Antonio's POV:

The door slammed shut behind me, the echo reverberating through the cold, empty halls of my estate. My footsteps felt heavier than usual as I made my way toward my study, each step carrying the weight of everything Sofia had said. The conversation played over and over in my head like a broken record, her mocking words entwined with the doubts she had so skillfully planted.

I reached the study and poured myself a glass of whiskey, the amber liquid trembling slightly as I brought it to my lips. The warmth of the alcohol did nothing to steady me. My hands were still shaking, my mind racing, trying to piece together what was real and what was part of Sofia's manipulations.

Had I been wrong?

The video was so vivid, so damning. I had watched it too many times to count—Isabella bound and terrified, the glint of the knife in the dim light, the blood pooling on the floor. And yet, as damning as it was, Sofia's words lingered like a splinter I couldn't remove.

"That tape... the blood, the knife, the message—it's all so perfectly designed to make you angry, to make you come after me."

I slammed the glass down on the desk, the sharp sound cutting through the silence. Sofia had always been good at twisting the truth, at taking something obvious and warping it into something else entirely. She thrived on chaos, on creating doubt where there was once certainty. 

But this? 

This was different.

Her defiance was nothing new—I expected her to deny everything. What I didn't expect was how convincingly she had played the role of someone wrongfully accused. She didn't just deny killing Isabella; she made me doubt my own eyes.

I leaned back in my chair, staring up at the ceiling as I replayed the conversation in my mind.

"You think I'm your enemy, Antonio," she had said, her voice dripping with mock pity. "But I'm not. I've always been on your side."

Her smirk, the way her eyes gleamed with amusement—it was enough to make me want to crush her. But then she'd said something that stopped me cold:

"Why would I leave a trail for you to follow? If I wanted Isabella dead, you'd never even know it was me."

At first, I'd dismissed it as more of her manipulative drivel, but now, alone in the silence of my study, the words gnawed at me. Sofia wasn't stupid. She was cunning, calculating, and patient. If she truly wanted Isabella gone, would she have been so reckless as to leave a bloody trail pointing directly at herself?

Or was she right? Was I seeing exactly what someone wanted me to see?

The whiskey burned as I poured another glass, the liquid warming me even as my thoughts grew colder. Sofia had planted a question in my mind that I couldn't ignore: 

Who sent the tape?

She wasn't wrong—it had been delivered to me anonymously, with no indication of its source. And as much as I hated to admit it, there were holes in the story. The symbols on the floor, the message in an ancient language, the conveniently obscured face of the supposed killer—it was all too precise, too theatrical.

Then there was Sofia's performance. She wasn't scared, not in the slightest. She'd smirked and taunted me, as if she knew she had the upper hand.

"You can hurt me all you want," she'd said, her voice light and mocking. "But it won't bring her back. And it won't get you the answers you're looking for."

Her words had struck a nerve. I had no problem using force to get answers—I'd done it before, and I'd do it again—but something in her tone had stopped me. She was daring me to hurt her, as if it would prove her point.

What if she really had nothing to do with Isabella's death? What if I was chasing a phantom while the real culprit slipped further away?

I stood abruptly, pacing the length of the room. My mind was a storm of conflicting thoughts, each one colliding with the next.

Sofia's voice echoed in my ears: "Someone wants you off your game, Antonio. Someone wants you broken, distracted, and vulnerable."

It wasn't just her denial that rattled me—it was the way she made me question everything. She hadn't just planted doubt about the tape; she'd made me doubt myself.

What if this is about you?

The words lingered, heavy and sharp. Could it be true? Was this whole situation a calculated attack on me, designed to undermine my judgment? If so, who would go to such lengths to dismantle me?

There were too many possibilities. Enemies I'd crushed over the years, rivals who had been waiting for the perfect moment to strike—any one of them could have orchestrated this.

But why involve Isabella?

That thought stopped me cold, the weight of it pressing down on me like a physical force. Isabella wasn't just a pawn in my world; she was something more. She was the one thing that made me feel human, the one person who had ever truly seen me for who I was.

Whoever had done this knew that. They knew how much she meant to me, how deeply I cared for her.

And that meant they knew how to hurt me in the most profound way possible.

The study felt suffocating, the walls closing in around me as I grappled with the enormity of what Sofia had suggested.

If she was telling the truth—if she hadn't killed Isabella—then someone else had. Someone who wanted me to believe it was her.

I ran a hand through my hair, my frustration mounting. Sofia's words were poison, seeping into my mind and twisting everything I thought I knew. I wanted to hate her, to crush her for the way she toyed with me, but part of me couldn't shake the nagging suspicion that she wasn't lying.

"Doesn't it feel a little too perfect?"

It did.

For fucking god's sake, it did.

I poured another glass of whiskey, the third in what was quickly becoming a long night. The alcohol dulled the edge of my anger, but it couldn't quiet the storm inside me.

Sofia was a master manipulator, and she'd proven that again tonight. She'd taken my fury, my grief, and twisted it into something unrecognizable. She'd turned my certainty into doubt, my anger into confusion.

But why? What did she stand to gain?

The truth was, I didn't know. And that terrified me.

I sat back in my chair, staring at the flickering fire in the hearth. The flames danced and twisted, their movements chaotic and unpredictable. They reminded me of Sofia—beautiful, dangerous, and impossible to control.

And now, thanks to her, I was lost.

Lost in a web of lies and half-truths, unable to tell what was real and what was manipulation.

I had thought this war was over. I had thought I'd won.

But as I sat there, the weight of Sofia's words pressing down on me, I realized the battle was just beginning.

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