Chapter 48 RAFFAEL #2
"Trust me," she rises to her tiptoes and kisses me, and I'm man enough to admit that this slip of a girl has me wrapped around her little finger.
Six of my men accompany us, riding in two separate SUVs.
I'm starting to get used to showing off my power, but I miss my Ducati.
Just as much, I miss the comfort of my leather jacket, which has been part of me for so many years.
Every conversation dies the moment Sophia and I enter Edoardo’s outer office on one of the top floors of Zanello Tower.
They all watch me. Us. Trying to decide if I’m here to stand by her side or to claim something for myself.
The air is thick with unspoken things; the glares from the other guards are veiled with challenges and suspicion.
Sophia stands beside me, spine straight, chin high, looking regal in a black and white tailored dress, sparkling with diamonds that make her look like a queen on the warpath.
The studs in her ears glint under the recessed lighting, but it’s her eyes that catch the room, calm, unreadable, and sharp as glass.
The space is packed with men leaning against furniture or standing in tight knots along the perimeter, watching us with a mix of curiosity and calculation.
Some of them I've known for years; others I know only by reputation.
Vito Balotelli posts up near the wall, his stance easy but alert.
He's Antonio DeLuna's second-in-command, and one of the few in the room I might actually trust not to stab me in the back, at least not today.
Luciano, Marcello's seconds, lingers by the floor-to-ceiling windows. His arms are crossed, and his jaw is tight. His eyes haven’t left Sophia since we walked in, like he's been contemplating what his next step should be.
He's loyal to a fault; there's nothing he wouldn't do for Marcello.
And I expect, by extension, for his sister, Sophia.
Luciano seems to come to a decision and breaks first. He steps forward, his gaze locked on Sophia, and his hand is moving up to where I know he keeps his gun hidden under his jacket. I stiffen.
"Are you okay?" he asks, and I hear the warning under it.
The hair on the back of my neck lifts, but before I can speak, Sophia answers.
"I’m fine," she says softly, and her voice is warm, loud enough for the others to hear. "I’m sorry I worried you. I’ll explain everything."
And she means it. Not to pacify him. Not to manipulate. But because, for the first time, she understands what it means to be loved. To be worried about.
It took her a long time to get here.
Sophia grew up in a house where her worth was never seen, only used.
Her father, Carlos, treated her like an afterthought.
Her older brother, Angelo, barely acknowledged her existence.
She lost her mother young, and Marcello—her only real protector—was exiled before he could shield her from the damage.
Then came Roberto. The bastard who shattered what little confidence she had left.
Who broke her down so completely that she stopped believing she could matter to anyone.
Esther tried to explain to me something about emotional abuse and learned worthlessness. I didn’t catch all the psychology mumbo jumbo, but I caught enough to understand that Sophia didn’t believe she was someone worth worrying about.
That’s what makes this moment matter. She means it. She’s learning that there are people who see her. Who value her. Who love her. That's why I don't interfere, although I want to rip Luciano's throat out just for breathing the same air so close to her.
Luciano might not say it in so many words, but she knows he’s one of them.
He stares at her a second longer, then nods.
Once. Then—unexpectedly—he steps in and hugs her.
It’s not polite. It’s not brief. It’s like he thought he lost her and is still trying to believe he didn’t.
My hands curl into fists, but I hold the line.
I let it happen even though it’s a herculean effort.
She whispers something in his ear, too quiet for me to hear.
But whatever it is, it works. His shoulders drop. Some of the rage bleeds out.
He still looks like he wants to kill me. But maybe not today.
Before I have a chance to say something, my phone buzzes, a text:
Edoardo:
Now.
"You ready?" I ask Sophia, and she nods. "He’s going to make a dramatic announcement about me," I mutter.
She nods and squeezes my arm. I move toward the doors with Sophia at my side; her steps are smooth and sure, as if she’s done this her whole life.
I open the door and stare into Marcello's raised gun. "Where the fuck is my sister?"
Sophia scoots around me, and I try to hold her back. There's no way I'll allow her to step in between me and a gun. "I'm here."
Marcello rises, his gun still trained on me, "Take your filthy hands off her."
"Put your gun away," I reply calmly.
"Please, don't shoot him," Sophia begs. "I’m okay, I swear. He didn’t hurt me. He—" she glances at me, then back at Marcello, "—he saved me."
His jaw flexes, but his aim doesn’t waver.
"You expect me to believe that?"
"You don’t have to believe it," she says. "But it’s the truth."
I'm still forcing Sophia to stay behind me, while she begs, "Marcello—please. Let’s talk. Let’s sit. I’ll explain everything."
He doesn’t lower the gun, but his arm dips slightly.
And that’s when Edoardo’s voice slices through the silence from the head of the table. "That’s enough."
All heads turn.
The Don stands tall and smug, hands behind his back like this was all just some choreographed prelude to the grand show. "If you’re done making this more dramatic than it needs to be," he says, "perhaps we can get back to business."
"I need to speak to my sister. Alone." Marcello states in an icy, deadly cold voice.
"Marcello, I'm okay," Sophia tries to assure him.
"It's okay," I nudge her. "Go."
Her eyes plead with me. I know that no matter how brave she tries to appear, she's afraid of this conversation with her brother. But I know she can handle it. She needs to handle it, for her sake. I couldn't care less about him, but since Sophia loves him, I guess I should.
