Sophia already regretted agreeing to this lunch.

Their small group of four had just made it to Mercello's car parked down the street - and it had taken them a while considering Liliana's slow waddle - when her pregnant friend paused abruptly, and sighed deeply. A frown pulled on Liliana's soft features and she looked... defeated for lack of a better word.

"What?" Sophia asked.

"She needs to pee." It was Mercello that answered for Liliana, wasting no time in turning his wife around as they headed back towards the birthing class before anything more could be said.

"Stupid fucking pregnancy." Sophia heard Liliana mutter under her breath.

Great. Alone with Giovanni.

"We'll meet you there," the man beside her called out towards his brother, already in the process of hailing a cab.

Sophia shot him an incredulous look, mouth falling open.

"No we won't!" She snapped. "We'll just wait for them."

She was not getting in a cab alone with him.

Call her childish or immature but Sophia was well aware of her own limitations. And being in a small confined space with this man would be agony.

He arched a brow, seeming unimpressed as he informed her, "She's gonna' take forever. There's still at least 6 very pregnant women in there who are likely all needing to use the restroom. We might as well get there and order for them. I don't know if you've met pregnant, hungry Liliana, but she's not someone I want to be around."

A cab pulled up beside him, quicker than Sophia had ever been able to hail one, and the towering man held the door open for her, a wicked grin aimed her way.

She was scowling as she climbed inside.

He knew what he was doing, no doubt about it. He knew how irritating she found his presence. And he certainly knew just how attractive he was.

Stop, she reprimanded herself internally.

Don't think of him like that.

And yet Sophia couldn't stop her eyes from wandering from the view outside the window towards Giovanni as he made himself comfortable.

The top two buttons of his shirt undone, Sophia's eyes fixed helplessly on the sight of his tanned chest peaking out from his suit. She couldn't stop herself from admiring his strong jawline - clean shaven, exactly as he knew she preferred. Nor could she stop herself from staring it his lips, parted slightly as he rested his head against the back of his seat, eyes closed. Then there was that blasted smirk again, as if he knew without even opening his damned eyes that she was staring.

Dammit.

Sophia ripped her gaze away and focussed her scowl out the window once again.

Infuriating man.

—

Gio's phone pinged, and vibrated against the café table large enough for four. He briefly glanced at the screen, but he didn't bother to answer whatever notification had popped up, instead watching her intently from across the table. Sophia however was doing her very best to look at anyone but the handsome Italian.

The café was small, exclusive. She knew just by looking at the expensive décor and minimal customers that this café catered exclusively to the elite. She expected nothing less from Mercello D'Onofrio and his heavily pregnant wife. Exclusivity meant better protection; and with what they had all been through, protection was crucial.

Even with their biggest threat eliminated - Liliana's grandfather - a life in the mafia was never safe, and would always bring enemies. And so long as Mercello continued to kill his way to the top of the food chain with no competitors left standing, there was always going to be someone hungry for that very same power.

She knew all too well what it was like to be related to a man in such a position. The Russian máfiya was structured differently, no one man reining above the rest but instead a network of gangs that work towards common goals. Human trafficking, heroin trade, prostitution, extortion. That didn't stop the inner disputes though, violence between the gangs could become violent.

The organisation was huge compared to it's Italian comparison, in America alone she knew they operated in Philadelphia, Atlantic City, Brooklyn and of course New York. But that wasn't the full extent of the organisation, they spread far and wide across the world, with a plethora of corrupt politicians and government officials in various territories.

She feared her father - Nikolai Raptis, the leader of the New York gang - more than any other man. She had never been deceived as to his callous nature. He had always been a harsh man who cared only for his country and his men, to which his family would always come second. She had seen the extent of Nikolai's relationship with her mother, had felt every hit as if it were against her own skin as she fearfully observed the brutality as child.

Then there was his second in command, his underboss as the Italian's called it, a ruthless, violent man. She had only heard stories of what he was capable of, stories from the men that worked for her father and would tremble at the sound of Igor's name. So she learned to fear him too. It was from an early age she learned to not trust men. And her life up until this point had done little else to convince her otherwise.

Except Giovanni D'Onofrio.

They had first met when they were both very young and she had been wholly unimpressed by all of the D'Onofrio men. But Giovanni had been adamant in his pursuit of what he had claimed was an innocent friendship - bullshit. And the more time she spent with him the more she realised he was not like all other men in her life. He didn't want to control her, he didn't want to hurt her or belittle her like Nikolai did her mother. And she had stupidly learned to trust him.

"How much longer will they be?" Sophia asked, her tone sharper than it should have been. She realised she was acting like a complete and utter bitch, but she didn't care.

She didn't want to be here, didn't want to be with him. She had no qualms about telling him just as much. Better to be clear and firm with him about what she wanted - or more accurately what she didn't want - than to give him any sense of false hope.

There was a clear line between them now, one that cut off any form of romantic possibility between them. One that Sophia feared would become blurred the longer they spent in each other's company.

"Did I do something wrong?"

She froze, refusing to look towards him as she processed those soft spoken words.

"Gio..." Sophia sighed, heart aching. "This isn't a game either of us wants to play."

"That's a yes."

