Chapter 3 - The Mistress’s Trap
When I stepped into the lobby of my hotel that evening, a woman was sitting in one of the velvet armchairs near the fireplace, holding a leather handbag tightly against her lap.
Sofia Russo stood up the moment she saw me.
She looked small, exhausted, and remarkably fragile without the curated Instagram filters she usually lived behind. She wore a simple beige coat, her dark hair pulled into a messy ponytail. Her face was pale, her eyes rimmed with red.
I stopped ten feet away from her.
“You shouldn't be here, Sofia,” I said coldly.
“Claire… please,” she stepped forward, her hands trembling. “I know you hate me. You have every right to hate me. But I need ten minutes. Just ten minutes.”
I looked at the woman who had sat at my dinner table, who had held my hand at my father’s funeral, and who had spent six months sleeping with my husband.
“Upstairs,” I said, turning toward the elevator. “Five minutes.”
In the hotel room, Mom was out picking up dinner, leaving the space quiet. Sofia stood near the window, refusing to sit down, her fingers constantly twisting the strap of her bag.
“Why did you send me those records, Sofia?” I asked, leaning against the desk with my arms crossed. “Did you really think exposing his real estate fraud would make him leave me for you?”
Sofia let out a shaky breath, wiping a tear from her cheek. “I didn't send them to win him over, Claire. I sent them because I realized he was never going to leave you. He was going to keep us both in separate boxes forever.”
“You knew he was married when you started sleeping with him,” I reminded her sharply.
“He told me your marriage was a business arrangement!” Sofia cried, her voice cracking. “He told me you two stayed together for corporate optics! He said you had an understanding!”
I stared at her in disbelief. “And you believed him? You were my best friend, Sofia! You saw how he looked at me! You saw how I loved him!”
“I was jealous!” Sofia screamed, her face contorting in sudden, ugly grief. “Yes! I was jealous! You had everything! You had the handsome husband, the penthouse, the security, the money… and I was struggling every month to pay rent on a gallery space that was failing! When Adrian offered to invest in my business six months ago, I let him buy me! And then… then it became something else.”
She looked down at her stomach, her hand instinctively resting over her wool coat.
“He offered me two million dollars this afternoon, Claire,” Sofia whispered, her voice hollow. “To sign a non-disclosure agreement, terminate the pregnancy, and move to London.”
A chill ran down my spine.
That was Adrian’s solution. Clean, surgical, expensive.
“What did you tell him?” I asked.
“I told him to go to hell,” Sofia said, looking up at me with raw, bitter anger. “I’m keeping this baby. But Adrian’s legal team informed me an hour ago that if I go public or try to sue for paternity before the birth, they will ruin me. They’ve already contacted my gallery’s landlord to terminate my lease.”
I watched her—this woman who had betrayed me in the most intimate way possible, now realizing that the monster she had helped feed was turning its teeth on her.
“What do you want from me, Sofia?” I asked, my voice dropping into a quiet, firm line. “A sisterhood reunion? Forgiveness?”
“No,” Sofia said softly, reaching into her bag and pulling out a USB flash drive, setting it on the table. “I want you to burn his empire to the ground. That drive contains every text, every wire transfer receipt, and every voice memo Adrian sent me over the last six months. Including the ones where he discusses using Vanguard's offshore accounts to hide assets from his board.”
I looked at the small black drive sitting between us.
“Why give this to me?”
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“Because,” Sofia said, a single tear slipping down her pale face, “you’re the only person smart enough to actually destroy him. I was just his secret. But you were his partner.”
She turned and walked out of the room, leaving the door clicking softly in the frame behind her.
