Chapter Text
Sofia could still remember the last time her father smiled. Really and truly smiled. His eyes would sparkle and crinkle whenever he was truly passionate about something—at home, when he didn’t have to be a Don. Those moments were rare, but they were more precious than gold.
That morning had started like any other day.
The estate always woke in layers. First came the soft hum of the heating system kicking on, followed by the faint clatter of pans from the staff kitchen two floors down. Someone—probably Marta—opened the shutters in the east wing, letting in the pale morning light that crept across the marble floors like a slow tide.
Sofia had grown up with these sounds. They were the quiet proof that the world was still turning, that the house was still alive, that her father was still here.
She padded into the kitchen barefoot, the cool stone floor biting pleasantly at her soles. The room was warm, filled with the faint citrus scent of the cleaning spray the night staff used and the deeper, richer smell of the espresso machine heating up. Her father always turned it on before anyone else was awake, claiming the machine “needed time to think.”
He stood exactly where she expected him: sleeves rolled to his elbows, hair still damp from the shower, the faintest shadow of stubble softening his jaw. He looked younger in the mornings. Softer. Like the world hadn’t yet reminded him who he had to be.
Maybe it was Sofia being biased, but she swore that the kitchen always smelled better when her father was there. Which usually fell around eight in the morning.
Sofia slid onto one of the stools at the island, pulling her toast apart piece by piece. She watched him tamp the espresso grounds with the same precision he used when signing contracts. He always said coffee was a ritual, not a beverage.
“Your Nonna used to say a day without coffee is a day wasted,” he murmured without looking up.
“You say that about everything,” Sofia teased. “A day without breakfast is wasted. A day without reading is wasted. A day without—”
“—my daughter eating something other than toast is wasted,” he finished, finally glancing at her with a mock‑stern look.
She rolled her eyes, but warmth bloomed in her chest. These were the moments she hoarded like treasure.
Her father stood by the counter and was making coffee from his beloved espresso machine, wiping down the steam wand with a pristine white cloth. Sofia leaned against the marble island, picking at her piece of toast, watching how her father’s eyes crinkled at the corners as he leveled the grounds.
He paused, holding the steaming white ceramic cup out to her. For a second, the heavy gold signet ring on his finger caught the morning sun. It was the ring that men kissed out of fear, the symbol of the Penwood syndicate, but right now, it was just a ring on a hand holding a cup of coffee for his daughter.
"Drink," he commanded softly, a teasing glint in his eye. "Before the world realizes we are awake and demands our time."
Sofia took a sip, the bitter, rich liquid warming her throat. "Are you going to the docks today?"
He shook his head, leaning against the counter. "No. Today belongs to you. I told the capos I am unavailable. Let them handle the shipments for once." He reached over, gently flicking the tip of her nose. "Today, I am just a father."
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, worn leather-bound ledger. He slid it across the marble toward her.
"What's this?" Sofia asked, tracing the faded gold embossing on the cover.
"Your mother’s grandmother's recipe book," he said, his voice dropping to a softer, reverent register. "Araminta wanted it thrown out during the remodel years ago. I kept it in the wall safe in my study. It belongs to you now. If you are going to charity functions today, take it with you. Keep it close. It’s a piece of who you actually are."
Sofia opened it, seeing the elegant, sloping handwriting in faded ink. She smiled, holding it against her ribs. She didn't know it then, but that ledger would be one of the few physical tethers to her past that would survive the fire.
Outside, the garden was still wrapped in morning fog. The olive trees swayed gently, their silver leaves catching the early light. Somewhere in the distance, a security guard murmured into his radio—routine check‑ins, nothing unusual.
It was usually in those quiet mornings that the lines etched in his forehead just vanished. He wasn’t the Don whose name made grown men sweat in their silk ties—he was just Papa, arguing with her about why she shouldn’t skip breakfast.
“One shot or two, princesa?” he asked of her, his voice carrying the rich warmth of a man who loved his home far more than his empire.
