Chapter 13
13
RAFAEL
“This fucker.” Romero’s voice drips with disgust as he tosses a glance back at me. “I thought you had Little Italy under control?”
I only clench my jaw, the rage building too strong to fire back a retort. Fuck. I do have it under control. Or at least, I thought I did until this little shit we’re following drove straight into my territory, proving that I absolutely don’t have it under contro, notl if it’s been the hotbed for these kidnappers all along.
We shadow him through the tight, winding streets I know by heart, into one of the redevelopment areas—or what’s supposed to be. Half-finished projects stand abandoned. Rotting. Perfect hideouts for vermin. Our target vanishes around a corner, but we don’t need visuals. Michael’s monitor shows the vehicle stopping in front of an old building that’s scheduled to be bulldozed any day now.
But then again, it’s been scheduled to be bulldozed ‘any day now’ for about six years.
My nails dig into my palms as the truth sinks in—these bastards have been operating right under my nose this whole time, and I didn’t even notice. Some king of the streets I’ve turned out to be.
Maximo pulls our van up to the curb and kills the engine. The silence feels loaded, expectant.
“Let’s get this asshole,” I growl, already on my feet. Michael nods, following suit.
My brothers and I exit the van and walk down the street, boots hitting the pavement that feels less like my territory and more like enemy ground now. We round the corner towards the dilapidated building—just a hollow-eyed corpse of brick and steel. No signs of life anywhere. Not even a stray cat.
I almost question if we’ve got the wrong spot, but Michael’s got this phone out, the screen glowing in his hand. And yes, the little blip on the map confirms it. Our suspect’s car is indeed parked somewhere inside.
We’re dealing with a smart motherfucker, no doubt.
Smart enough to operate from a place nobody would look twice. Smart enough to keep his head down until my brothers and I started our takeover of the city.
Six years ago, he got away with his sick games because of the series of crimes that took the city by storm. And hell, he would’ve gotten away with it again if it wasn’t for Romero taking on the case and bringing it to our attention. The thought makes my blood boil. How many more of these fuckers are hiding in my blind spots?
We walk through the gaping doorway of the building and, sure enough, there’s our suspect’s car—a run-down old sedan that looks like it’s been abandoned for decades. But Michael’s tracker doesn’t lie. This is his car. And when I place my hand on the bonnet, it’s warm.
A masterpiece of deception.
Maximo crouches, takes out the tracker from beneath the vehicle, and pockets it. I scan the wide-open space, searching for any sign of a hidden entrance. Since he’s not an amateur, he’ll have escape routes, security measures. My brothers fan out, combing every inch.
A few minutes later, Michael’s low whistle draws us in. He points to a ragged rug in the corner that wouldn’t catch your eye unless you’re looking for something out of place.
My gaze locks on it as I go down on my haunches to peel it back. Bingo . A wooden trapdoor, complete with an honest-to-god ring pull. How quaint. I yank it open, exposing a small ladder leading down to a basement.
My brothers and I exchange glances—Maximo’s already got his weapon drawn; Michael’s expression’s colder than usual. Romero’s eyes are sharp, calculating, and I can feel the tension crackling between us. We don’t need to say a word. We all know what to do.
I slide my gun from my holster and climb down the ladder first, followed closely by Maximo, Michael, and Romero.
We emerge into a narrow hallway, bathed in the sickly glow of red emergency lights. My phone vibrates in my pocket with a call, and I stiffen, coming to a halt.
Checking the screen, I see it’s Landon calling. He probably finally has something for me on Emilia. I end the call, refocusing on the task at hand. Whatever it is, it can wait. This can’t.
We continue walking down the hallway, silent as ghosts, until it opens into one big spacious room. Instantly, we put our backs to the wall, then inch forward to peek around the corner. One quick look tells me what we need to know—three tables pressed together to make one large surface, and on top, our kidnapped girl. She’s not moving, but I can see her chest rise and fall. The room is otherwise empty.
At the far end, there’s a doorway, and behind it, muffled Italian filters through. My instincts flare.
