slipping Valenti's card into her purse while mentally cataloging everything she knew about the Valenti family from her research. Real estate competitors to the Castellanos. Rumors of human trafficking. A failed prosecution three years ago when witnesses mysteriously recanted.
"He looked at you like you were a chess piece," Gabriella observed. "Should I be worried?"
Sofia forced a reassuring smile. "It's nothing. Probably just angling for connections to my father."
But as they finished lunch, Sofia kept feeling Valenti's calculating gaze even though he had departed shortly after their interaction. She debated whether to tell Dante about the encounter. Their arrangement specified information boundaries, she didn't want to know about his business, and by extension, she shouldn't be involving herself in his rivalries.
Yet this wasn't about business anymore. Valenti had approached her personally, with what felt unmistakably like a warning, or a recruitment attempt.
As Sofia walked back to her office, she found herself scanning rooftops, checking reflections in store windows, acutely aware of the invisible lines of power and threat running through the city. Lines she had now crossed.
Her phone buzzed with a text from Dante: *Dinner tonight? Elena's in town.*
Sofia hesitated only briefly before responding: *Yes. We need to talk.*
His reply was immediate: *Problem?*
*Not on the phone*, she typed. *See you at 7.*
Back in her office, Sofia closed the door and opened her laptop. She needed more information about Victor Valenti before she met with Dante. If she was becoming a pawn in some territorial game between rival families, she needed to understand the board.
Two hours of research revealed disturbing patterns. The Valentis and Castellanos had a decades-long rivalry, punctuated by periods of uneasy peace and occasional violent flare-ups. According to police records, the last major conflict had ended five years ago, around the time Dante returned from Harvard and took a more prominent role in family operations.
What had started as business research was becoming something more personal, more dangerous. Sofia was no longer just investigating Dante, she was mapping the threats surrounding him. Surrounding them both.
Her desk phone buzzed. "Ms. Ricci, there's a delivery for you."
At her assistant's desk, Sofia found a small package wrapped in elegant black paper.
"This was hand-delivered," her assistant said. "No courier service."
Sofia brought the package to her office, examining it carefully before opening it. Inside was an antique silver hand mirror, exquisitely crafted, with a note on heavy cardstock: *To see more clearly what lies ahead. - V*
A shiver ran down her spine. The timing was too perfect to be coincidence, Valenti was telling her he knew she was researching him. The mirror was both gift and threat: I see you watching me, and I'm watching you too.
Sofia set the mirror down, unnerved by her own reflection staring back at her, a woman caught between powerful men, playing a role that was becoming increasingly real and increasingly dangerous. She didn't recognize herself anymore, and that realization was perhaps the most disturbing of all.
Her phone buzzed again. Dante: *Car will pick you up at 6:30.*
Sofia stared at the message, then at the mirror, then at the files open on her computer. Victor Valenti hadn't approached her by chance. He was making a move in a game she was only beginning to understand, using her as either leverage against Dante or as a potential asset to be turned.
The four-month timeline she and Dante had agreed upon suddenly seemed impossibly distant. She was already too entangled, too visible. Valenti's interest confirmed what she had feared since the beginning, there would be no clean exit from Dante Castellano's world.
Sofia closed the files and slipped the mirror into her desk drawer. Tonight, she would tell Dante about Valenti's approach. Not because their arrangement required it, but because whatever game was being played, she refused to be an unwitting pawn.
She was choosing a side, even if temporarily. And that choice, she realized with startling clarity, had been made the moment she took Dante's hand outside La Luna after the Vega incident, not for appearance's sake, but because something fundamental had shifted between them.
Something neither the Castellanos nor the Valentis had anticipated.
Something that made Sofia both more valuable and more vulnerable than anyone realized.