She smiled back, memorizing the crinkles by his temples, treasuring that moment. Shopping was on the agenda, as well as stopping at some of the local charities. Nothing too urgent, she could take the day to get it done.
She didn’t know it would be the last one.
Then a car door slammed. Abruptly. Sharply. Far louder than it should have. Her father’s smile vanished instantly—the mask sliding back into place.
The air shifted. Not dramatically—just enough for Sofia to feel it in her bones. Her father’s posture changed by degrees: shoulders tightening, chin lifting, breath slowing. She had seen him like this only a handful of times, always right before something important happened.
The espresso machine hissed, then sputtered into silence as if it, too, sensed the wrongness.
Sofia’s heartbeat thudded in her ears. “Papa?”
He didn’t answer. His gaze was fixed on the front of the house, sharp and calculating.
Everything seemed to lock in place as an unnatural stillness settled over the kitchen. Even the noisy espresso machine seemed to silence itself as the hair on her arms went straight up.
A faint vibration traveled through the floorboards—footsteps on the gravel path outside. Slow. Deliberate. Not the hurried stride of a staff member running late. Not the confident walk of a capo arriving for a meeting.
This was different.
“Stay behind me, princesa,” her father said quietly.
She obeyed, her legs suddenly unsteady. She peered around his arm, watching the front door through the archway. The brass handle twitched. Once. Twice. Tested.
Her father’s hand hovered near the underside of the island. She knew what was hidden there. She had never seen him reach for it.
The house held its breath.
A bird outside screeched and took flight. The refrigerator hummed. A droplet of espresso hit the drip tray with a soft plink.
Then—
The doorknob rattled harder.
Her father inhaled slowly, the kind of breath a man takes when he already knows what comes next.
Before she could speak, a single shot cracked through the air and splintered the lock apart.
She wouldn’t understand until later that this was the last moment she’d ever have with him. But something inside her already knew.
Her father didn’t flinch at all. To Sofia, he had never seemed capable of dying. At that moment, it terrifies her. This was not the look that she wanted to see in their safe haven.
Silence fell again—except for the espresso machine, dripping slow and steady.
Then he moved. A practiced, fluid motion as he reached beneath the island. The click of the handgun made her stomach drop. Not here…Anywhere but here.
“Papa—” she whispered.
“Listen to me,” he told her, his eyes locking onto hers. “If I tell you to run, you run. You don’t stop for nobody or anything. Capisci?”
Another gunshot resonated through the foyer. From the depths of the house, Sofia could hear a voice shouting in Italian—cut off mid‑word. She could tell her father was angry, swearing under his breath.
Then he looked at her. Truly looked—and something in his expression slid for a second. Fear. Not for him, but for her.
“Come here, princesa.”
She crossed the kitchen. His hand cupped the back of her neck—just for a second—as if trying to memorize her.
What happened next was a blur, as the doorframe gave out. Sofia flinched, but her father stepped forward, gun raised and ready to protect his familia.
A muzzle flash lit up the foyer. A bullet slammed into her shoulder, throwing her sideways. She hit the counter hard, the breath knocked out of her.
The smell of sulfur and burning gunpowder violently choked out the scent of coffee. Sofia hit the marble floor, her vision exploding into a constellation of white‑hot pain. Through the ringing in her ears, she heard her father roar—a sound of pure, primal fury. He fired back, his gun barking twice, throwing one of the masked men backward into the hallway.
"Get out!" he screamed over the gunfire, his voice cracking with an emotion she had never heard in him before. "Sofia, run!"
But her limbs felt like lead. The doorway flooded with shadows. Another figure stepped forward, completely unbothered by the chaos, wearing a tailored black coat that looked sickeningly familiar. It was Viktor, Araminta's personal bodyguard. He didn't hesitate. He raised his weapon.
When she looked up, she saw the second shot hit him square in the chest. He staggered back, eyes widening. His free hand twitched, reaching for her.