I signal behind me before I push away from the wall and quickly approach the door. The closer I get, the clearer the words become. My mind automatically translates as I listen, years of speaking both languages making it second nature.
“What do you mean you couldn’t find the fucking surgeon, Luka?” A commanding voice speaks—he’s in charge of this operation, no doubt about it. That’s the voice of someone used to being obeyed.
“I swear, boss.” This must be Luka. His voice carries a hint of fear. “It’s like he disappeared. He wasn’t home, his numbers were dead, and when I called you, you didn’t answer, so I went ahead to grab her anyway.”
The boss curses, then another voice speaks up, “You should’ve used your head, Luka. What are we supposed to do with the girl now that we don’t have a surgeon to operate on her?”
Chills run down my spine at how casually they’re discussing mutilating a child. I meet my brothers’ eyes, seeing my own disgust and rage mirrored there. With a quick questioning look, I silently ask for confirmation. And at their nod, I raise a finger—wait here so I can assess the situation first. They don’t like it, I can see it in their eyes, but they trust me.
The door handle is cold under my palm as I push it open.
Three pairs of eyes snap to me, and almost immediately, all three have their guns pointed my way. I force out a chuckle as I glance around the room that looks like someone’s sad attempt at a living space—a ratty mattress shoved against one wall, a mini-fridge humming in the corner, and behind a hulking desk, another door, probably leading to a bathroom.
“Hello, boys,” I drawl. “Heard you’re looking for a surgeon, and lucky for you, I happen to be—” The words die in my throat when my gaze meets the familiar brown eyes of the man sitting behind the desk.
Tomassi Rossi.
Emilia’s dead father.
“Detective Rossi?” I choke out.
He frowns as he takes me in, then his expression shifts. “Rafael Moretti,” he spits in disgust.
My phone begins to vibrate again—insistent, urgent—but I can’t tear my eyes away from this man who seems to have risen from the dead. His death was the catalyst for the torture we all faced at my father’s hands. Emilia was heartbroken, consumed by grief and anger. So, hungry for revenge, she went to one of my father’s warehouses and started the domino effect of it all.
But here he is— alive .
Not only alive but apparently dabbling in child trafficking and organ harvesting as well. What happened to that self-righteous son of a bitch who used to hound my father?
“What have you done?” The question comes out raw, disbelieving. I’m staring at him, trying to reconcile the upstanding law enforcer with this… this monster. How the hell does one go from upholding the law to— this?
“You don’t get to judge me, Rafael. Not after what you and your friends have been up to the past two months. So what if I faked my death to dodge suspicion for any of my crimes?”
Crimes? Just how much evil has this sanctimonious prick committed while playing dead? I grit my teeth, fury bubbling up. “And Emilia? You just abandoned her.”
“I never abandoned my daughter.” He says it with so much conviction, it almost makes me sick. “I knew she would be alright. I had… connections. People who promised to take care of her on the occasion of my death. She was fine; she is fine. Besides,” his eyes narrow dangerously, “you should be more worried about yourself right now.” He folds his arms across his chest and nods at the two other men, who cock their guns. “What are you doing here? How did you find us?”
I’m about to sneer out a response, but before I can, there’s a loud thud outside the room. Then two young boys burst in, both panting heavily, panic clear on their faces.
“Boss! We gotta split, now!” One gasps out. “Just passed by some officers on our way here. They’re nosing around outside—think they found something.”
His warning is accentuated by a loud gunshot from outside, and I stiffen, glancing back just as Rafael, Michael, and Maximo pour into the room, faces grim.
“There are over a dozen officers out there.” Michael frowns into his phone as he speaks. “But they’re not in uniform. They—fuck,” his head snaps up, eyes wide, “they’re feds .”
What the fuck are the FBI doing here?
“You fucking led them here!” Tomassi roars as he gets to his feet, raking his hands through his salt-and-pepper hair.
