Chapter 12 Rafe #2
“I think you’re aware of the profit,” I snap. “I don’t think you give a shit about the kid’s thigh being held together by Kai’s fucking fingernails and morphine.”
“He’s not a kid.” Leonardo’s voice turns sharp, the velvet stripped away. “He’s a junkie who happens to be able to skate. Don’t romanticize it. He knew what the fuck this was when we brought him in.”
I stand, slow and quiet, not enough to provoke—just enough to remind every bastard in the room that I’m not a fucking rookie either. The chair creaks under the shift, and for one breath, nobody moves. “He’s mine.”
Leonardo’s smile doesn’t crack, but his fingers tap once against the stem of his wine glass.
That tiny tick—the only tell he ever gives when something cuts a little too close to the bone.
“Dear boy,” he murmurs, voice dripping with fondness that curdles the air, “you are mine. He is mine. The entire rink full of monsters is mine. But I can appreciate”—he pauses, takes a delicate sip of wine—“the protectiveness of our little star.”
I almost roll my eyes. Almost. Instead, I lean forward, resting my forearms on the table, tone clipped and sharp. “How much did you make off that game?”
Leonardo blinks slowly, tilts his head like he’s considering whether to lie. But he knows better. With me, he always knows better. “Almost ten million,” he says finally.
I nod once. Let that number settle between us. The weight of it. The price of blood.
“So he already won back the debt he had to you.” My voice is iron. “He’s no longer yours.”
The room freezes. Leonardo’s smile dies by inches.
He sets his glass down with a quiet clink, then folds his hands together like a man praying to a god he doesn’t believe in.
“That’s not how this works,” he says, still smiling but with eyes like gun barrels.
“He doesn’t walk away just because he bled pretty once.
He’s not free, Rafe. He’s owned. Just like the rest of us. ”
I tilt my head. “Then consider this a renegotiation.”
Leonardo leans back slowly, the chair creaking beneath him as he studies me with the kind of quiet calculation that makes men disappear.
He doesn’t rush. Doesn’t blink. Just looks—like he’s peeling me open with nothing but the weight of memory and ownership.
He fucking raised me, after all. Fed me discipline instead of food.
Gave me a gun before I hit puberty. Taught me to slit throats cleaner than I could tie my skates.
He knows what buttons to press. But so do I.
“Fine,” he says at last, the word a low exhale of smoke and iron. “Renegotiation.” He lifts his chin slightly. “He’s yours.”
There’s a beat—almost long enough to taste victory. “But you’re still mine.”
My jaw tightens. There it is. The hook.
“And if he loses…” Leonardo’s voice turns almost gentle, like a lullaby sung in a graveyard. “It’s your head.”
I don’t flinch. Don’t speak. Just stare back, pulse steady. He wants to see me twitch. I don’t give him the satisfaction.
“And he doesn’t leave the compound,” Leonardo adds, voice clipped now, sharp. “Not for food, not for practice, not even to piss on the sidewalk. Not until I say so.”
There’s iron in the air now. Every man at the table is still.
I don’t nod. Don’t agree. But I don’t argue either. Because the only thing worse than Julian bleeding again—is Leonardo thinking he can touch him without going through me first.
I reach for the glass, fingers curling around crystal I didn’t ask for, and down the wine in one sharp pull.
It burns like expensive poison—aged and laced with the kind of violence that tastes like home.
I slam it down with enough force to make Ezio flinch and Viktor smirk, then push back from the table, chair legs scraping across the polished floor like a warning.
“Enjoy your dinner.” My voice is casual, venom tucked behind every syllable. I take a step toward the door, then glance back over my shoulder—just long enough to let the smirk curve slow across my mouth. “Dad.”
Leonardo doesn’t move. But the twitch in his jaw? Worth every fucking drop of that wine.
The car ride back is silent, save for the low hum of the engine and the echo of Leonardo’s words still rattling somewhere in the back of my skull.
He’s yours. But you’re still mine. Doesn’t matter.
The second I turned my back on that table, the leash snapped.
I’ll deal with the fallout later. Right now, I just need to get eyes on Julian—make sure the idiot hasn’t bled himself to death or tried to crawl back on the ice behind Kai’s back. Again.
When I pull into the compound and kill the engine, the place is quiet in that specific way that tells me something’s definitely happening. The rink lights are off. No sound of blades on ice. But there’s a flicker under Kai’s container door and a familiar voice—bratty, relentless, begging.
I step inside without knocking.
“C’mon, Kai, I can feel my leg again. It’s a sign,” Julian is saying, perched on the edge of the medical cot, eyes glassy, pupils dilated like someone replaced his soul with powdered sugar. “One little lap. Just one. You can supervise. You can tape me to the boards if I start limping—”
“Absolutely not.” Kai’s voice is flat, holding a clipboard, clearly two seconds from injecting himself with something just to get through the conversation. “You’re high, stitched, reckless, and full of shit.”
“But full of love,” Julian chirps, flopping back dramatically with a groan. “Come on, doc, I’m rotting in here—”
Then his eyes cut toward the door and he sees me.
Everything changes. His whole face lights up like a fucking puppy spotting its favorite chew toy, and suddenly he’s on his feet—well, mostly—limping fast as hell across the room.
“Rafe!” he practically sings, and before I can blink he’s in my space, grabbing fistfuls of my shirt, pressing himself against me like I’m oxygen and he’s been underwater for days.
“Look at you, back from your fancy mafia dinner,” he murmurs, syrup-sweet and high as a kite, voice pitched to perfection.
“Did you miss me? Because I missed you. I was just telling Kai here how very ready I am to skate again—so tragic, he doesn’t believe me, but you do, right? You believe in me, don’t you, big guy?”
He bats his lashes. Actually bats his lashes.
I stare down at him. Sugar. Manipulation. Pure, golden-boy poison.
And fuck, he’s cute when he lies.
I reach up slowly, fingers curling under his jaw—gentle, at first. Not because he’s fragile. Because he’s dangerous. That mouth, that grin, those fucking glassy blue eyes—he’s poison in a pretty bottle, and right now he’s shaking it just to see if I’ll drink.
I tilt his face toward mine, scan every inch of him.
Pupils blown wide. Cheeks flushed. Lips parted like he’s about to whisper something filthy and manipulative.
He looks so damn hopeful I almost laugh.
Like maybe—maybe—I’m going to let him skate.
Let him back on the ice, high and bleeding and stitched like a ragdoll, just because he’s purring into my shirt like a cat in heat.
I smirk instead.
His eyes spark.
And then I reach into my coat pocket.
His lashes flutter just once before the hope dies spectacularly in his face.
I pull out the roll of black tape—my favorite kind of silence—and rip a strip with my teeth, slow and deliberate, the sound of it loud in the tense air.
Julian doesn’t even flinch. He just watches me, chest rising a little faster, lips twitching like he might still try one last line of sugar-slick bullshit to tip the scales.
Too late.
I slap the tape over his mouth, clean and firm.
And then I kiss it hard. Teeth and breath and heat against vinyl and frustration. I bite his bottom lip through the tape, just enough for him to feel it, just enough for him to groan against my mouth, his whole body buzzing under my hands.
Then I pull back just enough to murmur. “No.”