Chapter 22
SOFIYA
Long after Rafaelle has retreated, I stand on the terrace of the villa, inhaling the sweet, dusty air.
I’ve spent five days here with Rafa; days blurring into one another of wine-dark evenings, home-cooked meals, and nights where I slipped into his arms, feeling something like safety for the first time in my life.
Every vine, every twisted trunk, echoes with memories of a mother’s laughter and my own weakened heartbeat.
And yet the world beyond these walls – my family, my duties – won’t leave me to this fragile peace.
I’ve watched him in the garden below, pruning a row of sage with steady, practised strokes.
His fingers move with a surgeon’s precision, even here.
I think back to how he taught me to taste the olives yesterday morning – an almost sacred ritual – and I feel a pang of longing for this moment to stretch on forever. But I know it can’t.
My phone buzzes in my pocket, one vibration, then another.
I draw it out, thumb skimming the lock screen. Then with the inevitability of a cage door slamming, I activate it.
Papa
Where are you? Narciso needs you. Call me. Now.
My chest tightens. I slip behind a column of wisteria, hiding my phone from view so Rafa doesn’t see the sharp line of worry etched on my face when I re-read the message.
Why is Narciso asking for me? He never has in the past. Besides, he has my number.
The thought that Bonafacio is still out there, still breathing to plan his next move, possibly using my brother, makes my heart lurch.
My fingers fly, tapping one of the many numbers I’ve memorised.
‘Ms Mancinelli,’ the gravelled voice answers, tight with caution.
I press the burner phone tighter to my ear. ‘Agent DeLuca.’ My voice is steady enough to reassure me there’s enough left of my practised cold-blooded calm. ‘You have something for me?’
He clears his throat. ‘I assume you remember what’s at stake for me?’
I lean forward. ‘I’m not the one with the spotty memory and sticky fingers. Go,’ I bark.
‘Last night, Palermo surveillance logged someone under one of the names on our list,’ DeLuca says hastily.
‘Which one?’
‘Mario Vitale.’
I suck in a breath. ‘Location?’
‘Apartment 3B, Via Caracciolo.’
I tap the screen, capturing the details. ‘What’s your mandate?’
‘There’s a warrant coming down the wire. We go in at midnight tonight,’ he says, but I hear hesitation. ‘My hands are tied until then. If you want him alive… or not, you need to act before then.’
My pulse hammers. ‘You won’t think of double-crossing me, will you, Agent?’
A slow, nervous chuckle. ‘No, signurina. I haven’t forgotten that I have… personal reasons to be invested in your family’s affairs.’
‘Good.’ I made it my business to procure a file he’d kept about a discretionary fund, the one I ‘misplaced’ in the loan shark’s stash house last year. The ledger I lifted just before the Interpol raid. Proof Agent DeLuca had siphoned Interpol resources into untraceable accounts. Enough to ruin him.
His voice is clipped now. ‘I want that file back.’
‘Then you know what to do. Keep on my sweet side and you just might get a Christmas wish granted.’ I hang up, slide the burner into my pocket.
I let the silence press in for a moment.
My pulse still hums with the weight of that bargain. Duty, blood, and now blackmail. But for the first time in days, I feel something else: a brittle spark of faith. An alien feeling.
Directed at the man who’s slowly turning me inside out.
My feet move towards him even before I clock I’m moving. That moment outside when he attempted distance and dominance I push deep down.
To be addressed later, if needed.
I wonder how he’ll take this – knowing I’ve used his leak to my advantage, knowing I’m dragging him back into the hunt partly on my terms. I wipe my palms on my jeans as I approach the bedroom.
He’s sitting on the bed, calibrating his rifle’s optics.
He doesn’t look up when I approach, but I catch a flicker in his shoulders, that tension in his breathing.
‘You had a call,’ he murmurs, voice smooth as gravel.
I draw the phone from my pocket and lay it on the wooden table. ‘A source. Interpol.’
He nods. ‘DeLuca.’
Shock punches through me. ‘You know?’
‘That he’s in your pocket?’ He lets a mocking smile curl a fraction. ‘Maybe.’ The rifle hisses as he straightens. ‘What did he have to say for himself?’
I step closer, voice low but precise as I relay every word – the alias Nonno’s using, the deadline, the blackmail, the threat of exposure.
He stays still, absorbing it all like gravity. For a heartbeat I can’t read him. Maybe anger, relief, something softer buried beneath the surface. He brushes the stock of his rifle against his bicep. Then he breathes out. ‘So we move now. Take care of things before midnight.’
‘Yes.’ My voice feels firmer than the quake in my chest. My hand lifts on its own, sliding to his forearm, fingertips brushing over the muscle. He doesn’t pull away. Fragile trust flickers between us. Or maybe it’s just wishful thinking.
‘You sure about this?’ he asks. ‘You need to be fucking sure, tigra,’ he insists, jaw tight enough to cut glass.
‘I trust you enough with this to tell you the truth.’ I look over the bed, still warm with the memory of everything we shared here sizzling beneath my palm. ‘And reprieves, by their definition, end,’ I whisper, lifting my gaze.
In his eyes I see that same dangerous spark, that fierce protectiveness. But is it for his mission, the vow that brought him to the rooftop in Connecticut, or for me?
He nods once, decisive. ‘Go pack. I’ll have the car ready in ten.’