I raise an eyebrow and snort. “What a wild accusation.” But inside, I’m reeling. How did this go sideways so fast? What the hell is going on? And why won’t my goddamn phone stop vibrating! Landon is not the type to spam me with calls unless… unless it’s life or death. Something’s really wrong.
With a growl of frustration, I turn away from Tomassi as I answer, “I’m a little busy right now, Landon, we?—”
“Emilia Rossi is an FBI agent!” he gasps out, rocking my world.
Everything stops. My heart, my breath, time itself.
What the fuck?
“I’m on the run right now because the database I hacked into to get the information got corrupted as soon as I accessed it, and they might be able to trace my IP back to me. My life might be in danger right now, so I’m about to go off-grid. You won’t be able to reach me for the next few days.”
Landon’s voice fades into white noise. My mind’s still stuck on the first part—Emilia. FBI agent .
Before I can even begin to process this bombshell, an actual explosion erupts through the main room.
The blast shakes the entire basement, sending shrapnel flying as the walls shatter. The force of it throws me to my knees, ears ringing, the sharp sting of dust and debris scratching at my skin.
The girl. Christ, the little girl was out there.
Coughing, I scramble to my hands and knees, spitting out dust, eyes burning. Through the haze, I see Romero and we share a quick glance. He pulls himself up shakily, dust falling from his body as he tiptoes to check out the incinerated room. One look at his face tells me everything. She’s gone. Another innocent claimed by the FBI’s scorched-earth tactics. Fuck .
I hate the fucking feds. They don’t care about the collateral damage if it means they’re able to apprehend their suspects.
Maximo and Michael slowly get up from the floor with low groans. I start to move towards them, but before I can reach them, gunshots spray into the room.
“Get down!” I yell, my voice hoarse. But I’m not fast enough. White-hot pain lances through my arm as a bullet finds its mark. I hit the floor, gritting my teeth against the agony. “Michael!”
I lock eyes with my brother, jerking my chin towards the door behind Tomassi’s toppled desk. As we scramble for cover, I spot Tomassi on the floor, panting as he tries to lift the weight of the heavy desk off his legs. Our gazes meet, and he blinks at me hopelessly. Fuck . The sight of him—trapped, desperate—makes something twist in my gut.
“Keep going,” I order my brothers while moving towards Tomassi. I can’t just leave him there to die. Not like this. Whatever he’s done, he’s still Emilia’s father.
I grunt as I try to help him lift the heavy desk, but it’s no use. My arm screams in protest, weakening my efforts.
Tomassi curses, then grabs my wrist, yanking my focus to him. “There’s a backdoor in the storage room your friends went to. You’ll see a shelf, pull out the book with Emilia’s name, and it will open. There’s—” A bullet rips into his throat, his body convulsing. Blood spurts from his mouth as he gurgles out one last word. “Sta—Stacey.” Then his head drops. He’s dead.
This time, Detective Rossi is truly, irrevocably dead.
I suck in a sharp breath and whip around. Standing there, cold eyes glinting above a smoking gun, is an older woman with black hair pulled back in a severe bun. Slowly, I get to my feet, weary and on edge, body aching from the explosion, but my gun steady in her direction as I retreat.
I know her. I remember her. She was there that night Emilia disappeared, when I stormed into that damn restaurant she was working at after reading her letter.
The woman was one of the patrons, who watched me lose my mind looking for answers. And when I finally stopped raging, she had the nerve to look me in the eye and say, “It’s a good thing she ran away, isn’t it?” I can still feel the fury that burned in my chest, the way it fueled me as I stomped out, even more pissed off than when I went in. God, I hated her then.
Time slows as the puzzle pieces click into place. She must have worked with Tomassi. She might even be the ‘connection’ he was so sure would look after Emilia. Did she recruit her? Is she the reason Emilia’s with the bureau?
Emilia. Christ. She’ll be devastated when she finds out about her father. But fuck, I have other things to worry about right now. Like the fact that I’m clearly outnumbered here with several guns pointed at me.
“If you’re going to shoot me, do it already,” I spit out as I cock my gun. “But I promise you, I won’t go down alone.”
