Chapter 2
RAFFAELE 'RAFE' VALENTINO
The fucking video is thirty seconds long. Long enough blow up my entire operation.
The video isn't a deepfake or a leak. It’s worse. This is raw reality, captured by a stupid stranger. Now I'm being obsessed over by people who have no idea what they're actually seeing.
And it all happened in under an hour.
Enzo stands beside me, arms crossed, his face unreadable. He doesn't need to say one word. I already know what he's thinking.
Visibility is vulnerability.
"She didn't tag anything suspicious," he finally says. "No names. No context. Just… vibes."
I glance at him. "'Vibes'? What the fuck does that mean?"
Enzo exhales, disgusted. "Her choice of word, not mine."
I hit play again. The blonde girl chatters in the background, some ridiculous commentary about ocean drama. The comments started blowing up the moment she posted it. The second the viewers stopped looking at her and started dissecting the shape of my jaw.
The viral video isn't a targeted campaign with a bot army boosting the algo. No, it's pure, viral chaos. The kind no one can predict, and even fewer can survive.
"It's not the girl racking up the views," I murmur. "It's me."
Enzo doesn't argue.
For a moment, I stare. Not at her, at the views racking up in real time. Millions of people. Thousands of comments. Fan edits. Theories. Frame-by-frame analysis.
"You sure no one was paid to boost this?" I ask.
Enzo shakes his head. "It's one hundred percent real."
"Damn, that's what I'm worried about."
Someone posted:
"The way he steps out of the car? That man has body count energy. I'm obsessed."
Another:
"He's not hot. He's dangerous. There's a difference. And I still want him."
And the one that hits too close to home:
"He's not scared to be seen. Which means he's the one people fear."
Un-fucking-believable.
All it took was one careless moment by a woman too addicted to the glow of her own reflection to notice what she caught in the background. She didn't do this on purpose. That's what makes it worse. Because if it'd been deliberate, I could end it immediately and clean up the damage.
But this insanity?
This is the algorithm. This is eight million faceless strangers grabbing at pieces of me I never wanted to share.
"You want her gone?" Enzo asks. "Want me to take care of her?"
I don't answer right away. She didn't betray me, she simply existed in her own pointless life. She pointed a camera at the wrong moment, and the world saw what it wanted to see, an interesting story. A mystery to obsess over for God knows how long.
I glance back at the paused video. The girl is mid-laugh, oblivious. I can see it now, the precise second she thought she was being adored, not realizing the world had already moved on.
They weren't looking at her anymore.
They were looking at me.
And now I'm the big story.
"So, what's the move, boss? Do we silence the noise or do we amplify it?"
I close my eyes for a second. "Silence the noise."
"It's already out there. You can't put the genie back in the bottle."
"I'm not trying to put it back. I'm trying to control the narrative. We find her, we make her understand what she's done and then we make her fix it."
Enzo grunts. "And if she can't fix it? Or won't fix it?"
"Then we consider other options." The thought of all those eyes on me, dissecting my life, makes my stomach clench.
"You know, some guys would kill for this kind of attention," Enzo says, almost to himself. "Mysterious, dangerous. It's catnip for the masses if you know how to spin it."
"It's a target on my goddamn back. Every time some idiot posts a screengrab, they're painting a bigger target. You understand that, right?"
"I understand. But you've always been good at turning bad situations to your advantage."
I shake my head. "This is different. This isn't a rival gang. This isn't some business deal gone sideways. This is the whole damn world, and they don't play by our rules."
I stare again at the girl on the screen.
Blonde, glossy, her features softened by a filter, smiling as if the entire world belongs to her, a playground for her amusement.
She possesses an almost terrifying ignorance.
She doesn't even know what she's done, the ripple her one careless act has already initiated.
"Who is she?" I ask, knowing Enzo already has the answer ready.
"Antonio's got eyes on her full social media profile now.
Her name is Nikki Ricci. American. Los Angeles base, but she's been in Italy for the past two weeks, on a 'European content trip.
' Travel influencer. Brand partnerships.
Lifestyle reels. Beach glam. Eight million followers and climbing, fast. Exponential growth in the last hour. "
"How fast did the traffic spike hit?"
"Under twenty minutes for the viral threshold," Enzo confirms. "It tripped two keywords on the backend, then cross-referenced against geotags that she included in her post. That's how it reached us."
"Did she tag the exact location?"
"Yeah, unfortunately. A specific yacht, a very public landmark near the coastline. The digital footprint is thorough. The video didn't only go viral; it detonated a minefield."
I press pause again. Nikki Ricci is frozen mid-spin, lips curled into a smug, self-satisfied smirk. She's wearing designer sunglasses, too large for her face, and a barely-there bikini.