“Papa—”
Another shot. His body jerked. Then he fell.
Her knees buckled. She clung to the island, refusing to fall. Refusing to breathe. Refusing to accept what she was seeing.
Her father had been invincible. Until now.
As she lay paralyzed on the cold stone, a pair of polished leather boots stepped into her narrow field of vision. They stopped right beside her father's pooling blood.
"Check the girl," a voice muttered—Viktor's voice.
Another man knelt beside Sofia, his heavy hand pressing roughly against her neck to check for a pulse. She forced herself to stay entirely limp, holding her breath even as the agonizing fire in her shoulder threatened to force a scream from her lungs.
"She's bleeding out from the neck and shoulder. Dead within minutes," the man grunted, standing back up. "Let's set the fire and go. The Madam wants the whole place turned to ash before the authorities get the tip."
The sound of liquid splashing followed—accelerant being poured over the wooden cabinetry, over the pristine white cloth her father had used just moments ago. A spark caught, and a sudden roar of heat bloomed nearby.
And then the world went dark.
Consciousness didn’t return all at once; it dragged her up from the dark, cold depths of a well. First came the smell—harsh, chemical, and sharp enough to sting the back of her throat. Bleach and industrial antiseptic. Then came the sound, a monotonous, electronic beep… beep… beep… that vibrated painfully against the back of her skull.
Before her eyes could open, the darkness turned into a suffocating cage. She was back on the kitchen floor, but the room was spinning. The scent of espresso wasn't a memory—it was a thick, black fluid filling her lungs, choking her. She tried to cry out for her father, but when she opened her mouth, the sound of a gun tearing through wood splintered inside her head over and over again like a broken record.
A day without coffee is a day wasted.
Her father's voice echoed, but his face was completely hidden behind a white cloth that slowly bloomed crimson. Then came the fire. The heat crawled up her legs, smelling of chemical accelerant. She saw a shadow loom over her—Viktor's face, cold and dead, holding a lighter. “Dead within minutes,” his voice rattled in her ears, louder than the thunder of the gunshots. She tried to drag herself away, but Araminta was suddenly there, her fingers pressing deep, bruising patterns into Sofia's wrist, forcing her down into the burning gravel path. “Know your place,” Araminta hissed.
The kitchen exploded into light. Her father fell again, falling forever into a bottomless black void.
Sofia jolted violently, her chest heaving, a choked scream finally tearing its way out of her throat.
When she finally forced her eyelids open, the harsh fluorescent glare of the ceiling tiles pierced her eyes like needles.
Papa.
The name panicked in her chest before it could reach her lips. She blinked, attempting to bolt upright, but a jagged rip of agony from her shoulder pinned her back to the mattress.
What had happened?
Her mind tried to assemble the morning like broken glass, but every time she reached the moment her father fell, the memory sliced her and she erred away. She saw flashes—his hand on her neck, the way his eyes widened, the metallic smell of blood mixing with espresso.
She swallowed hard, forcing her gaze to the ceiling. The fluorescent lights buzzed faintly, flickering at the edges. A curtain rustled somewhere nearby. A cart squeaked down the hallway, wheels wobbling with each rotation.
Her shoulder throbbed in a slow, punishing rhythm, matching a tight, burning sensation that wrapped fully around her neck. She could feel the heavy layers of thick bandages pulling against her skin with every breath, securing the entrance wound at the slope of her shoulder and the jagged tear where the bullet had grazed her neck. Her throat was raw—partially from the smoke she had inhaled before passing out, and partially because she’d been screaming in her sleep, though her conscious mind barely registered the sound.
She turned her head slightly. A plastic pitcher of water sat on the bedside table, half‑filled, condensation dripping down its sides. A folded hospital gown lay neatly beside it, the kind of institutional blue that made her stomach twist.
She wasn’t supposed to be here.
She wasn’t supposed to be alive.