One trigger-happy agent hisses at me and starts to squeeze, but the woman stops him with a raised hand. “No.”
So, she’s in charge. I keep my gaze and gun trained on her as I edge backward, every muscle coiled tight.
“But he’s getting away, Agent Rodrigues! What do we do?” The agent asks, his finger still itching on the trigger.
Rodrigues holds my gaze as she says, “We need him alive. Besides, according to the blueprint of this building, that room he’s going into is a dead end, so it’s not like he can escape.”
Without lowering my gun, I back into the darkened room. I lock the door behind me, not even sparing my brothers a glance as I take out my phone to use my flashlight.
Then I walk straight to the shelf, scanning for the book with Emilia's name and there—a hardcover copy titled Azaleas .
How the hell did Tomassi know I’d recognize Emilia’s middle name?
Well, no time to dwell on that now.
I yank the book, and a quiet click fills the air as the entire bookshelf swings inward. “Let’s go,” I hiss, eyes flicking back to the locked door that I expect to be kicked down any second now.
We jog out into the new hallway, making sure to close the shelf behind us. The hallway’s tight, and I can feel the tension squeezing my lungs as we head for the stairs at the far end. Up we go, taking them two at a time, then out into the night.
By the time we hit the van, we’re ghosts. Gone without a trace.
“Shit, you’re bleeding out, Rafael,” Michael mutters when I slump next to him in the van. His jacket is off in a flash, wrapping around my arm while Maximo floors the engine.
“It will be fine. I’ll live.” I try to sound tough, but the pain tearing through me makes my words sound hollow. Michael pulls the jacket even tighter, and I have to grit my teeth to fight back a groan as the pressure digs into the wound.
“Shit. Wasn’t that Detective Rossi in there? How is he still alive?” Maximo asks. “The man has a fucking headstone somewhere in this city.”
“Well, he’s dead for real now.” Romero’s quiet correction fills the van with heavy silence.
Michael’s brow furrows. “Hell, forget Rossi—how did the fucking feds find out about that den? You think… you think he was right? Did we lead them there somehow? Have they been watching us?”
Lead settles in my chest. I know how . Fucking Emilia. But I just glance away, shutting my eyes as the last puzzle piece clicks into place.
“What if I told you I missed the city? Missed… you ?”
That was her answer when I asked her why she came back to Manhattan for her residency. But that was a lie. She didn’t come back for her fucking residency at all, but because of us. For some reason, she was assigned to monitor us and report our movements to her supervisors.
Chills fill my body as the reality of her betrayal sinks in. I was such an idiot, inviting her back into my life, my home... my heart. That little traitor . My jaw clenches, muscles rigid with anger while my brothers argue amongst themselves about how we were found.
One word from me would clear their confusion, but I remain quiet. Because I can’t bring myself to say it—not even now, after everything. And that just pisses me off even more. The fact that I’m still protecting her makes me want to smash my fist through the fucking window.
When we pull into the underground garage at my penthouse, I finally speak up as Maximo cuts the engine. “You guys should head home. I’ll be in touch.”
“What?” Maximo frowns at me, but I’m already out of the van, feeling their confused gazes boring into my back as I make my way to the elevator.
I nod to my security team as I pass them in the hallway, then push into my penthouse. And there she is. Emilia . Pacing in front of the living room, looking like she’s rehearsing for a part in some drama. The second I walk in, her eyes go wide, mouth dropping open.
“Rafael, you’re hurt!” She rushes towards me, face etched with what looks like genuine concern. It’s convincing, but now I see it for what it is. What a little actress. Every touch, every smile, every moment between us—was any of it real?
I step back before she can touch me. “Don’t,” I say coldly. Ice coats every syllable. “What did you think would happen when you sicced your fed buddies on us? That we’d sit down and chat over fucking tea and cookies ?!”
She recoils as if I just hit her, eyes flying to mine, and her arms just drop to her sides like she’s suddenly helpless. Oscar-worthy performance from the bureau’s finest. “You… you know?”
