Chapter Four
Rafael
The streets of New York were loud tonight, too loud for the thoughts crowding my head. Dante walked beside me, solid and steady as always, while Matteo followed on my other side, restless energy barely contained beneath his calm exterior.
We had just finished scoping the area around Frederick Smith's apartment, or what remained of it. Morana had already been there. That much was obvious. The work had been clean, precise and almost impossible to trace.
Years of whispers had built her reputation, but there was still no face to put to the name.
Morana.
The underground spoke of her like a curse, as though death itself had learned how to walk.
We'd made a deal with her a couple of months ago to help put an end to the Russians, and clearly they'd done something to earn her wrath.
I didn't know what it was, and I had no intention of finding out.
All that mattered was that I needed her help.
My daughter had been taken from me seventeen years ago.
I could still remember Bianca waking me in the middle of the night, already crying before she'd managed to explain what was wrong. She'd felt it in her bones. Something was missing.
We checked the rooms one by one. Six of our children slept peacefully.
Then we reached the twins' room.
Carlo was screaming, his tiny hands clenched in the air, his cries desperate and unrelenting. Sabrina's crib was empty. There was no broken glass, no blood and no sign of a struggle.
Just absence.
By the time we reached the Russian compound on the island, it had already been abandoned. The place had been cleaned so thoroughly it was as though they'd never been there. Ivan Volkov was gone.
So was my daughter.
The underground decided her fate for me. They told me she was dead and expected me to accept it.
I never did.
I still won't.
In three months, the twins will turn eighteen. Carlo will celebrate surrounded by family, brothers and love. Sabrina should be there too. She has to be alive somewhere, and I won't believe otherwise until I see her with my own eyes.
That's why we'd continued searching for Morana despite our deal. We hadn't heard from her since the meeting. She had disappeared the moment it ended, and now she was in New York.
We reached the kerb when something across the street caught my attention.
A young woman stood beneath a streetlight, turning slowly as though she'd felt someone watching her.
The rest of the world seemed to disappear.
My chest tightened so violently it stole my breath. She was older now, taller and sharper, but the shape of her face and the set of her eyes were unmistakable.
Recognition hit me all at once.
“Sabrina,” I whispered.
Dante stiffened beside me, while Matteo inhaled sharply.
She wasn't afraid. She was alert and controlled, carrying herself like someone who had learned exactly how to survive. She looked like a ghost.
She looked like my daughter.
Then she moved.
She grabbed the woman beside her and ran towards a car.
“Get in the car,” I ordered, my voice rough and unsteady.
Matteo was already moving. He slid into the driver's seat with instinctive precision while Dante took the passenger side, and I climbed in behind them.
The engine roared to life.
If anyone could catch them, it would be Matteo.
I'd watched him chase speed his entire life.
Even as a child, toy cars had been scattered across marble floors as he lined them up, raced them and memorised which turned better and which travelled farther.
He'd learned momentum before multiplication, control before caution.
Speed had never been recklessness to him.
It was calculation.
The tyres screamed as we pulled away from the kerb, the city blurring around us while Matteo threaded the car through traffic with terrifying ease. The Porsche ahead moved with the confidence of someone who knew exactly where they were going, cutting through gaps without hesitation.
“Whoever's driving knows what they're doing,” Dante said, bracing himself against the door.
“So do I,” Matteo replied.
The Porsche braked hard without warning, forcing Matteo to jerk the wheel and narrowly avoid a collision with a taxi. Before we could recover, it veered left and disappeared beneath an overpass.
Matteo accelerated.
The city compressed around us as concrete, steel and noise blurred together.
The Porsche cut right at the last possible second, disappearing down a narrow side street that barely qualified as one.
Matteo followed instinctively, but a delivery truck crawled into view, blocking the entrance just long enough to cost us precious seconds.
“Fuck.”
He slammed on the brakes and swerved around the truck, but the street beyond was empty.
No taillights. No engine noise. Nothing.
Matteo slowed, scanning every intersection before doubling back. Once, then again. He pushed farther than he should have, checking every angle and forcing routes that might give us one last glimpse.
Nothing.
Finally, he pulled the car to the kerb.
The silence that followed was thick.
“I had them,” Matteo said, his voice low with frustration. “I had them.”
“You did,” I replied evenly. “They were good.”
His hands tightened around the wheel. A moment later, he shoved the door open and climbed out, pacing the pavement like a caged animal. He dragged a hand through his hair, his jaw clenched as though losing them physically hurt.
I let him go.
