Rafael
I answer on the first ring, my voice coming out as a growl. “Chi cazzo è?”
My grip tightens on the phone. “What do you want?”
“Just checking in. Heard you had a rough night. How’s the villa holding up? Nice and toasty, I imagine.”
Every muscle in my body goes rigid. I turn away from Portia without meaning to, my natural instinct to shield her from what’s gone down.
“You son of a bitch,” I growl. “You think this is a game?”
“Don Vito wanted you to know he hasn’t forgotten what you did. Consider tonight a warning shot. Next time it won’t just be property.”
The last thread of my restraint snaps in half.
“You listen to me, you little stronzo. I’ll cut your fucking dick off and shove it down your throat myself. You hear me? I’ll gut you like the little bitch you are and mail the pieces back to your father one at a time.”
“Big words for a man who just lost his house.”
“I’ll burn your whole family down to the ground, cazzo. Everyone you’ve ever loved. I’ll make sure your father watches before I put a bullet in his skull,” I shout. “Tell Vito I’m coming for him. Tell him I’m going to rip his fucking throat out with my bare hands and enjoy every second of it.”
“He said you’d say that.” Anthony Jr. simply laughs. “Guess some things don’t change, huh? Still hot-headed. Still thinking you’re better than the rest of us just because Vito took a liking to you when you were nothing but a street rat with a gun.”
“I earned my place,” I growl, teeth clenched. “You wouldn’t know anything about that. You’ve had everything handed to you your whole life.”
“And you had your mask,” he says. “Everyone knows the only reason you ever meant anything to Vito is because you were willing to put it on. It was never about merit or you being deserving.”
“I’m going to enjoy killing you personally,” I say. “Slowly. I want you to remember this call when I do.”
The line goes dead before I can say anything else. I stand in the drive, chest heaving, phone still gripped tight enough to crack the screen.
Portia’s hand lands on my arm. “Rafael, what did he say?”
“Vito’s making sure I know this was him. He had his little errand boy call to let it be known.”
Maurizio comes over from where he’s been inspecting the perimeter, his face stoic yet vaguely grim. “Found the points of origin. Two of them. Kitchen and the east wing, both lit within minutes of each other.”
“Accelerant,” I say.
“Smelled it the second I got close enough. This wasn’t some soldier acting on his own. This took planning. Somebody scouted the layout first.”
Which means Vito’s been watching us long enough to know the villa’s floor plan after only a few weeks inside it. Long enough to know exactly where to hit us for maximum damage, exactly which exits to leave clear so we’d survive to understand the message.
“He wanted us alive,” I say slowly. “If he wanted us dead, he had ample opportunity. This was never about killing us.”
“Just reminding you who’s still in charge,” Maurizio says.
My phone buzzes again, and my stomach drops thinking it’s Anthony Jr. calling back to finish gloating. It’s Adagio instead, his name lighting up the screen.
“Tell me,” I say the second I pick up.
“Concussion,” he says. “Doctor says she’ll be okay, but they want to keep her overnight for observation. Maybe longer if the swelling doesn’t go down like they want. I’m not leaving her.”
“You don’t have to.” I glance at Maurizio, who’s gone still beside me, listening. “Stay with her. We’ll figure out where we’re going next and let you know.”
“Maurizio there?” Adagio asks.
“He’s here.”
A long pause stretches out on the line. “Tell him... tell him thank you. For getting to her before I could.”
I glance at Maurizio again. His throat works harder than usual, his dark eyes fixed on the ground.
“Take care of her,” I say. “We’ll be in touch the second we know where we’re headed.”
The call ends, and Maurizio finally speaks without me having to ask. “She’s tough. She’ll be fine.”
It isn’t what Adagio would want to hear right now, and both of us know it, but I let it go without comment. Tonight’s already given all of us more than enough to carry.
We return hours later, once the fire has been put out by the local firefighters.
It’s obvious we can’t stay here. The three of us stand in the drive surveying what’s left of the villa as it smolders, the gray light of morning illuminating the true damage.
“We need somewhere smaller,” Maurizio says.
“Somewhere Vito wouldn’t expect us to hide,” I agree.
Portia’s quiet while the plans get made, her arms wrapped around herself, watching the flames finally start to die down into smoke and ash.
What’s left of the villa resembles a charred skeleton. Nothing like the luxury place we’d started sleeping in only weeks ago.