Insides shaking more than I want to stop and examine, I turn to go, but his voice stops me. ‘Sofiya?’
I whirl back. His rifle is slung, but his attention is all on me. ‘I appreciate you trusting me with this. Now you trust me when I say I’ll keep you safe, sì?’
I want to say I’ll keep myself safe, but I’ve never handed someone my blood and bone before.
So instead I step forward, closing the space between us, and press a quick, trembling kiss to his stubble, a benediction of our fragile truce.
When I pull back, his hand slides to my waist, anchoring me.
Deepening the kiss, turning it into a branding, his tongue sliding over mine like he’s already thinking about rewriting the terms, turning this from a partnership into a surrender.
Like he’s already claimed me, a prize he doesn’t intend to give back.
And absurdly, his touch grounds me, steady and sharp as a blade’s edge.
This was never a simple mission. But now it’s raw, volatile, and real – and whatever storm is coming, I’m secretly, fiercely glad I’m not facing it alone.
Rafaelle
Trust.
That’s what she offered me, and God knows it’s a currency I’ve never been willing to spend so freely.
I brace my hands on the boot of the Range Rover.
Its tailgate is already open, saddle bags and rifle cases stacked neatly inside by my own careful planning. I haul in a duffel of extra mags, bindle of grenades, and a leather satchel with medical gear. Every click of hardened plastic on metal jars in the dark stillness.
As I snap the lid on another ammo box, my mind drifts back ten minutes ago. Those eyes, wide and vulnerable when she whispered she trusted me.
Sofiya Mancinelli, whose loyalty was never given lightly, has put faith in me where bullets and betrayal reign.
My world of blades, bullets and broken men taught me to work alone. To kill, then vanish. But for five sublime days, she’s been as inside me as I have been in her.
I zip the last bag and close the tailgate, heart pounding. The vineyard’s walls loom behind me, a fortress of memories – my mother’s laughter in the kitchen, our shared confidences, the hopes and bliss we staged between these rows.
No, bliss isn’t the right word, but the faint warmth of connection is something I never expected. Now violence calls me away, but I can’t ignore the fact that this time, I’m not going in alone.
I head inside the villa.
The kitchen is still redolent of last night’s braised lamb – peppery tomato, rosemary, fat melting into sauce. I slide my hands over the countertop as Sofiya’s voice snaps through my brain again.
I trust you enough with this to tell you the truth.
Packaged within that trust is an unspoken question: Do you trust me?
I should take a moment, to figure that out. Because she’s either the world’s greatest actress – better even than her beauty-namesake, Sophia Loren – or…
Fuck. The naked truth simmering beneath the skin threatens to floor me. Without her, this mission – our future partnership, an Aegis possibility which blazes even brighter now – feels hollow, like running an empty chamber.
I fucking hammered her when I thought she’d betrayed me, and yet her trust feels heavier than any rifle I’ve ever carried.
He’s in my pocket now, she said of her spy, DeLuca. But really I’m in hers, and that terrifies the hell out of me.
Responsibility warps my gut. To protect her is to risk everything I’ve ever known. Everything the Salvatore rule stands for.
Famigghia above all.
The solution is simple, then.
Don’t fuck it up.
Sofiya’s trust has snared me; whether that’s salvation or damnation, I haven’t decided. But resolve settles like steel. We face down the coming storm together – or we both go down in it.
I head upstairs to grab my phone.
Nightowl’s been silent. But even without new intel, I know what needs to happen. I’m going with her. Side by side, just like the truce dictates, because the thought of her standing alone on that dark street in Palermo gnaws at me.
Every instinct in my being wants to protect her, to keep her here in this villa where I can watch her breathe.
I pace back downstairs. The aubergine-coloured walls, the copper pots – every item here could have been touched by my mother. She taught me to cook, and with every lesson, I buried a piece of her in a recipe. Now, every dish I make tastes like vulnerability, and I loathe it.
But I’m willing to hate it for her.
I grab my keys, sling a leather jacket over my shoulders, and head for the car. As I pass the table, I see my mother’s worn apron, folded carefully. I hesitate, brushing the linen between my fingers. In that instant, I know I’ll never be the same.
I brought Sofiya to punish her.
Instead she’s reached inside me. Broken open a place in me I’d thought hardened by a lifetime of death.
I slip outside, night-time lanterns glowing along the drive, and see her – standing at the gate in shadow, face upturned in dusk’s final light.
She steels herself as I approach.
‘Ready?’ I ask, voice hoarse.
She nods, expression luminous and wary. ‘Together?’
I slide my arms around her because I can’t resist. And I don’t want to. ‘Sì. Together.’
Her sigh is soft, way too tender for my hard edges.
Teeth set, I pull away. ‘Let’s go find him.’
She nods again, the flicker of determination in her eyes. We turn and walk towards the car, two hunters tethered by something deeper than vengeance.
As the engine roars to life, I linger on the thought. Sofiya, strategist, granddaughter, woman. Could I trust her in this? For now?
The lone wolf inside me growls, Fuck no. Seethes at the prospect of walking this dark road with her.
But other howls sound, reminding me that tonight we are no longer just Salvatore and Mancinelli. We are something else entirely – an alliance that neither of us understands, but both of us need.
I shift the car into gear, and we drive into the night, my chest hollow and whirling, wondering what the hell is happening to me.