“Oh, you’re awake,” a nurse said, stepping quickly into the room to check the monitors that had spiked during her nightmare. “Easy now, don't move too fast. You suffered quite the nasty gash along your neckline and a deep through-and-through wound to the shoulder. It’s a miracle it missed the artery.”
Sofia raised a trembling hand, her fingers brushing the thick, heavy gauze taped securely over her neck stitches and tracking up toward her hairline. She didn’t need a mirror to know that it was going to leave a permanent, ugly scar.
“I just need a name for intake.”
She couldn’t go by her given name. If that was the case, Araminta would be after her. And once that happened, she wouldn’t be Sofia anymore. Only the Penwood heiress.
“Sophie,” she said. “Sophie Baek.”
Baek. Her mother’s name. The woman Araminta had spent years dragging through the mud.
Araminta had always hated her. Not openly—not in front of her father—but in the quiet, private corners of the estate where the walls were too thick for screams to carry. Sofia could still hear the exact cadence of Araminta's voice, cold and dripping with venom, whenever Richard left the room.
“Look at you,” Araminta would whisper, her manicured fingers twisting tightly into Sofia’s hair. “You have her eyes. The same cheap, desperate eyes. Your mother was nothing but a low-life whore who didn't know her place, and you are just the stain she left behind.”
Even when Sofia tried to look away, Araminta would force her chin up until her neck clicked. “Do you think this silk makes you a lady? You’re a bastard bred from a whore, Sofia. Your father kisses you on the cheek out of pity, but the second he’s gone, you’ll be out on the street where both of you belong.”
She trained Sofia to flinch at sudden movements, to fall silent at the slightest pressure of fingers on her wrist. Compliments from her father were punished later—an “accidental” spill on a dress, a brush yanked too hard through her hair. Anyone who showed Sofia kindness disappeared within weeks.
And Araminta had left her marks, too—quiet ones, intentional ones, the kind that never showed in photographs. A thin, diagonal line along Sofia’s ribs from the edge of a belt buckle. A small round burn on her shoulder blade from a cigarette Araminta “carelessly” waved too close. A scatter of pale scars across her knees from being forced to kneel on the gravel path until her skin broke. Even the jagged mark on her hip had been Araminta’s doing—a shove disguised as a reprimand. None of them were dramatic. None of them were fresh. But they were permanent, and Sophie carried them the way other girls carried jewelry.
She felt her stomach twist at the memory—sharp, instinctive, the kind of recoil the body remembers even when the mind tries to forget. She pressed her palm lightly against the hospital blanket, grounding herself, breathing until the sting behind her eyes faded.
Sophie had been sixteen when she found the locked safe‑deposit box in her father’s private study. Inside wasn’t cash or jewels, but a valid, legally binding marriage certificate from a small chapel overseas.
Her father hadn’t just had an affair with her mother. He had married her. She wasn’t a bastard. She was the firstborn, rightful, completely legitimate heiress to the Penwood syndicate. Araminta was the one who was a fraud.
The home invasion made perfect sense now. Araminta must have finally found out, or suspected the truth. She realized she couldn’t outmaneuver the paperwork, so she chose to use bullets instead.
Let Araminta wear her black lace and play the grieving widow for the cameras. Let her try to command the capos and order the syndicate around. Araminta believed she had finally cleared the board. She had no idea that the real power—and the real legitimacy—didn’t belong to the widow. It belonged to the ghost.
“Well, Sophie,” the nurse said, “do you have anywhere to go?”
A shake of the head.
“That’s okay, we'll find you a safe haven.”
A safe haven. That would be enough.
She needed time. Distance. A new story.
The "safe haven" turned out to be a crowded, underfunded women’s shelter on the edge of the city limits, where the air smelled permanently of burnt toast and cheap floor cleaner. It was a far cry from the marble floors of the Penwood estate, but to Sophie, it was a fortress. Nobody here looked at her face; they only looked at their own laps, hiding from their own monsters.
