Chapter 3
THREE
RAFAEL
The key to the rooftop door sticks like always, requiring just the right pressure to turn. I learned this trick months ago, along with the building supervisor's schedule and the blind spots in the security cameras. Old habits. Even in my quest for a legitimate life, I can't stop cataloging escape routes and secure locations.
The early afternoon sun washes over the garden planters that line the rooftop's perimeter, turning the scattered leaves golden. Up here, the constant hum of campus life fades to white noise. I discovered this spot during my first year—a forgotten study space with a panoramic view of Montcove's skyline. The business district gleams to the east, while the shadowy sprawl of Old Harbor stretches west, a perfect visual divide between the world I'm trying to build and the one I left behind.
My hands still burn from scrubbing them raw in the gym showers, trying to wash away the feeling of being watched. Of being hunted. Two encounters with Dario Greco in less than twenty-four hours. The coincidence rings false, setting off warning bells I've spent years trying to silence.
I begin my usual security sweep, checking the door's lock, testing the planters I've strategically relocated to create bottlenecks and cover. The maintenance door that leads to the electrical room is still sealed. I check it twice, remembering Uncle Salvatore's lessons about multiple exit strategies. Three years of legal studies, and I still can't shake the training bred into my bones.
Setting up my study space provides a familiar ritual. Laptop positioned to avoid screen glare, reference books arranged by relevance, coffee at precisely the right distance to avoid accidental spills. Every item placed with mechanical precision, as if perfect order could somehow ward off the chaos Dario represents.
The campus stretches below me, students crossing the quad like ants, oblivious to the predators walking among them. Somewhere down there, Dario is probably watching, waiting, planning his next move. My fingers itch for a weapon—any weapon—but I force them to remain steady on my laptop keyboard instead.
A shadow passes overhead—just a bird, but my pulse spikes anyway. I draw in a careful breath, tasting salt on the breeze from the harbor. Focus. Control. I have a constitutional law paper due next week, a mock trial to prepare for, and a future to build. I can't let Dario's games derail everything I've worked for.
But as I stare at my screen, his words from the gym echo in my head: "Blood always tells, doesn't it?" The cursor blinks accusingly, and I realize I've been typing the same sentence over and over, muscle memory operating on autopilot while my mind circles through combat scenarios and threat assessments.
My phone buzzes—another message from Luca, probably asking why I missed our weekly coffee meetup. I silence it without looking. Luca would understand the threat Dario represents and would offer family resources and protection, but accepting help means admitting I can't handle this on my own. It means proving Dario right about who and what I really am.
The sun climbs higher, burning away the morning marine layer. I've added my own security measures up here over the months—subtle changes to the layout, strategic vantage points, and hidden cameras that feed to my phone. My sanctuary, fortified against threats I pretended no longer existed. Until now.
I pull up my research notes, trying to lose myself in the familiar rhythm of legal precedents and constitutional amendments. But between every line of text, I see Dario's predatory smile; I feel the weight of his gaze. My fingers hover over the keys, and I catch myself analyzing the rooftop's defensive possibilities instead of the Commerce Clause.
A group of law students passes below, their laughter carrying up to my perch. Their biggest worry is the upcoming midterms. Mine is the son of a rival crime family who's decided to make me his new hobby. The divide between their world and mine suddenly feels vast and unbridgeable. Maybe it always was.
I straighten my already straightened papers and adjust my perfectly positioned coffee cup. Small acts of control in a world that's rapidly spinning beyond my grasp. Up here, surrounded by carefully tended herbs and flowers, I can almost pretend I've built something real. Something that passes for legitimate. But Dario's voice whispers in my memory: "Playing pretend."
The worst part is, he might be right.
When did this rooftop become another prison? Another carefully constructed cage, just like my apartment, my study spots, my entire routine? I trace my fingers along the rough brick of the wall, remembering the calluses I used to have from weapons training. Now my hands are smooth, marked only by paper cuts and keyboard strain. Lawyer's hands. But they still remember how to hurt, how to break, how to?—
I jerk my thoughts back from that dangerous path. This is exactly what Dario wants, to make me question everything I've built. To make me doubt the walls I've erected between my past and my future. I pull up another case study, but the legal jargon blurs before my eyes. Three years of perfect grades, of carefully maintained distance from family business, of building a new identity brick by brick. And it's all starting to feel like exactly what he called it: an elaborate performance.
The breeze carries the scent of the herbs I've planted: basil, oregano, the same ones my mother grew in her kitchen garden. Another tie to the past I can't quite sever. Even my attempts at normalcy betray my roots.