"Fine, five minutes," Edoardo points at the oversized Cartier on his arm.
Marcello puts the gun away, grabs his sister's hand, and pulls her out of the hallway into another conference room. "Out!" I hear him snap, and seconds later, five men and two women rush out.
The door closes, and my heart constricts. All my instincts are to be with Sophia. Even though I know Marcello won't hurt her, every fiber of my body is primed to protect her. Emotionally as much as physically.
“Raffael, you have some explaining to do.” Stephano sidles up at my three o’clock, his smile is strained, and his eyes are deadly.
A flicker of guilt slides through me when I clock the missed calls, the voicemails I never returned. I’d been avoiding his shadow. He sent me to Venezuela once upon a time and didn’t hear from me again. I was supposed to be working for him.
“Not out here,” he says, tipping his chin toward a side corridor. “Conference room.”
We walk. His soldiers watch our backs; mine watch theirs. The room is glass and quiet. He closes the door. We stand instead of sitting; neither of us wants to give the other an inch.
“You’re hard to reach,” he says lightly.
“I was busy,” I answer.
“In Venezuela?” He lifts a brow. “Or with someone else’s daughter?”
Marcello’s poison travels fast. “Extraction,” I say. “Not kidnapping. She chose to leave. I made sure she got the chance.”
He studies me a beat, then lets it go. “You vanished on my payroll.”
“I was never your employee.” I keep my voice even. “We traded favors. You pointed. I hit. Omertà Infernale didn’t come from your ledger. I built it. Brick by bloody brick.”
He smiles with his mouth, not his eyes. “I like the spine. Keep it. You’ll need it now that you’ve crowned yourself capo.” He leans a hip against the edge of the table. “You could have told me.”
“I couldn’t.” I shake my head once. “OpSec. People die when I narrate my moves. Sophia doesn’t get a second chance if I misstep.”
“Omertà,” he says, almost approving. “Fine. Tell me what you can.”
“I won’t hand you names or parentage,” I say.
“I won’t hand you her. But I’ll give you the frame: I took the chair to kill the rot.
I don’t touch women or kids. My routes are safe corridors.
I’m turning my money into shields. If a monster breathes on my streets, he stops breathing. That’s the policy.”
Stephano’s eyes go half-lidded, calculating. “You think I don’t know this already? I don’t keep a network for decoration. I knew that weeks ago. I also know you’ve been subsidizing a shelter, and that you just burned goodwill in three languages to do it.”
Silence hums. Respect sits down between us like a third man.
“So,” he says, drumming his fingers on the table, “we have a problem of structure. You used to… work with me." The corner of his mouth twitches at the euphemism. “Now you’re a capo. That makes us peers, not line and staff. How do we keep the board from tipping?”
“Rules,” I say. “Simple ones.”
He nods, intrigued. “Go on.”
“No poaching soldiers,” I start. “I made sure that my business does not coincide with yours.
You profit from messes; I clean them. I don't want the Giordano's trafficking business.
I suppose I have to keep the drugs and, to some extent, the prostitution, just to keep the scum off our streets.
" Stephano nods. "No undercutting each other in the cyberwar. If we need to run product through each other’s lanes, we pay the toll, and we say it out loud.”
“And when our interests collide?” he asks.
“We talk first,” I answer. “If talk fails, we keep it clean. No civilians. No women. No kids. And we don’t use the other man’s family as leverage.”
His gaze flicks—quick—at the word family. He hears what I’m not naming.
“And Sophia.”
“She’s off the board,” I say. “Anyone who touches her answers to me.”
He holds my stare. “I figured as much.”
We measure each other for a long second. This is the part where men like us usually lie. Neither of us does.
“What do I get that I didn’t already have?” he asks finally.
“A precision tool when you need one,” I say. “No questions, clean results, invoice paid. And a neighbor who won’t start fires. You don’t have many of those.”
He huffs a short laugh. “No. I don’t.”
“And me?” I ask.
“The same,” he says. “Plus… I keep certain doors cracked. Information moves faster when you aren’t kicking it alone. I won’t throw you a parade, Raffael. But I won’t put a knife in your back unless you earn it.”
“Fair,” I say.
We don’t shake. Not yet. Capos don’t give inches; we trade edges.
He pushes off the table. “For what it’s worth,” he adds, almost conversational, “Marcello didn’t allude. He told me to drag you back by the throat. I would have if I had gotten my hands on you.”
“Good to know.”
He glances toward the glass, where the hallway flickers with movement. “You put me in a position where I had to pretend I didn’t know. I dislike pretending.”
“You’re good at it,” I say.
“So are you.” His smile turns real for the first time. “One more thing. Don’t make me chase you again. If you’re going to disappear, send a ghost to tell me which direction.”
“If I’m breathing, you’ll hear it,” I say. “If I stop, you’ll feel that too.”
“Good.” He reaches for the handle, and we walk out shoulder to shoulder into a hallway full of eyes, each of us exactly what we are: sharp men with exit plans, playing long games, leaving the board a little cleaner than we found it.
The kind who won’t die early. The kind who survive and rewrite the ending.
And maybe—one day—the kind who’ll lift a glass to each other.