Chapter 23
RAFAELLE
The apartment building in Palermo sits on the edge of the coast like a broken jawbone – its balconies rusted, its windows stained with the salt of old sins.
I park two blocks down and we approach on foot, slipping past drunk tourists and street vendors hawking bootleg cigarettes.
A party rages somewhere nearby, but this place is a tomb.
We climb the cracked stairwell in silence.
No plan B. No backup if this goes sideways. It’s just her, me, and the weight of two families’ legacies balanced on the edge of a blade.
I test the door and it’s unlocked.
Classic fucking arrogance. The Devil taunting the Reaper.
Inside, the apartment stinks of old smoke and spoiled meat. It’s dim, curtains drawn.
In the hallway, I glance behind me at Sofiya.
Her eyes are steady, her breathing silent. The only betrayal is the pulse jumping in her throat. The fiercely controlled tension. I raise an eyebrow. She raises hers. Then nods.
Here goes fucking nothing.
Four long strides and we enter the sorry space.
It’s almost pathetic, the old man worth billions reduced to this.
El Topo sits at a chipped kitchen table, a pistol within reach and half a bottle of grappa sweating beside it. He doesn’t even flinch until I move deeper into the room, silencer raised.
That is until he sees her.
And that’s when he freezes. ‘Figlia di puta,’ he rasps, like her name is a curse.
Sofiya’s already moving, shocking the fuck out of me.
She crosses the room in a breath, knife at his throat before he can blink. One of his bodyguards bolts from the bedroom – big, fast, too loud. I drop him with a clean shot to the throat.
Two more rush from the hallway. One catches a round in the kneecap. The second lunges, screaming. I let him get close, then gut him low and silent.
Three down. Just the old killer of mothers and daughters left.
‘Toss it,’ I snarl, nodding at his pistol.
Bonafacio slides it towards me, eyes never leaving Sofiya.
‘You’ve turned ugly in the last year, nupita,’ he says to her. ‘Just like your mother in the end. A mouth too big, a spine too soft. Traitor just like your sisters.’
Sofiya doesn’t flinch. But I see it, the twitch in her hand, the tightness in her jaw.
‘I warned your father not to raise daughters,’ he goes on, voice curdling. ‘And what did he get for his trouble? Sluts and traitors.’
‘Say my mother’s name again,’ Sofiya says, blade kissing his throat. ‘Say it and I swear I’ll open you up from gut to gullet.’
‘Vittoria,’ he sneers. ‘Weak. Just like you.’
My fingers tighten on the trigger. ‘That’s fucking enough. Or… actually, keep going. Give me an excuse to put one between your eyes ten seconds quicker.’
I’m ready to end him. Have been for over two decades, ever since Orazio sat us down and told us about Bonafacio Mancinelli, the man who killed the love of his life.
But Sofiya speaks. Stunning the fuck out of me. Again.
‘Where is she?’
El Topo’s eyes gleam with unholy glee. ‘Somewhere you’ll never find her.’
She?
‘Tell me where the fuck my sister is!’
Shock punches through me. Is this why she let the old man escape five days ago?
Absurdly, that makes me feel a little better, while the lone wolf tears into my flesh for believing in her pure loyalty. To me.
Trust comes wrapped in strings. Remember that.
El Topo starts laughing, enjoying twisting the knife of cruelty. ‘You’ll never find her.’
My fingers caress the trigger, ready to end the man who made monsters of little girls then blamed them for growing teeth. The man who stopped deserving to breathe long before his actions killed my mother.
But she breathes deep. Lowers the knife and takes one step back.
Then she swings the hilt with all her strength. The crack of it landing against his temple is not enough, but it’s grotesquely satisfying. He slumps, unconscious.
I stare at him, at the man whose name haunts every empty room I grew up in, whose legacy tried to poison every good thing the Salvatores ever tried to build. This is the moment I honour her memory. My moment.
I raise my gun.
One tiny, delicious little squeeze. Barely a flinch. Less than a second. And it’s over. I want to draw it out a little. Kick him awake, offer him a chance at last words like some B-movie villain, wasting time with a monologue.
‘He deserves to die.’ I mean that to the core of my being. I hear the anger in my voice, the edge I don’t bother hiding. ‘Tell me you know that.’
Her chest rises and falls like she’s just finished a marathon. ‘I know,’ she whispers. Take one step, then another. Away from him. Closer to me. ‘And I can’t speak for you, but you know I can’t do it. If I kill him, I become him.’
I don’t answer right away.
