A game of truth(l) (chapt.11)

Alessia's POV

As I pushed my door wide, the silence wrapped itself around me like a cloak. No quiet in its peace. No safety in its stillness. Only… tension. The sort that makes your skin prickle and constricts your lungs.

Sophia hung back behind me, alert eyes scanning all the dark hour could possibly bring, her footsteps tentative as if on glass. I dropped my keys onto the console table next to the door, the clatter too loud, too final. I did not speak a word. I just kicked my heels off and padded deeper into the apartment, scarcely noticing the way my legs moved me towards the sofa.

I did not cry.

Not yet.

I could not.

I felt that if I ever parted my lips, the shriek that escaped would never subside.

"I'm not leaving you alone tonight," Sophia said, closing the door behind her. Her tone was gentle, but firm only Sophia could be — as if she was holding me together with her mere presence.

"I'm fine," I fibbed, folding up my legs on the couch. My own voice was distant — like it was some other person's entirely.

"No, you're not," she said firmly, toeing off her boots and going into the kitchen. "You're shaking. And I know you. You're already building a thousand theories in your head. And if I leave, you'll fall apart in silence. So no. I'm staying."

I drove my fingers back into my temples, trying to press back a headache that began to develop in the back of my eyes. "I am not unraveling."

"You're falling apart," she said quietly, setting before me a mug of steaming chamomile tea. "There's a difference. And I'm not going to let you do it alone."

It was then I cried.

Not dramatic. Not loud. They rolled down my face in silence, and for a moment, I didn't even realize they were there. My throat closed up around air that wouldn't go down. I brushed at my cheeks with the back of my hand, embarrassed, even though Sophia had already witnessed me at my worst.

I don't get it," I whispered, looking at the untouched tea. "How do you date someone for years, plan a future with them, envision a life. and then one day find out they had a child the entire time? While they were still with you and you didn't even know!"

Sophia sat down next to me slowly, her arm around my shoulders.

I mean—" my voice broke, "--we were going to move in together before the accident. He said he wanted to have a family with me. With me. And now? There's this child — this gorgeous, innocent kid who looks just like him — and he's what, six? Seven? Sophia. He died."

Her grip on my arm tightened.

"I watched them lower his coffin into the ground," I croaked. "I wore black. I delivered the eulogy. I thought he was dead. All these years, I've been grieving a ghost who was still very much alive on this earth with his son!"

There was silence. The weight of it pressed me down for a moment.

"I feel. betrayed. But I don't even know by whom," I said. "Him? My own memory? The universe?"

Sophia didn't answer right away. She sat beside me, letting the silence answer where she couldn't. Then she leaned in a little closer.

"You know what I think?" she said quietly. "You need to stop wondering why he's alive, and start wondering who was keeping him hidden. And why the hell anyone needed you to believe he was dead."

Her words slammed like bricks.

"I know you have to despise him," she continued. "But I don't think Matteo could have done this alone. Disappearing like that, faking his own death? That is not something one can do without resources. Money. Planning."

My jaw clenched. "You're saying someone helped him?"

“I’m saying,” she said carefully, “you’ve been so focused on Matteo,you’re missing the bigger picture. The real question isn’t just why he disappeared — it’s who needed him gone from your life. And why now, years, is he resurfacing… like this?”

My stomach turned.

All roads, somehow, kept leading back to him.

Nikolai.

I hated it. Hated that his name took up space in my brain rent-free like some obdurate thunderhead. But I couldn't help myself — the timing, the playing games. The fact that he seemed always to be two steps in front of everyone else.

"It's him," I said aloud, the idea spilling off my lips before I could stop to think it. "It has to be."

Sophia blinked. "Nikolai?"

I nodded, suspicious dark eyes. "He's playing a game. He always does. And I've been so caught up in just keeping my head above water in the power struggle at work, I didn't even catch this other game being played behind the scenes."

"Alessia…"

No, listen, I said, standing, walking the room now. "Matteo coming back from the dead? That's no accident. That's a move. And Nikolai. he's too controlling for this to be anything other than a setup."

"Don't let paranoia win," Sophia cautioned softly.

"I'm not paranoid," I shot back. "I'm wide awake. And if I ease up for even a second, I'll spill something. I know Nikolai's hiding something from me. And whatever it is… it's enormous. I can tell. I just haven't found out what yet."

She sighed and leaned back, taking a sip of her own tea.

"So what's next?" she asked.

"I play the game," I breathed, more to myself than to her. "I pretend to trust him. I let him believe he's winning. But I'll dig, Sophia. I'll uncover what the devil he's hiding — about Matteo, about Elena, about it all."

"Just don't let it consume you."

"It already has," I confessed under my breath.

The tea in the cup had gone cold. My shoulders ached. The kind of ache that is not of the body, but of the soul — tired, bruised, and restless.

Sophia stood up, a gentle smile on her face.

"May I ask something?"

"Sure." I replied, half-heartedly.

"What favor do you wanna ask of the photographer?”