Dante watched him for a moment before looking at me.
“He'll come around. You know how he is.”
“I know.”
We waited as the city carried on around us, completely indifferent to the fact that we'd just come within seconds of finding my daughter.
Ten minutes passed before Matteo returned. The anger was still there, but it had sharpened into something more focused.
He slid back into the driver's seat and stared through the windshield.
“The driver...” he began. “I recognised her.”
I turned towards him.
“Who?”
“That was Valeria Leyva.”
The name settled between us.
Valeria Leyva. Daughter of Alejandro Leyva, Don of the Cartel. The cartel's princess, raised in the same world of blood, loyalty and consequences as the rest of us.
She knew our names. She knew our history.
And, apparently, she knew my daughter.
For the first time in seventeen years, I wasn't chasing a shadow. I had finally found a direction.
***
We stood at the Mexican cartel's port, waiting.
The docks were immaculate and guarded without appearing heavily secured. Men leaned against the railings with relaxed postures and sharp eyes, their hands never far from the weapons they didn't bother hiding.
This was Leyva territory.
The island was ringed by ports like a crown of fiefdoms, each belonging to one of the families who had built this place. Italian docks to the east, Spanish to the south, and French and Greek territory farther along the curve of the island.
Neutral ground, divided but respected.
Then there was the Russian port.
Seventeen years abandoned.
The buildings had been left to rot after the night Ivan Volkov fled with my daughter, untouched like a wound no one wanted to acknowledge. Until recently, when the Irish flag appeared above the property. New paint over old sins. Fresh guards. Fresh blood.
The island had moved on.
It had not forgotten.
Dante stood beside me with his arms crossed, his eyes scanning the water. He hadn't said much since we'd arrived, but I knew that look. He was measuring risks, cataloguing exits and preparing for outcomes that hadn't happened yet.
Matteo paced a few steps away, restless energy barely contained. He kept glancing towards the horizon, his jaw tight with impatience.
Valeria Leyva was late.
“She'll come,” Dante said quietly.
“I know.”
Because she had to.
Valeria was the key. She knew where my daughter was, and she knew how to find her.
The water shifted as a boat cut through it with unhurried confidence. The guards straightened subtly, their attention sharpening without a word.
Matteo stopped pacing.
My chest tightened as the boat drew closer. Seventeen years of chasing ghosts had led me here, to this dock on this island, waiting for a woman who might finally tell me where my daughter had been all this time.
The boat settled against the dock with a soft thud. Ropes were thrown and secured with practised precision before Valeria Leyva stepped ashore without hesitation.
She was dressed in dark, practical clothes, boots striking the wood with quiet confidence. Her long black hair fell down her back in thick waves, with a few loose strands framing her face.
She didn't approach us immediately. Instead, she looked up towards where we stood at the top of the stairs overlooking the port. Her brows lifted slightly as she took us in, her gaze settling on me first before shifting to Dante and finally Matteo.
The air tightened between them.
Matteo's jaw locked, anger flaring openly now. He hadn't forgiven her for New York and clearly had no intention of doing so.
Valeria didn't look surprised.
A slow smirk curved her mouth as she met his gaze without flinching.
They stared at each other for several seconds before Valeria finally spoke.
“You still can't beat me.”
Matteo's expression darkened.
“Keep telling yourself that.”
Only then did she climb the stairs, taking them one at a time while holding his gaze. When she reached the top, she finally looked away and turned her attention to me.
Her tone cooled.
“Now, why did you chase me?”
“My daughter.”
The words felt heavier once they were spoken aloud.
Valeria blinked.
“Your daughter?” Confusion crossed her face. “She went missing years ago. Why are you coming to me as though I know where she is?”
Before I could answer, Matteo stepped forward.
“You do know her,” he said, his voice tight with accusation. “You've been protecting her. You got her out of New York and drove like hell to keep us off her.”
Valeria froze.
The smirk disappeared.
For the first time since she'd arrived, genuine shock crossed her face. She looked at Matteo as though he had just told her something she wasn't prepared to hear.
Then she whispered, almost to herself, “Sabrina is... your daughter?”
The name hung between us.
I watched her carefully as she looked back at me, something unsettled flickering across her expression.
“Yes,” I said quietly. “She is.”
For a long moment, Valeria said nothing. Her gaze moved from me to Matteo, then to Dante, before returning to me as though she were rearranging everything she'd thought she knew.
Finally, she exhaled slowly.
“Well,” she said, her voice stripped of its earlier amusement, “fuck.”