The first warning comes as a shadow across my laptop screen—too large for a bird, too deliberate for a cloud. My muscles tense before my mind processes why. There's someone behind me.
I don't turn. Don't give him the satisfaction. But my fingers curl against my thigh, missing the weight of steel. The breeze shifts, carrying the scent of expensive cologne and leather. Dario. The lock on the rooftop door was supposed to be unbreakable.
"Nice view," he says, voice rich with amusement. "You've got good taste in hiding spots."
The words slice through the peaceful afternoon air. I keep my eyes on my screen, though the text has become meaningless shapes. My pulse thunders in my throat as I catalog my options. The maintenance door is twelve steps behind me. The edge of the roof, eight steps left. The herb planters would provide cover, but limited mobility.
"Most students don't know about this place." His footsteps trace the perimeter I've so carefully secured. "Then again, most students don't have your…specialized training in finding escape routes."
Heat crawls up my neck. Anger, fear, and something else I refuse to name. "There's a study room available in the library."
He laughs, the sound too intimate in my sanctuary. "But the library doesn't have these lovely privacy walls. Or these"—he pauses by my herb garden—"interesting choice of plants. Very traditional. Very Italian."
My jaw aches from clenching it. He's between me and the only viable exit now. The maintenance door is padlocked from the outside. I could make the jump to the next building, but that would mean showing him exactly what I'm capable of.
"Your security cameras are cute," he continues, and my blood freezes. "Amateur work, but you get points for effort. Though you might want to upgrade the receivers. The signal's easy to track."
Finally, I turn to face him. He leans against the wall like he owns it, afternoon sun catching the planes of his face. There's a fresh bruise darkening his jaw; someone fought back recently. The sight shouldn't send a thrill through me.
"What do you want?"
His smile sharpens. "Now that's an interesting question. What do I want?" He pushes off the wall, his movement liquid and predatory. "Maybe I just want to understand what makes a Valenti turn his back on everything he is. Maybe I want to see how long you can keep playing student before you crack. Or maybe..."
He steps closer, and it takes everything in me not to move. Not to show weakness. Not to show how my skin prickles with awareness of the danger he represents.
"Maybe I just like watching you pretend you don't check every exit, catalog every threat, and plan every possible scenario." His voice drops lower. "Like now. You're already calculating how to take me down if I get too close. Aren't you, Rafael?"
The sound of my name in his mouth sends electricity down my spine. He's not wrong. I have already mapped out three different ways to neutralize him, each more violent than the last. The knowledge sits heavy in my gut.
"You're trespassing," I say, but the words come out rough, uneven.
"Am I?" He glances around the rooftop, at my perfectly arranged study space, my carefully positioned planters. "Looks to me like you're the one trespassing. In this clean little world that doesn't belong to you and never will."
A cloud passes over the sun, casting us both in shadow. In the dimness, I catch the outline of his holster beneath his jacket. He's armed, of course. The question is: why show me? Why make it obvious?
The answer hits like a punch to the gut. Because he knows I won't report it. I won't call campus security. Won't do anything that might draw attention to either of us. Because despite everything, I'm still playing by the old rules. Still bound by the laws of our world, even as I try to learn the laws of this one.
"Fuck off," I say, the curse slipping out in Italian. His grin widens, all teeth and triumph.
"There he is," he purrs. "There's the real Rafael Valenti."
The herb garden's scent intensifies in the afternoon heat, basil and oregano mixing with gunmetal and leather. Below us, students cross the quad, their voices carrying up like a distant radio. Their world feels impossibly far from this moment, this confrontation. A pair of pigeons takes flight from the neighboring roof, startled by our tension.
His presence transforms my sanctuary into a battleground. Each familiar element—the worn brick walls, the rusted drain pipe, the cracked concrete under my feet—becomes tactical terrain. The sun glints off the glass walls of the business building across the street, momentarily blinding. In that flash, Dario shifts closer, testing boundaries.
"You chose this spot well," he says, gesturing to the cityscape behind me. "Perfect view of your family's territory. Tell me, do you watch their cars come and go? Keep tabs on the business you pretend doesn't exist?"
The question strikes deeper than it should. I do watch—not just my family's movements, but all of them. The ebb and flow of power in Montcove written in black SUVs and nervous couriers. Old Harbor's shadows stretching toward downtown like grasping fingers.
A police siren wails in the distance, and neither of us flinches. We're too well-trained for that. But I catch the way his fingers twitch toward his holster, an instinct bred into both of us before we could walk. The gesture creates an unwanted moment of kinship that turns my stomach.