“I need to grab what’s left of my things,” she says eventually, her tone flat and exhausted. “If there’s anything left.”
“I’ll go with you.”
She doesn’t argue, which tells me more about how rattled she still is than anything she could say out loud.
We pick through the scorched remains of her room together in silence, salvaging what little survived—a jacket, a few photographs with singed edges, a necklace I remember buying her weeks ago that somehow made it through unscathed.
“I keep thinking about what you said yesterday morning,” she says finally, turning the necklace over in her fingers. “About wanting to protect me. I think I understand it a little better now. Watching that beam come down on Jayla. Not knowing if she’d get up.”
“Portia—”
“I’m not saying I’ve forgiven you.” She glances up at me, eyes red-rimmed and misty. “I haven’t. I don’t know when I will. But I understand the impulse a little more than I did twelve hours ago.”
An urge to reach for her strikes me.
Every instinct in me demands I pull her against my chest the way I did on the stairs, when nothing mattered but keeping her safe, but the memory of yesterday morning’s conversation lingers between us.
…which means I don’t trust myself to read this moment right.
“I love you,” I say instead. “That hasn’t changed. Not for one second, not even with everything unresolved between us. If anything, tonight only made it worse. Watching you run through that fire and knowing exactly how much I stand to lose.”
Her jaw works as if she’s fighting emotion back. “I know.”
It isn’t I love you too. It isn’t forgiveness. But it isn’t nothing either, and for tonight, I’ll take it.
“We should go,” she says, tucking the necklace into her pocket. “Before it gets light.”
We decide to keep things simple, heading to a B&B thirty minutes south.
The drive stretches on in near silence, the three of us packed into a car meant for two, exhaustion and the crash after adrenaline weighing down on everyone differently.
Maurizio keeps both hands locked on the wheel, eyes flicking to the rearview every few seconds, checking for headlights that trail too long behind us. Portia’s forehead rests against the window, her breath fogging small circles in the glass.
Nobody talks.
We’re in our heads, mulling over the events of the past twenty-four hours.
The B&B sits at the end of a narrow gravel lane, tucked between olive trees that have clearly gone untended for years, branches overgrown and scraping against the building’s faded blue shutters.
A crooked wooden sign reads Locanda del Faro in chipped gold script, half the letters worn away by weather. The opposite of the villa in every way.
An older woman answers the door before Maurizio even finishes knocking, wrapped in a robe, gray hair pinned back loosely, sharp eyes taking in the three of us—soot-streaked, exhausted, clearly running from trouble—without a flicker of surprise.
“Quattro camere?” she asks, turning to grab a set of keys off a hook by the door.
“Due,” Maurizio answers. “E niente domande.”
“Non faccio mai domande.” She holds out her palm, and Maurizio counts out cash, more than double what the rooms are probably worth. Tucking the money into the pocket of her robe, she hands over three brass keys.
“Terza porta a sinistra,” she says, gesturing down a narrow hallway lit by a single flickering bulb. “Colazione alle otto, se volete.”
Breakfast at eight, if we want it. As if this is a normal stay and we’re normal guests.
Maurizio thanks her and heads down the hall first, disappearing into one of the rooms without another word, the exhaustion finally catching up to him now that there’s nothing left to guard against for the next few hours.
Portia lingers in the doorway, staring down the dim hallway with a forlorn look in her gaze.
“You don’t have to stay awake worrying about anything,” I say. “We’ve got security on the property. If it makes you feel better, I’ll even guard your door.”
“You need sleep too.”
“I’ll manage.”
She studies me, deep emotion flickering in her gaze. “Which room’s mine?”
“Whichever one you want. I can take the other.”
Relief crosses her face. “The second one.”
I follow her partway down the hall, stopping a respectful distance from her door while she pushes it open—small, plain, a narrow bed with a faded quilt, a single window overlooking the olive grove outside.
She stands in the doorway a moment, one hand on the frame, and glances back at me.
“Thanks for getting me out tonight. I know things are still... complicated between us. But I won’t forget that.”
“I’ll always get you out,” I say. “No matter what’s complicated between us.”
She holds my gaze a second longer than she needs to before finally stepping inside and easing the door shut, the click of the latch the only sound left in the narrow hallway.
I turn and head back outside to take up watch, knowing full well neither of us is getting much sleep tonight regardless of which side of that door we’re on.