Chapter 24 RAFE
RAFE
The room smells like leather, tobacco, and old money.
Not the clean kind. The kind that bleeds when you touch it.
Long oak table. Heavy chairs. Concrete walls painted the color of silence.
There’s a single screen mounted on the far wall, and right now, all three men in this room are watching it like it might burn.
Julian is on the feed.
Live. No delay. Surveillance cam, corner angle, fixed on the rink back at the compound. And he’s skating like the fucking ice owes him an apology. Shirt off, sweat slicking his back, black tape around his wrists—not restraining, not today—just there, like a reminder of who he belongs to.
And he’s fucking lethal.
No one can touch him. Not Vlad. Not Bishop. Not even Misha, who’s currently laid out against the boards grinning like a man who just saw the gates of heaven open and got kicked back down by a blond angel in bloodlust.
Julian cuts across the ice like he owns it. Like he never fell. Never broke. Like he was built for this.
And the bastard’s reading plays, too. Reading and reacting before the puck even touches a stick.
He’s predicting movement two passes ahead, curling his body around wind and instinct and rage.
He’s backchecking like a demon, toe-dragging past three men at once, and finishing with a snap-wrist shot top shelf that hits so clean the whole feed pixelates from the impact.
I smirk.
At the table across from me, Leonardo leans back in his chair with the slow, calculated posture of a man who hasn’t yet decided whether to clap or kill something. “I take it Grant is dead,” he says, voice soft. Almost bored.
“Mmm,” I murmur, not looking away from the screen. “Had help from a knife and a wall. Didn’t take long.”
Damiano huffs beside him, sipping espresso like it’s wine, his dark eyes flicking from the monitor to me with practiced indifference. “Clean?”
“No,” I say, still watching Jules drop his shoulder and dangle past Corso like he’s toying with a fucking mannequin. “But permanent.”
Viktor doesn’t speak. He just watches, breathing quietly, one leg crossed over the other like a man who collects debts with a smile and wears silk to a funeral.
Leonardo finally turns his head toward me. “That’s not what you brought to the table.”
I glance at him—just one second, one look—enough to let the weight settle. “I also found out something very interesting,” I say, voice smooth as a blade sliding free of its sheath.
Leonardo raises an eyebrow.
I lean forward slightly, elbows on the table, hands folded, tone flat and deliberate. “Grant wasn’t blackmailed. Not really. He was paid.”
Damiano’s brow lifts. Viktor shifts in his seat. The room tightens like a wire pulled taut.
“Paid by who?” Leonardo asks, eyes narrowing just a fraction.
I smile—small, sharp, a threat wrapped in amusement. “Belladonna Syndicate.”
Leonardo’s face remains still, but I catch the faint twitch of his fingers against the armrest—one single, controlled tap. His tells are subtle, refined. I’ve learned them all. He hates being touched without consent. He hates being outplayed even more.
“They paid Grant to throw the game?” Damiano says after a beat, voice low. “And let the Reaver kid take the fall?”
“Mm.” I nod, easing back in my chair. “Paid him to throw it. Let Jules catch the ban. Let the league devour its scapegoat. Let the public call it a gambling scandal.”
“And Grant sold him out,” Viktor mutters, tapping ash into the tray beside him. “Took the cash and smiled for the camera.”
“And now,” I add, eyes flicking back to the monitor where Julian has just toe-picked, spun, and scored again—this time with no helmet, hair flying, jaw clenched like he’s ready to bite through steel—“he’s ours.”
Leonardo leans back slowly. The light catches the ring on his finger; it glints like a promise of violence held in check. “How sure are you about Belladonna?”
“He confessed,” I say, voice flat. “Right before I took his ring finger off.”
The screen buzzes. Jules checks someone into the wall so hard the camera jolts.
“He’s dangerous now,” Viktor says softly, a note of admiration in his tone. “You fixed him.”
“No,” I correct, gaze still locked on the screen. “I unleashed him.”
Leonardo says nothing, just watches as Julian flies down the ice again, all teeth and tape and grace like sin.
Like hunger in motion. And I know what Leonardo’s thinking.
He’s not worried about Belladonna right now.
He’s thinking about how to keep Julian Reaver from turning his entire fucking racket into a spotlight.
Leonardo turns to me fully now. Legs crossed, one hand lazily stroking the gold serpent ring on his finger, the other poised near his temple like he’s about to sermonize.
His voice is velvet and venom. “The Belladonna pissed on my turf,” he says, each word wrapped in disdain.
“How are we going to repay the favor, dear boy?”
I meet his eyes. “You know that former NHL rink they’ve had their eye on?” I ask, voice calm.
Leonardo’s mouth curves. “The one they’ve been courting city council over? That little attempt at legitimacy?”
“Mm.” I lean forward. “Let’s organize a game over it.”
That gets his attention.
“A game?” Viktor asks, tone dry. “What kind of game?”
“A filthy one,” I say, sitting back again, letting the words settle. “Make it big. Make it public—underground public. Pull in every syndicate, every rich bastard who likes blood with their beer. Let Belladonna bring their best. We’ll bring ours.”
Leonardo’s brow lifts.
“You want to wager it,” Damiano says, amused.
“I want to steal it in plain sight,” I correct. “Under their nose. While they watch.”
On the screen, Julian crashes into Vlad on the boards, steals the puck, flips it across the ice, then skates backward like a fucking god, eyes wild, grin feral.
I point toward the screen. “We let Jules lead the roster. Let them see what they tried to destroy. Let them feel what it costs to touch what’s mine. ”
Leonardo taps his chin. “The Belladonna won’t take that kind of bait,” he murmurs, but he’s smiling now. “They’ll see the setup.”
