Chapter 95: Penny for Your Thoughts
The silence in the private wing was a living thing, thick and charged. Beth finally set her glass down on the mantel with a soft, definitive click. “I need some air,” she said, not looking at Damien.It wasn’t a rejection, just a necessity.
He nodded, watching her retrieve a slim silver case from her clutch before she slipped through the French doors and out onto the broad, shadowed balcony. The night air was cold, biting through the elegance of her dress. She leaned against the wrought-iron rail, lit a cigarette, and took a long, shaky drag, the ember glowing like a tiny, defiant star in the dark.
She didn’t hear the door open again, but she felt the presence.A different one.Lighter, more precise.
“Those things will kill you,” Sophia Rossi said, her voice dry as winter leaves.
Beth didn’t turn.“So will a lot of things in this house. I’ll take my chances.”
A soft, almost imperceptible laugh. Sophia came to stand beside her, not too close, but sharing the vista of the dark, sculpted gardens below. She held out a slender, tobacco-colored cigarillo.“Try this instead.Turkish. Less chemical aftertaste.”
Beth glanced at her, then at the offering. After a moment, she stubbed her cigarette out on the railing and accepted it.Sophia produced a matching gold lighter, the flame steady in the still air.
The tobacco was richer, spicier. Beth exhaled a plume of smoke that the wind snatched away. “Thank you.”
They stood in silence for a minute, two women from different worlds, bound by a complicated, dangerous man.
“Damien told us you were in Colorado,” Sophia began, her tone conversational, as if discussing the weather.“He didn’t say why. But we have our own sources. You went to see Elena Novak.”
Beth felt her spine stiffen, a visceral reaction she couldn’t suppress.She kept her gaze fixed on the middle distance. “Yes.”
“The Siberian Valkyrie,” Sophia mused, taking a delicate puff of her own cigarillo. “A legend.Even to us.Her work was… artistic. She retired before Vittorio took full control, but her reputation lingered. We understood she was serving a comfortable sentence in a facility that resembles a spa more than a prison.” She turned her head, her sharp eyes studying Beth’s profile. “Why would you visit a retired assassin?”
Beth knew this was a test. A probe from the family’s chief strategist.The truth was a weapon, a vulnerability. But sometimes, it was also a shield.She looked straight at Sophia. “Because she’s my mother.”
Sophia didn’t flinch. Her expression remained perfectly composed, but a new intensity flickered in her gaze.The calculator behind her eyes was running new figures. “I see.”
“Do you?” Beth asked, the words edged with a challenge.“It explains a great deal.Your resilience. Your lack of fear in rooms full of dangerous men.The way you carry yourself.” Sophia tilted her head. “It does not explain your father.”
Beth took another drag, letting the warm smoke fortify her. “Samuel Montgomery.Coworker. Legend in his own right, just in a different field.”
“A fixer.”
“The fixer,” Beth corrected softly, a hint of pride cutting through the old pain.“They met on a job in Marseille. A Russian sniper and a Texas problem-solver. It was apparently very romantic, in a ‘we just disposed of three bodies’ kind of way.”
A genuine, surprised smile touched Sophia’s lips. “I believe I would have liked them.”
“You would have.” Beth’s voice grew distant, painted with memory. “We were a tight four.Me, Dove, and our parents. The Montgomery Ranch in Texas wasn’t just horses and cattle.We had zebras, an ostrich once. My mother cursing in Russian at a stubborn emu, my dad laughing so hard he’d have to lean against the fence.” She paused, the image vivid.“He died when I was twelve. A job that was a little too ‘fixed.’ My mother found out who ordered it.She got her revenge. Took her two years, but she got it.”
“And then she was arrested,” Sophia stated.
“I was sixteen. They didn’t have enough for a life sentence, but enough to put her away in a gilded cage for a very long time.” Beth’s throat tightened. “My father’s brothers, Earl and Clyde, they raised us.Tough old bastards. Taught us how to shoot, how to bargain, how to read a land deed and a man’s lies in the same afternoon.”
Sophia listened, truly listened.This wasn’t an interrogation anymore. “And Dove never left.”
“No. The ranch, the legacy, the real family business… it’s hers.She’s the steady one. I was the one who ran toward the glitter and the noise.” Beth gave a self-deprecating shrug. “Straight into the arms of your son.”
Sophia finished her cigarillo, extinguishing it with care.“You loved him. You love him still. It is written in the way you stand your ground, and in the way you falter when you think no one is looking.”
Beth had no answer for that. It was too true.“My son betrayed you,” Sophia said, the words blunt, unforgiving. “A Rossi man’s fatal flaw is believing his charm is a substitute for character. He learned that lesson the hard way, the day you left.” She turned fully to Beth. “I missed out on knowing you.I saw the wife, the socialite, the thorn in my side. I didn’t see Elena Novak’s daughter.Samuel Montgomery’s heir. For that, I am sorry.”
The apology, delivered in that cool, factual tone, was more disarming than any emotional plea. Beth felt the icy shell around her heart crack, just a hairline fracture.
“He’s different now,” Sophia continued.“Not entirely.He will always be a Rossi. But the part of him that is yours… that is better.That worries Vittorio. It should.” She finally smiled, a thin, knowing curve of her lips.“You are a formidable variable, Bethany Montgomery. I am no longer recalculating your role. I am simply observing the chaos you and my son generate together. It is, against my better judgment, somewhat fascinating.”
Beth let out a short, surprised laugh. “That might be the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”
“Don’t get used to it.” Sophia turned to go, then stopped. “The story of your parents… it is a good one.Tragic, but good.Strong blood. It comforts me, for some reason, to know that my grandson or granddaughter would come from such stock.”
She left then, vanishing back into the compound as silently as she’d arrived.
Beth stood alone again, the cigarillo burnt down to her fingers.The cold felt cleaner now, the night less oppressive. She had just handed a powerful woman a key to her deepest vulnerabilities, and instead of turning it into a weapon, Sophia had… acknowledged it.Respected it.
From inside, she heard Damien’s low voice on a phone call, a brief, sharp command. The sound of his world, ruthless and decisive. Out here, she held the echo of her own—whispering Texas wind, Russian curses, the solid, unglamorous weight of a ranch that solved problems in the dirt.
Two legacies.One man caught in the middle. And a mother-in-law who now saw the blend not as a weakness, but as a terrifying, fascinating strength.
She dropped the spent cigarillo, crushed it under her heel, and went back inside, the ghosts of her parents walking with her, a little lighter than before.