This idiot girl has no idea she just documented the precise moment my entire operation became vulnerable, exposed to the careless gaze of millions. The efficiency of her digital self-promotion has just become a liability to me of catastrophic proportions.
I tap a knuckle against the armrest of my chair. Once. Twice. The sound is sharp in the silence. Then my hand is still. My decision, already made, simply solidified.
"Pick her up," I state.
Enzo arches a brow. "Alive?"
"Obviously," I reply. "She's no good to us dead.
The video's already been seen. A corpse draws questions, a live, breathing, terrified witness can be…
managed. A dead influencer creates a global outrage.
A missing one creates confusion. We prefer confusion until we figure out the best way to handle this. "
"Public setting?"
"No. I want it quiet. Surgical. No screams, no witnesses. The last thing I need is a trending hashtag with my name in it. Or, worse, a global media frenzy that leads to deeper scrutiny."
He nods. "Understood. We have teams positioned near her hotel. Minimal risk of exposure."
"Make sure she comes directly to me," I instruct. "No detours. No middlemen. I want to see her face the moment she realizes what she's truly walked into. I want her to understand the weight of her carelessness."
Enzo nods, and exits the room without another word. I lean back in the chair, a tired sigh escaping me, and press play again. The video rolls for the fourth time.
Jesus Christ.
Nikki Ricci. QueenNikki online. Twenty-three years old, digitally untouchable, a product of her own making.
She smiles for the camera as if it's the only oxygen sustaining her, her performance a desperate plea for validation.
She tosses her long, blonde hair, and makes a kissy face, utterly unaware that with that careless flick of her wrist, that casual turn of her phone, she fucked up my entire operation.
I mute the sound. I don't want to hear her anymore.
The screen dims, but I let the last frame, her beaming, oblivious face, burn into my vision.
I already know she's not a threat. Not in the traditional sense.
Not a rival, not an enemy. But she is exposure.
She's the first toppling domino in a long line I can’t control.
And that, in my world, is unforgivable.
My phone buzzes. "Her team just docked," Enzo's voice comes through my earpiece. "They're splitting up. She's riding alone to Rome. Her car is already booked, a black Mercedes SUV, private driver. We can intercept the car."
"Make it quick," I reiterate, my grip tightening on the armrest. "I don't want her touched, just removed discreetly. She won't know what's happening until she's already inside the transfer vehicle. No struggles, no visible signs of abduction. It must appear as if she simply vanished into thin air."
"Copy that," Enzo confirms. "We'll have her in the villa soon. Secure and without complications."
Antonio, my lead analyst, walks in a minute later, carrying a tablet. He slides it across the table. Like Enzo, he is thorough, precise.
"I pulled her full online dossier, Rafe," Antonio begins, his tone crisp.
"It's not deep. Surface level, mostly. No criminal record.
She claims she's from Los Angeles with wealthy parents, but there's nothing to support that.
She uses a fake online name and became popular on social media at seventeen.
Started gaining traction on TikTok and YouTube, then pivoted into high-end travel content.
She was smart enough to monetize herself, to build a solid brand that keeps expanding. "
"A boyfriend?" I ask, a detail that can sometimes reveal vulnerabilities.
"None that stuck," Antonio replies. "A few European flings, minor celebrities. She likes athletes, DJs, anyone with a yacht, according to her social media posts. But nothing long enough to truly matter. No significant attachments."
I nod slowly. "Mental health?"
Antonio hesitates. "Publicly? No records. Privately? If I had to guess, based on the patterns of her digital engagement and her public persona, she's chasing dopamine like it's a drug. That kind of digital dependency tends to make people volatile. Unpredictable when their supply's cut off."
"So, she's emotional," I summarize, the confirmation solidifying my initial assessment.
"Exactly."
I flip through the file, a rapid succession of images flashing across the screen.
Photos from press events. Behind-the-scenes reels.
Drunk airport footage, quickly deleted but archived.
Half of her life is a meticulously crafted highlight reel, the other half just noise, digital exhaust. But I'm looking for something else.
Something unfiltered by the need for public approval.
And there it is.
A single unedited photo taken by someone else and uploaded.
She's sitting in an airport chair, scrolling on her phone, bathed in the harsh, unflattering glow of a terminal screen.
No makeup. No smile. Her eyes are dead, vacant, devoid of the sparkle she projects.
This is the girl I need to see. The one who exists when she thinks no one's watching.
"You think she'll talk?" Antonio asks.
I don't answer immediately. I tap the tablet screen once more, locking it, the glowing image of Nikki's dead eyes disappearing.
"She won't need to," I say finally. "I doubt she has anything to say. She'll listen though. And she'll learn."
Because in my world, people don't need to speak to confess, to reveal everything. They just need to survive long enough to understand the rules.
The rules of consequence.
Nikki Ricci has just entered my game.
She'll learn quickly.
Or the game will be over fast.