Chapter 21
NIKKI
We’re still in bed when I hear the knocks. Rafe slips out of bed without a word, his warmth vanishing with him. I pull the sheet tighter around me, watching as he grabs a robe from the chair and disappears into the front room. The quiet tension in his shoulders tells me everything I need to know.
I can't hear what Enzo is saying. Not the actual words. But I can hear the tone. The kind of language that means trouble. Real trouble. Not just a little PR crisis.
I should stay quiet. My inner voice, the rare, cautious one is screaming at me to let them do their shady mafia whispering and pretend I’m just here for the scenery.
But that part of me is shrinking fast. Because deep down, I already know.
This is about me. And if I'm the one in danger, I have every right to hear it said out loud.
So, I grab a robe and barge right into the room. I walk towards them, ignoring Enzo's subtle shake of the head, ignoring Rafe's rigid back.
"What happened? What is going on?" I ask. My eyes dart between the two men, searching for answers.
Neither of them answers immediately. Which only makes it worse. The silence stretches, thick with danger I don’t have a name for yet.
I fold my arms across my chest. "If this is about me, I deserve to know. If my life's suddenly in danger again, and let's be honest, it probably is, I have a right to understand why. I'm not a child. Tell me."
Rafe still doesn't look at me, his gaze fixed on some point beyond Enzo's shoulder, as if I'm not even there.
But Enzo does. His eyes, usually so impassive, meet mine.
And whatever he sees in my face, the raw fear, the defiant demand for truth, it must register, because his lips press into a flat line, a subtle acknowledgement.
“Rafe?” I demand. “Start talking.”
"They still believe you're a liability," Rafe says. “Our plan isn’t working as well as we hoped.”
That fucking word again. Liability. Not a person. Not someone worth protecting. Just a risk.
"You said this fake relationship would protect me," I reply. The full weight of his promise, the one I'd clung to, slams into me. "You said this was the plan. You said this would make you boring and me safe. That was the deal."
"I thought it was working," he says, finally turning his head, his dark eyes fixed on mine. "Maybe they saw or heard something to make them think it wasn't real."
"What do we do?" I ask. "Or rather, what should I do? Do I need to start running? Do I have hours? Minutes? Give me something.”
I force myself to take a breath, to push down the rising panic.
I look at Rafe, searching his face, trying to find an answer, a plan, anything.
For the first time since I met him, I don't see the careful strategist, the cold, calculating mob boss. I see a man standing on a cliff’s edge.
His eyes are haunted, his jaw clenched, and there's a desperate uncertainty in his gaze that terrifies me.
For a second, silence settles between us. Then he says it. "I don't know yet. But don’t worry, I’ll take care of it."
Not whispered.
Not shouted.
Just… honest.
Oh, shit.
And that's when I feel it.
Not just fear.
Not just the cold dread of realizing my life's hanging by a thread. But something worse. Something far more unsettling.
Doubt.
Because if Rafe, the man who controls everything, the man who always has a plan, doesn't know what to do, who does?