The autumn wind tears across the rooftop, scattering my papers. I let them fly. Moving to catch them would mean stepping closer to Dario, and we both know it's a trap. He watches them dance away, lips curving into something that isn't quite a smile.
"Your analysis of prosecution strategies is thorough," he says, producing one of my notebooks. The sight of it in his hands makes bile rise in my throat. "Especially the sections on witness intimidation. Speaking from experience?"
"Give it back." The words emerge in a voice I haven't used since leaving the family—low, dangerous, pure Sicily.
"Make me." He thumbs through the pages with deliberate slowness. "Wonder what Uncle Salvatore thinks about his nephew's particular academic interests? All these notes about dismantling power structures from within..."
Red bleeds at the edges of my vision. "You broke into my locker."
"I go wherever I want." He slides my notebook into his jacket, the movement smooth as a knife between ribs. "While you hide up here with your books and your herbs, I move through the world and take what's mine."
"Nothing here belongs to you." The “including me” goes unspoken, but hangs heavy in the air between us.
He moves toward my study space, each step measured. His fingers brush my laptop's surface. "Then why look at me like that? Like you're calculating exactly how many bones you'd break before I hit the ground?"
My mouth goes dry because he's right. I've already mapped it all out: the exact angle to take him down, the pressure points that would render him unconscious, the way his blood would look against the concrete. The knowledge sits in my gut like lead.
"Some of us found better solutions than violence," I say, but my voice betrays me, rough with possibilities.
His laugh cuts through the air. "Better? Is that what you call this masquerade?" He gestures at my clothes, my books, everything I've built. "Your professors might believe it. Your study group might buy the act. But I see what's underneath. I see the war you wage every minute of every day."
"You don't see anything." Even I don't believe the lie.
He closes the distance between us, each step eating away at my carefully constructed walls. "I see how you catalog exits before sitting down. How your fingers curl when you're angry, muscle memory reaching for a weapon that isn't there. The way you stand now, balanced on the balls of your feet, ready to move. Just like they taught us."
Us. The word hits like a body blow. Different families, same education. The art of violence passed down through generations. How to hurt, how to survive, how to own the darkness instead of fearing it.
"I chose a different path." My words ring hollow in the autumn air.
"Did you?" His voice drops to a whisper. "Or are you banking that fire, keeping it contained until it explodes? All that capacity for violence, for dominance..." He reaches for my collar. "The weight of restraining it must be crushing."
I catch his wrist before he makes contact. Lightning arcs through my veins at the touch. His pulse hammers against my fingers, fast and strong, betraying the adrenaline beneath his calm facade. We freeze in this moment of barely contained violence, neither willing to break first.
"Careful," he breathes. "Your heritage is showing."
I shove him back, the movement sharp with years of training I can't erase. He doesn't stumble, doesn't retreat. Just stands there radiating heat and danger and dark promises.
"Get out." The words emerge in Italian, my mother tongue claiming me despite my best efforts.
"I think I'll stay." His eyes gleam with satisfaction. "The view up here is…educational."
The city sprawls beneath us, unaware of this rooftop dance of threat and counter-threat. Church bells echo across campus. Three chimes until my next class. Time slips away while Dario systematically strips away my defenses.
"This ends badly," I warn, despising how it sounds like an invitation.
His eyes darken to midnight. "That's exactly the plan."
The space between us crackles with unspoken threats. A helicopter thunders overhead, casting shifting shadows across the rooftop. Neither of us flinches at the sound, another shared tell of our upbringing. His fingers brush the outline of his holster, a deliberate reminder of what he brings to this game.
"You know what fascinates me?" He gestures at my scattered notes and abandoned laptop. "How hard you work to build this facade. All these hours studying laws written by men who've never had blood on their hands. Never understood real power." He picks up one of my textbooks, weighs it like a weapon. "But you understand it, don't you? It's in your bones. In your blood. Just like it's in mine."
The comparison makes my skin crawl, mostly because it rings true. I think of my classmates and about their simple concerns about grades and interviews. None of them dream in red. None of them wake reaching for weapons that aren't there.
"We're nothing alike," I say, but the words taste like ash.
His smile says he hears the lie. "No? Then why do your eyes keep tracking my movements? Why does your breath quicken when I step closer? That's not fear, Rafael. That's recognition."
The wind carries the scent of his cologne, mixing with herbs and autumn air. Everything about him is a challenge—to my restraint, to my choices, to the walls I've built between past and present. My fingers ache with the urge to answer that challenge with violence.
