Page 124 of Jude

Then the doors swung open.

I sliced my eyes to them as Jude strode into the room, his grave face cold and enraged.

A white-hot intensity rolled off his rugged frame, and my heart dropped into my stomach.

He clenched his jaw, his eyes wild with a savage fury.

‘Hey, man,’ Deacon called out.

Jude ignored him, marching to my chair, his muscled hand gripping my elbow with a firm pressure that forced me to my feet.

‘What are you doing?’ I whispered as all eyes fell on us.

‘We need to speak right now, Sofia,’ he muttered in a gravelly, dangerous rasp. ‘Privately.’

‘What’s wrong?’

I got no answer as he almost dragged me across the crowded dining room, navigating past the curious stares of his bandmates and crew until we reached a secluded alcove.

He let go of my arm and gestured at a lounge chair.

His chest was heaving beneath his leather jacket as he pulled a crumpled manila envelope from his pocket and threw it on the coffee table.

I sat down, my heart racing as three glossy photographs slid from the paper sleeve, across the stainless-steel surface, and came to rest in front of my hands.

I blinked down at the prints and gasped.

The images showed my face grafted onto the body of a woman.

One wearing next to nothing, posing under purple neon stage lights in a stark nightclub setting.

It was a seamless digital manipulation that matched my features, making my head spin.

‘Is this you?’ Jude snarled.

His face was twisted, glinting with rage so savage that it jolted me.

‘You told me you worked in factories. Were you dancing and stripping in Milan, instead? Answer me, Sofia.’

‘I’ve never stripped a single day in my life, Jude,’ I said, forcing the words past the lump of horror rising in my throat. ‘I’ve never worked in any clubs in Milan. This is fake. Someone created this to ruin me.’

‘Don’t give me that garbage!’ he growled. ‘Look at the alignment of the jaw, Sofia. Look at the scar on your collarbone. Are you telling me some random hacker spent hours replicating the exact dimensions of your body to play a joke on us? It’s you. It IS you.’

‘It’s not me!’ I hissed, the injustice of his accusation breaking through my initial shock, my hands clenching into fists at my sides.

‘Aren’t you Sofia Antonelli? Actress in several hit soap operas, including,’ he checked his phone for a beat, ‘La Tempesta dell’Amore and I Segreti del Mercato?’

My heart lurched.

Damn. He found out about my past without me telling him, which only made the fake photos seem more authentic.

‘Are you the star of Le Carte del Destino, Cuori d’Acciaio, Vite d’Oro?’ he ground on. ‘Was that you in Vanity Fair Italia’s 50 Most Beautiful list six years ago?’

We stared at each other until I took a deep breath and nodded.

‘The acting and modeling are true,’ I whispered. ‘But that was my previous life. I escaped it all because of the mafia involvement in the studios, and I’ll never go back.’

He huffed in disbelief.