No, he hadn't done anything wrong. But she didn't want to explore the failures of their relationship, didn't want to talk through it as if they were searching for a solution. They would not be getting back together again.

They couldn't.

"You are not to blame for our break-up," Sophia assured as earnest as she could without providing any form of explanation. "Neither of us are. It just... it didn't work out."

Liar.

The lie tasted sour on her tongue, and her heart raced furiously as she was forced to think on their past. It was a difficult situation that she didn't ever want to think of, because once she began she knew she would lose herself in it. It had taken her months after their breakup, years even, to full come to terms with everything that had happened. And she would be a liar if she said, even now, that she had healed entirely or that her heart didn't still ache for the comfort she knew he could provide.

She felt tears prick the corners of her eyes and willed herself to stay strong, at least until she could escape his company and break down in the privacy of her own home.

She was still hungover, for goodness sake, still wallowing in the guilt of all that had happened with Isabella. She didn't need the pain of her past to add to it.

"Sophia..." he sighed, and she wasn't sure if the disappointment so heavy in his tone was directed towards himself or her. She bristled at the thought anyway.

"Well what do you want me to tell you then?" She snapped, damp fury filled eyes swinging towards his. "That I was unhappy in the relationship? That the simple truth of it was that I had fallen out of love with you and just didn't want to be with you any more?"

His expression didn't falter, didn't change for even one second as he met the heat of her gaze head on. He didn't believe her, of course he didn't. He always knew how to read her so well and it seemed time had not changed that fact.

"How about..." Sophia spoke, quieter now, voice hoarse with the emotion that welled up behind it. "How about that after I lost our baby I couldn't stand to have you look at me any more? I had spent every single day of my pregnancy wishing it away. I didn't want a baby Gio, I don't ever want children. But we were careless, I got knocked up and then I prayed for it to disappear. After that I could barely look at myself, and it sure hurt as hell to have you try and comfort me every damn day."

Not a lie. But not the entire truth.

"I would never, have never judged you for the miscarriage. I have never even for a second blamed you for it," he uttered fiercely, reaching across the table to grasp one of her hands in his. She felt his thumb stroke across her palm. Her eyes clenched shut, a tear rolling down the length of her face, as she couldn't bare to see the honesty and heartache in his expression.

"Sophia... Neither of us wanted a baby. That's not something you suffered a lone. And I wish more than anything you would stop blaming yourself for something that was out of control. You didn't lose our baby, you didn't force a miscarriage. It just wasn't meant to be."

She didn't hear him get out of his chair, but here he was, crouched before her, one hand on her thigh as the other wiped back the tears from her eyes. The sight of him, those familiar lips turned down at the corners, those thick brows furrowed in worry, and those eyes filled with their own tears that refused to fall - it was all too much.

She felt sick to her stomach.

"There's more that you're refusing to tell me," he murmured, "and it's driving me insane playing this game with you."

"Have you ever thought that I'm not playing a game, Gio? That I simply just want to be left alone," she asked, in a low, quiet voice - all fire that had burned inside her now extinguished.

"No. Because I'm not sure I can live with that reality."

"That's not healthy Gio. You're clinging to a relationship that's over, and I need you to let go."

"If there's one thing I'm certain of in life, it's that I can never let you go Sophia."

***

Giovanni was in no mood to speak to anyone, least of all his younger brother.

He'd spent the last hour in the gym of the manor, knuckles now raw and cracked. Angelo had discovered him, at his knees and panting, the worn punch bag swinging from it's hook before him.

He was aching, both his body from injuries that still had not fully healed, and his heart from the pain he was beginning to realise had never even begun to heal.

"She still loves you." His brother had stated so frankly, as if he knew exactly of the thoughts that ran through his mind on an endless loop.

"I know," was all Giovanni was able to grunt, head stooped with his back towards Angelo. And yet somehow that wasn't enough.

"She still loves you. But is it worth it? Is it worth it pursuing her like this if all you're achieving is dredging up the past and causing her pain?"

Giovanni nearly didn't recognise himself as he swung to his feet, inches from his younger brother's face, and snarled, "And what would you know about it?"

Angelo's eyes widened just a fraction as he backed up a step.

"I don't need to have experience to know that it shouldn't hurt like this Gio. She's falling apart; every time that you push this she comes closer and closer to unravelling entirely. You weren't there for the last six months. All those weeks that she spent at your bedside, barely eating, barely sleeping. And now she's trying so hard to pull herself back together again but you're storming ahead and forcing her to do things she isn't ready for."

"You think I'm not falling apart, that I'm not in pain?" Giovanni shouted. "She's not the only one who lost something, Angelo. She's not the only one that desperately needs to heal from this. It's been years and yet I've never felt so close to her again until now, never felt any kind of hope that we could be together again, and I'll be damned if I give up now." Even if it made me a rotten bastard.

Giovanni knew that whatever Sophia and he had shared those years ago couldn't be reclaimed. What they had was now firmly in the past. But that didn't mean they couldn't start something new.

They were different people now. They were older, more experienced, and not so much the naïve children they once were. He had never been able to let go of her entirely, not when their lives were connected in the ways they were. And he had watched her grow and change into the woman she was now, as she had him. And he didn't love her any less.