Because in that instant, I’m not just standing in some rotting Palermo apartment. I’m a fucking wreck again, leaning on Cesare at the funeral, watching my father wither and die in front of my eyes as the love of his life, the air he breathes, is lowered into the ground.
As Orazio swallowed his rage like fire and swore we’d make it right one day. He loved my mother like a daughter, possibly more than his own sons.
That day was supposed to be today.
Now my fucking hands won’t work. And even before the gun falls, useless, to my thigh, I know I’m sparing the man who ordered my mother’s execution. Or delaying the inevitable. Fuck, I hope it’s the second.
Not because Sofiya’s eyes and breath and ragged tremors, even as her chin remains high and her courage unimpeachable, wills me to hold off this execution.
Because this woman, this brilliant, budding assassin, this daughter of my enemy, looked a monster in the eye and said no. And I… stood beside her.
Fuck.
What will Cesare say? Orazio will tear me several new ones just for the chance to see me bleed before he ends me himself.
What does it make me – if I protect the woman who refused to pull the trigger, instead of delivering justice with my own hands to the man who deserves a fate exactly like death?
I don’t know.
I just know I can’t let her carry this alone.
‘We need to go,’ she says, shaking, her fingers brushing over the fist still holding the gun.
I stare at her, narrow-eyed, wondering if I’m making the worst fucking mistake of my life. Or the best. ‘You think prison will stop him?’
‘No,’ she says, calm now. ‘But it’s a start. We hand him over. Let whatever hole Interpol throw him in rot him from the inside out.’
I hesitate. My pride snarls, Fuck no.
My oath to my family burns like acid behind my ribs.
‘Those assholes can’t find their dicks without a GPS and a chorus of snitches’ singing directions. What if they fuck this up?’ I ask.
‘Then we finish the job. Later. On our terms.’
She doesn’t look at me when she says it. It could be another trick in a galaxy of carefully crafted tricks.
But something urges me to believe her. Something connected to my brain or my dick? Who the fuck knows any more.
My lone wolf howls louder as I drag El Topo’s limp body across the floor, zip-tie his hands, grab the folder of ledgers and keys, and snap photos of the wall safe. There are no alarms, no traps. This fucker really thought he was untouchable.
And maybe he is.
Maybe I just let the devil walk. Maybe I’ve betrayed everything my family raised me to be.
But that reckoning can wait.
Because right now, I need to get her out of here.
We slip down the back stairs, his life ledger stuffed into a plastic bag. Weak light bleeds into the loading dock. I can almost believe we’ve made it out clean.
Until an engine roars.
My head snaps to the right. A rusted van screams around the corner, tyres kicking gravel. Doors fly open.
Three men in balaclavas leap out, rifles raised. One of them screams, ‘Mancinelli!’
I dive for Sofiya, terrified I’m already too late.
That the inch I gave upstairs has just become a fatal fucking mile.
The shot cracks like thunder.
I throw myself to one side, adrenaline snapping taut, just as Sofiya lunges for me, our intent colliding. Straight into the line of fire.
Her body twitches. Once. The movement is too fucking familiar. Means only one thing.
My heart stops.
Cristu, she just caught the bullet meant for me!
I stare, stupefied, as a burst of heat blooms through her T-shirt. ‘No. Fuck. No!’
She stumbles, but her hand slides from her sidearm to her assailant’s skull. Kneecap to temple, bone-crunching, and he collapses. The other two hesitate, just long enough for me to drop them both with a single fatal round.
The street goes silent. Only my ragged breathing and Sofiya’s soft gasp as she presses a bloody hand to her shoulder. I drop to my knees beside her, heart pounding in my ears.
‘Sofiya.’ I touch her shoulder gently, definitely ignoring my shaking fingers. ‘Tigra, talk to me. How bad is it?’
She forces out a shaky breath, sweat plastering her hair to her forehead. ‘I… I’m fine. I’ll live,’ she says, though her lips tremble and her eyes are glassy.
I scoop her free arm around my neck and swing her into my arms. Her head drops to my shoulder, pain flickering in her eyes. I surge up, one arm under her legs, the other around her back, barrelling towards safety.
We scramble into my SUV, the dim interior light bathing her slim frame as I place her on the back seat.
‘Lie down. Hold still,’ I say, yanking off my tactical vest and folding it beneath her head.
Blood soaks through her shirt as she presses, wincing.
I rip the cloth off my T-shirt, tear it into strips, and bind her shoulder, fingers quick despite the tremor.
‘I don’t have time to fetch the kit to perform a proper assessment. This will have to do.’
‘Sorry,’ she whispers, head dropping back. ‘I thought—’