Chapter 35 Raffael #2
The first roll of thunder crashes overhead, so sudden and violent that Sophia flinches, and I feel her breath stutter against me. The spell between us shatters with it, leaving silence thick and pulsing in its wake.
I clear my throat. My hand still cradles her cheek, though I know I should drop it. "There’s more you need to know," I murmur. My voice sounds hoarse, almost lost in the groan of wind pressing against the house.
Lightning flashes, bleaching the room in white. A second later, heavy rain lashes against the windows, loud and relentless, like the sky itself is demanding the truth to be dragged out of me.
"I built something," I say. "First, Omertà Infernale. It was just a whisper then, a shadow organization I pieced together with blood, betrayal, and survival. But it grew. Too big, too fast. So I renamed it. Umbra Arcana."
The name rolls off my tongue like a vow. Her eyes widen, reflecting the flicker of lightning outside. She says nothing, but I see the pulse in her throat jump, feel the tension ripple through her frame.
I don’t stop. I can’t.
"I was adopted, Soph. My childhood…" I let out a sharp, humorless laugh. "…it wasn’t happy. You don’t need the details to know it made me what I am. Hard. Scarred. Hungry. I had nothing. Nobody. So I carved something out of the dark."
Rain pelts the roof like a drumbeat, steady, unyielding.
"My company—Umbra Arcana—it’s everything your father’s world pretends not to be.
I take the soldiers nobody else wants, the broken ones, the ones with scars that scare polite society, and I make them lethal again.
We erase scandals, scrub court records, bribe therapists, and wipe digital traces.
For the right price, we make inconvenient exes, whistleblowers, and viral videos disappear like they never existed.
And my real passion? A network of assassins—men and women the world doesn’t believe exist." I don’t soften my tone, don’t apologize.
She deserves the truth, naked and unvarnished.
Her lips part, her breath catches, but still, she listens.
"Billions," I add, my voice flat. "That’s what sits in my accounts. Billions built on shadows and blood. And I would burn it all to the ground for you."
Another lightning flash. The room plunges into shadow again, and in that dark, I let the last part slip, raw and unguarded.
"I was a fool. A complete idiot. Because I thought you were in love with Roberto.
And I let myself believe it." My chest tightens, my throat aches. "I checked on you, more times than I’ll admit, but I didn’t see. God, I should have done better."
Thunder splits the sky like an answer to my self-condemnation, rattling the windowpanes. I don’t say the rest, don’t say that I was ready to let her go, that the thought of it nearly destroyed me. That losing her again now would kill me. The words lodge in my chest, unspeakable but scorching hot.
Her tears glisten in the flickering light as she turns her face up to me. "I wished so many times for you to come," she whispers, her voice breaking. "Rescue me like you did in the alley. But I knew I had no right to wish that. You were always there, though. In my dreams. Always you."
Her tears spill freely now; her voice sounds ragged.
My hand trembles as I cup her face again, brushing the wetness from her cheeks with my thumb.
"I’m sorry," I rasp. My throat burns with it, but the words keep coming. "So damn sorry. I should’ve come sooner. I should’ve seen it.
I’ll spend the rest of my life making it up to you. "
Her voice is a whisper at first, shaking but resolute.
"This isn’t on you. You weren’t responsible for me.
My father is the one who married me off to that monster, knowing exactly what he was.
And Roberto…" Her words falter, her mouth twists, like the name itself tastes foul.
"Roberto made sure I never forgot it. That I never believed I was anything but his to break. "
The rain hammers harder against the glass, drowning out the rest of the world, forcing us into this single moment where there is no escape, no lies left between us.
"No," I whisper, my voice cracks against the thunder. "Still. I should have come. I should have stopped the wedding."
The words hang heavy in the room, almost swallowed by the roar of rain against the windows.
Silence rages between us, thick and suffocating, as we both sit with the truth of what might have been.
I see it too clearly, her in white, her eyes begging for someone to save her, and me standing back in the shadows, fists clenched, rage burning, but chains holding me in place.
I could have done it. I could have ripped her from that altar.
But Carlos would have been furious. We’d have been on the run, hunted before we ever had a chance to breathe.
And back then, my company wasn't strong enough, not yet. I could have saved her from that vow, but I couldn’t have given her the life she was raised in, the comfort she was accustomed to.
We would have been fugitives from the Cosa Nostra, and I couldn't have protected her against all of them.
Not then. I'm realistic enough to accept that.
Our foreheads meet, damp from tears, pressed together as if the touch might rewrite time itself. I wonder if she’s tracing the same road in her mind, following it to the same bitter end.
She smiles through her tears, small, broken, and devastatingly beautiful. "Fate’s funny, isn’t it?"
Thunder crashes and rattles the house to its bones, but all I can hear is the sound of her voice, the ache in it, the hope buried deep beneath the ruin.
With her tears soaking into me, with her face pressed to my chest as though I can shield her from every shadow, I make another promise.
One I don’t need to speak aloud, because it’s already etched into me, bone-deep and unshakable.
He’ll never touch her again. No one will. Not while I breathe. Not while I live.
But Roberto’s already rotting in the ground. That oath is too easy now.
It’s Carlos who still breathes. Carlos, who set this all in motion. Carlos, who thought he could use me like a pawn and discard me. Who handed her over like she was nothing but a bargaining chip. My jaw locks as I press my lips to her temple, tasting salt from her tears. He’s the one left to burn.
And beyond him? Every bastard who looked away. Every man who thought silence was survival while she screamed in the dark.
The storm rattles the windows like cannon fire, and I let the fury sharpen inside me, silent but unbreakable.
Sophia shifts slightly against me, her hands fist in my shirt like she knows what I’m thinking, like maybe she feels the violence coiled in my chest. Her voice is barely there, raw, trembling. "Raffael…"
"I’m not done," I murmur against her hair, each word heavy as stone. "Roberto’s gone. But Carlos still breathes. And as long as he does, he’s mine."
Lightning splits the sky again, bright enough to catch the flicker in her eyes. Fear. Relief. Maybe both.
But it doesn’t matter. My vow is carved already, deep and final.
Carlos is next.