He sees it. Of course he does. We speak the same brutal language, no matter how I try to forget the words.
My hand moves before my mind decides, and I shove my laptop into my bag, gathering the papers still within reach. The sun dips behind the business district's glass towers, casting long shadows across the rooftop. Time to retreat, to regroup, to?—
"Running away?" Dario blocks my path to the door, his stance wide, challenging. "That's not very Valenti of you."
"Move." One word, but it carries the weight of every lesson I've tried to unlearn.
"Make me." He steps closer, into the space I've marked as mine. "Come on, Rafael. Show me what they taught you before you decided to play scholar."
The distance between us shrinks to nothing. This close, I can see the faint scar above his left eyebrow, the way his pupils dilate with anticipation. His cologne mingles with smoke and aged leather, a scent that speaks of home in ways I've tried to forget.
"Last chance," I warn, but my voice has gone rough, hungry.
His smile turns sharp. "To do what? Call campus security? Tell them the big bad Greco is bothering you?" His fingers brush my collar, testing. "We both know you won't. Can't. Because the minute you involve their authorities, your carefully constructed world starts to crack."
He's right. God help me, he's right. I can't report him without risking exposure. Can't fight him without proving every word he's said about my nature. Can't walk away without showing weakness.
"The funny thing is," he continues, voice dropping lower, "I bet you miss it. The weight of a gun under your jacket. The rush of power. The simple clarity of violence instead of all these"—he gestures at my books with contempt—"complex legal theories."
"You don't know anything about me."
"No?" His hand shoots out, grabbing my wrist. The contact burns. "Your pulse is racing. Your muscles are coiled for action. Everything about you screams fighter, not scholar. You can dress it up in expensive clothes and hide it behind textbooks, but you're still what they made you. What we both are."
I could break his grip. I could put him down on the concrete in three moves. The knowledge hums in my blood, muscle memory warring with carefully constructed restraint.
"The difference," I grit out, "is choice."
His laugh holds no humor. "Choice? You really think you chose this? Think you can just decide not to be what you are?" His grip tightens. "Your hands remember, don't they? The feel of a trigger. The impact of a punch. The satisfaction of making someone bleed."
My free hand clenches, and his eyes track the movement with savage pleasure. He's winning, drawing out the violence I've buried beneath years of studied civility.
"That's it," he murmurs. "Let it surface. Let it breathe."
The city spreads out below us, glass and steel catching the dying light. Somewhere down there, my classmates are filing into lecture halls, discussing precedents and procedures. Their world feels impossibly distant from this rooftop, this moment, this choice.
His thumb brushes my pulse point, intimate as a lover. "Tell me you don't want to hurt me right now. Tell me you don't ache for it."
I move without thinking. One twist, one step, and suddenly he's against the wall, my forearm at his throat. The violence rises so naturally, so easily, it terrifies me. His eyes gleam with triumph even as he gasps for breath.
"Beautiful," he chokes out. "Fucking beautiful."
Horror floods me as I realize what I've done. What I've revealed. I release him and step back, but it's too late. He's seen beneath my mask, seen the killer I've tried so hard to bury.
"Don't leave on my account," he says, rubbing his throat. "We're just getting to the good part."
I grab my bag and run. His laughter follows me down the stairs, echoing in my head long after I've left the building behind. My hands shake as I push through crowds of students, their innocent chatter a mockery of what just transpired.
He's won this round and proved his point. The monster I've caged still lives, still hungers, still knows exactly how to hurt.
And God help me, some part of me gloried in letting it out.
My shoes hit each step with military precision as I descend, the stairwell's fluorescent lights flickering in time with my racing pulse. Sweat soaks through my shirt—expensive cotton gone damp with fear or excitement or both. The taste of violence lingers on my tongue, metallic and familiar.
The evening air hits me like a slap as I burst out of the building. Students mill around the quad, their faces blurring into a mass of innocent normalcy. A girl laughs at something on her phone. A professor juggles an armful of papers. A couple shares a coffee on a bench. All of them ignorant of the dangerous current running through me, the way my hands still remember the feel of Dario's throat.
Behind me, the rooftop looms against the darkening sky. My sanctuary, violated and transformed into something else entirely. Tomorrow, I'll have to find a new place to study, establish new routines to replace the ones he's tainted. But tonight…tonight, I taste copper and adrenaline, and part of me wants to turn around, to climb those stairs again, to finish what we started.
The thought terrifies me more than anything else.