Her first night there, she lay awake on a thin cot, listening to the symphony of city traffic outside. Every slam of a car door in the alleyway made her seize up, her hand flying instinctively to her bandaged shoulder. The pain was an anchor, keeping her from drifting into the madness of her grief.
He is gone, she whispered to the dark ceiling. He is really gone.
A week later, she slipped out of the shelter before dawn. She didn't use the banks—she knew the syndicate kept a digital eye on every major routing number in the province. Instead, she walked until her legs ached, navigating the maze of the city’s lower-income districts until she found what she was looking for: a series of emergency caches her father had hidden years ago. He had taught her how to find them under the guise of a "treasure hunt" when she was twelve.
“If the world ever catches fire, princesa, you look for the iron marks,” he had told her.
Behind a loose brick in an abandoned railway underpass, she found it. A heavy plastic weatherproof case. Inside were thick bands of cash, untraceable prepaid debit cards, and a clean, forged passport with a blank slate for a name.
She bought a cheap, burner laptop from a pawn shop and rented a cramped, fifth-floor walk-up apartment under the name Sophie Baek. The radiator clanked all night, and the plumbing hissed like a dying animal, but it was hers. Safe. Untraceable.
For the first month, she did nothing but watch. She sat in the dark of her tiny kitchen, the blue light of the laptop screen illuminating her face as she monitored the underworld news channels and local obituaries.
Surviving on cold cans of soup and tap water, she spent hours mapping out Araminta’s new routine. She learned that Araminta had already rearranged the syndicate leadership, replacing her father’s loyal capos with younger, greedier men who only cared about the profit margins. She watched live feeds of social galas where Araminta played the grieving philanthropist, donating millions of her father's money to the very charities Sofia had planned to visit on the day of the attack.
Every time Araminta smiled for the flashbulbs, Sophie felt a cold, sharp stone harden in her stomach. The fear that had defined her childhood was entirely gone, burned out of her by the fire that consumed her home. In its place was something entirely mechanical, precise, and patient. She was her father's daughter, after all. She knew how to sign contracts—and she knew how to execute them.
Three months later and everything Sophie had predicted had come true. The obituary had run for a week. The funeral was a closed casket and Sophie could feel the ripples even from her small apartment. Fortunately for her, Sofia didn’t like banks, so Sophie had a decent amount of money to start her new life, hidden in prepaid debit cards and cash.
On the screen, a video clip played from a local news broadcast. It showed Araminta stepping out of a sleek black sedan, draped in expensive, heavy black lace, a diamond-encrusted crucifix resting against her throat. She held a handkerchief to her dry eyes, flanked by two of her father’s former top capos.
The anchor’s voice droned: "The funeral of billionaire industrialist Richard Penwood was held in strict privacy today following the tragic home invasion that also claimed the life of his young daughter, Sofia..."
Sophie closed the laptop with a soft click.
She walked over to the cracked mirror above the bathroom sink, where boxes of industrial bleach and platinum dye from the pharmacy sat open on the ledge. Right beside them, safely wrapped in a protective plastic sleeve to keep it clean from the chemicals, sat her mother's grandmother's recipe book—the worn leather ledger her father had handed her only hours before the world caught fire. It was the only piece of her family that hadn't been turned to ash.
The chemical scent of the hair dye bit sharply at her nose, masking the lingering phantom smell of smoke. She didn't touch the length of her hair—her father had loved it too much to destroy it—but she saturated the dark strands completely, watching the deep brown wash away into a striking, stark blonde.
She rinsed it, dried it, and looked at her reflection. The long, platinum waves changed her face entirely, masking her identity completely so she could finally move through the city safely without being recognized by Araminta’s scouts. The jagged pink scar near her neckline peeked out from beneath the pale strands, fully healed now. She touched it lightly, then reached out to press her palm against the cool, familiar leather of the cookbook, letting its weight anchor her.
Sofia Penwood was buried in a closed casket. But Sophie Baek was very much alive. And she was going to take back everything.