“They’ll think it’s about pride,” I say. “They’ll think it’s about proving who owns the city. And they’re greedy enough to show up for that.”
Viktor exhales a laugh. “And when we win?”
“We take the rink. Publicly. Permanently.”
Damiano’s already nodding. “We’ll need sponsors. Betting rings. Press coverage—deep underground but loud enough for them to hear it in Italy.”
“I’ll get it done,” I say. “I want a Belladonna mouthpiece in the crowd the moment we take that fucking puck and smear it across the ice with their best player’s teeth.”
Leonardo finally laughs, full-bodied. “Dear boy,” he says, eyes gleaming, “you’ve been spending too much time with your little halo.”
“No,” I murmur. “They’ve just given me reason.”
Viktor flicks his lighter shut with a sigh like boredom. Damiano drains the last of his espresso and stands, fixing his jacket with a sharp tug like he’s got somewhere far more lethal to be. Neither waits for further orders—Leonardo gives them a glance, a twitch of his fingers, and they’re gone.
The door closes behind them with a quiet click and then it’s just us.
Leonardo moves slowly, with the kind of elegance only a man born into power can afford.
He rises from his chair and strolls to the one beside mine—lower, more comfortable.
He sits with a softness that doesn’t match the tension in the room.
One leg crossed. One hand loose in his lap. Eyes on the screen.
Julian’s still skating—dripping with sweat, wrecking every man who dares get near him. The camera catches the glint of tape wrapped around his throat like a collar made of shadow.
Leonardo watches him for a long moment. Then, without looking at me, he says, “Should I worry about you two?”
I smirk, turning my head just enough to let him see the teeth behind it. “Depends.”
Leonardo finally meets my eyes. “On?”
“On what you think I’d do for him.”
He studies me now—not as a soldier, not as a killer, but as a man whose leash is no longer tied to this table. “You already killed for him,” he says.
“I killed for you too,” I reply lightly, almost teasing.
“Mmm. I pay you.”
I glance back at the screen. Julian scores again, then skates past Misha with a wink that’s pure fucking sin. I smile wider. “So does he,” I murmur.
Leonardo snorts. “Just not with money.”
I tilt my head, watching the boy on the screen move like he’s already wearing the goddamn crown of this city. “No,” I say softly. “Not money.”
And fuck, I’m in a good mood. It’s filthy. It’s terrifying. It’s like someone cracked open my ribcage, poured gasoline on my heart, and set it alight with nothing more than a kiss and a whimper.
Leonardo exhales and leans back, arms folded, gaze returning to Julian.
He doesn’t press. Because he knows. He’s known since the first time he saw the boy bite back instead of beg.
Julian Reaver didn’t just crawl into my bed.
He rewrote the terms of my loyalty. And the Don of La Fiamma Nera knows better than to ask what I’d do to protect something I didn’t earn, didn’t buy, didn’t tame.
Just claimed.
Leonardo doesn’t look at me when he asks it.
He keeps his gaze on the feed, on Julian cutting across the blue line like the puck is magnetized to his blade, like gravity rearranged itself to orbit around him.
His voice is smooth as glass and just as cold.
“Would you burn the whole compound down for him?”
I don’t even blink. “I’d burn the entire compound for any of those boys, Leonardo.” I let that settle. Then I turn my head and meet his eyes. “But for him?” I smile, slow and fucking feral. “I’d burn everything else too.”
The silence after that is thick enough to choke on.
Leonardo doesn’t respond. He just watches Julian score again, watches the bloodthirst in his smile, the unholy joy in his blade work. Watches the ghost of a boy he once considered a liability become something sharp enough to cut kingdoms down.
And I sit there beside him, smiling, because I don’t have anything left to hide. He knows now. They all will. That boy? That chaos? That addict they thought they could break and discard? He’s mine. And I’ll scorch the earth before I let anyone touch him again.
Leonardo stands slowly. Not like a man rising above me, but like a man sealing something.
He moves to my side, silent leather and cologne, then places a hand on my shoulder.
His fingers tighten once, affectionately.
“You did good, Rafael,” he says. And that?
That fucking means something. Leonardo doesn’t praise easily.
Doesn’t hand it out like wine or warnings.
When he says it, it’s law. And it lands somewhere between my ribs and my spine like heat, like gravity, like a goddamn knife turned warm.
I look up at him. “I’ll be taking that NHL rink,” I say. “For myself. And for my boys.”
Leonardo’s brow lifts—not insulted, not surprised, just watching. He holds my gaze for a long second, eyes unreadable, then his hand squeezes again—just a breath harder—and he nods.
That’s it. Permission. Approval. Trust.
Leonardo Bellini wouldn’t let his own son do what I’m doing.
Ezio is blood, yes, but his leash is short and golden, too easily tangled in his father’s shadow.
The boy has been trained, sculpted, shaped to fit neatly within the walls of this world.
I was never meant to stay. I ran. Fought.
Bled my way free. And still—Leonardo gave me the keys to the parts that matter.
Because I earned every fucking nod, every mission, every kill, every inch of power that wasn’t born into me but taken.
And now I’ll take that rink. Take that game. Take this war. And I’ll make it into a cathedral for boys no one believed in.
He pulls his hand back and walks toward the door, coat swinging like a judge’s robe. He doesn’t look back. He doesn’t need to. We understand each other. We always have.
And as much as I hated this life growing up—hated the blood, the name, the fucking obligations—I’d still rather die for these boys than live outside it again.