“What? You thought I wouldn’t find out?”
“I didn’t want to do it!” she cries. “But someone had to stop you and the others, Rafael. Did you think your takeover of the New York Cosa Nostra went unnoticed? The bloody trail you’ve left behind you? And, and now what? Kidnapping little girls? Torturing them? I couldn’t stand back and watch you destroy yourself. The Rafael I knew would never?—”
“Shut the fuck up,” I roar. My hands curl into fists as I fight the urge to throttle her while she goes on her tirade. So self-righteous—just like her father was. At least before he turned for reasons best known to him. “Shut the fuck up, you sanctimonious little traitor.”
“Oh, please, Rafael. I wouldn’t have had to betray you if you didn’t turn into this… criminal. What happened to you? I thought you hated your father and everything he stood for. How could you go down this path!”
I scoff, shoving my hands into my hair. “You want to know how? Maybe because I’m sick of being powerless. Of watching the people I love get hurt and not being able to do a damn thing about it.”
Images flash through my mind—that first hellish year after we left Little Italy. The gnawing terror when Emilia vanished with a trace. The soul-crushing loneliness as my brothers drifted away, forging their own paths.
“Maybe because I wanted to be so powerful no one would dare stand before me and spew the rubbish you’re spewing at me now. Maybe because I want to be able to protect what’s mine.” But she only stares at me with big eyes, shaking her head like she can’t understand.
I should fucking kill her for what she did—for putting my brothers and me in danger. My fists tighten in my hair because I know I can’t do that. Can’t stand to see her hurt.
“Get the fuck out of my house, Emilia. I don’t ever want to see your face again.”
She flinches, her face paling, eyes brimming with tears. I turn my back to her as my chest tightens and concern pierces through my anger. Fuck her and how she makes me feel.
“Rafael, please,” she whispers, her voice breaking. “We can get past this. Don’t you see? The only thing standing between us is this… this career you’ve chosen. You want to get married? Let’s do that. A wife can’t investigate or testify against her husband.”
I glance back at her in disbelief. But she’s still looking up at me, eyes wide with desperate, fearful hope, with tears rolling down her face. Is she fucking serious? “You should have told me everything when I first proposed. We could have worked things out then. It’s too late now.”
“No!” She lunges forward, her face crumpling up even more as she grabs my arms. “Don’t say that. I only agreed to help them to prove your innocence, I swear. And then I saw the name of the orphanage on your desk and thought it might be best if you were stopped, and I—I…” She trails off, choking on a sob.
I watch, almost fascinated by the way her face contorts like she’s in pain, and despite myself, a twinge of doubt niggles at me, but I crush it. “Fool me once and all that, amorina, ” I say, twisting the endearment into something bitter, mocking.
Then she does the one thing I least expect—she looks me dead in the eye. And for a split second, it fucking catches me off guard. She holds my gaze, unwavering, even as her lips tremble and more tears spill down her face. “You’re breaking my heart, Rafael. Can’t you see my sincerity?”
The rawness in her eyes stabs me. But I force the feeling back. “I can only break your heart if you gave it to me in the first place, Emilia. But you haven’t, have you? If you had, you wouldn’t have been able to go through with your plans to betray me.”
With that, I bury whatever doubt I still feel in the deepest part of me. Then, rolling my eyes with derision, I continue. “The guys and I could have died tonight because of you.” The reminder fuels my anger, effectively snuffing out the rest of my emotions. “I should kill you for that. You know the consequence for breaking the omerta is death. But you’ve got me so tied up I can’t even do that. But don’t test me, Emilia. Your deceitful tears can’t fool me, and if I have to look at your face for a second longer, I’m not sure what I might do to you.”
She sobs, backing away from me like my words are weapons. Then she spins around and flees from my apartment.
I watch her go, heart tightening painfully in my chest as the door slams behind her.
And with a roar of pure anguish, I drive my fist into the nearest wall, embracing the pain that vibrates from my wrecked hand.
Again and again, until my knuckles are a bloody mess and my throat is raw from screaming.