RAFAEL
Concetta sets out a proper spread for once, roasted lamb and fresh bread, a rare break from the simple meals we’ve survived on since the fire.
Maurizio, Adagio, and two of the men gather around the table with me, the first real meal all of us have shared together since before the port operation.
My body’s finally caught up to the rest of me—the wound healed enough now that I barely notice it except on the coldest mornings—and it feels good, sitting here upright and whole among men who fought alongside me and lived.
“To Enzo,” Maurizio says, raising his glass. The rest of us echo it, a ritual we’ve kept up every few nights since we lost him.
The meal settles into casual conversation.
One of the soldiers, a wiry younger man named Dario, telling a story about a job gone sideways years back involving a stolen truck and a very unimpressed farmer.
Adagio needles him about the details until the whole table’s laughing despite everything hanging over us, and for a while it feels almost normal, almost like the version of this life I used to believe I understood before Portia walked into it and complicated everything I thought I knew about loyalty and love.
I reach for the bread, tearing off a piece, and the motion of my hand catches on a memory buried deep enough that I nearly drop the bread entirely, the smell of rosemary rising off the roasted lamb dragging it closer to the surface.
“You good?” Maurizio asks.
“Fine.” I set the bread down slowly, an old unease crawling up my spine without explanation. “Just tired.”
He doesn’t press, though I catch him sneaking another glance before returning to his own plate.
The unease doesn’t fade. If anything, it sharpens as the meal continues, the smell of rosemary and roasted meat dragging me away from the present.
A long dining room, wood-paneled, candlelight throwing shadows across a table set for twelve.
I’m seventeen, seated near the far end where the men who matter least get put, close enough to hear everything, far enough that nobody expects me to speak.
A silver platter of lamb sits untouched at the table’s center, the rosemary smell thick enough to coat the back of my throat.
Vito sits at the head, wine glass loose in his hand, laughing at a joke one of the older capos just made. Beside him, a man I don’t recognize leans in close, voice pitched low enough I have to strain to catch the words.
“The situation with the reporter,” the man says. “It needs handling before it becomes a liability.”
“It’ll be handled in a few hours,” Vito replies. “The husband’s been a problem for months. Digging where he shouldn’t. The wife knows too much by proximity alone.”
“And the girls?”
Vito’s mouth curves. “The girls are a separate matter.”
I don’t understand what discussions are being had, and as the new fish in the Bellucci pond, I don’t question it.
I’m seventeen, hungry to prove myself, and trained not to ask questions about business that isn’t mine.
I go back to my plate, clueless how the events of the night would shape things for years to come…
I press my palm flat against the table, grounding myself with the wood grain under my fingers, forcing the memory back down before it fully surfaces.
…not now. Not here, in front of the men.
The meal ends, and the room is full of movement as everybody walks out.
Maurizio catches me alone afterward. “You sure you’re alright? You went somewhere else. I’ve seen that look on you before.”
“That so? When?”
“Before you fully learned how to control the split. You used to get that same look right before Il Diavolo took over. Distant. Somewhere else entirely.”
“It’s not that,” I say, rubbing a hand over my face. “Just an old memory. Nothing I can’t handle.”
“You sure?”
“Don’t make me repeat myself.” I clap him on the shoulder. “Go enjoy the rest of your night, Ice Pick. I’m fine.”
He doesn’t look fully convinced, but he lets it go, heading back outside to rejoin the others.
I sit alone at the table a while longer, staring at nothing, willing the rest of the memory to either surface completely or leave me alone entirely.
It does neither, hovering at the edge of my awareness, patient, waiting for the right moment to finish what it started.
I find Portia later that evening on the small balcony on the second floor, phone in hand, scrolling through old photos with a nostalgic frown.
“What are you looking at?” I ask, leaning against the railing beside her.
“Old family photos.” She turns the screen toward me, a picture of her and Jayla as kids, flanked by two adults I don’t recognize, everyone grinning at whatever birthday or holiday the photo captured.
“I keep going back to them since the call with my dad. Trying to remember the good version of him instead of whatever’s underneath all this. ”
I study the photo, silent even as I recognize the face staring back up at me. The visual collides with the flashback I had earlier, making me question what’s past and present.
Easy to trigger with a fractured mind like mine.
The man in the photo is the man who leaned in close to Vito that night.
Older here, softer around the edges, but the same face as the man at dinner. His voice echoes in my head as if he were standing on this balcony beside us, asking Vito whether a problem had been handled yet.
“Rafael?” Portia says, waving a hand in front of my face. “You good? You look like you’re not in Sicily anymore.”
I blink, deciding an answer on the spot. “What do you think, dolcezza? I’m busy admiring your beauty.”
She smirks as if amused by the praise—and aware how I’m teasing her—and then settles against me in front of the balcony.
The truth is, I’m caught between how to move forward.
My memory might be telling me one thing, but who’s to say it’s accurate? That I’m not inserting faces where they don’t belong?
I might have a hold on Il Diavolo, but it doesn’t necessarily mean our memories have accurately merged.
“Can I ask you a question?” Portia asks suddenly. She turns to face me, moonlight illuminating her pretty brown face and slender throat.
“You always do, dolcezza. Go on.”
“Do you ever think about after? You know, what happens once Vito’s gone. Once the Belluccis are finished. What happens to us then?”
“All the time. Almost every moment. I think you know what I want.”
Her eyes sparkle, so warm and dark, framed by long lashes. “You want us to be together.”
“That’s right. I worked hard to make you my woman. You think I’m going to fight this war against Vito and the Belluccis and not claim my prize?”
“When you put it like that…”
“Our future will be whatever you want, dolcezza. If you even have to wonder, let me assuage your fears. Marriage. Children. Many, many years growing our family. Here in Sicily or anywhere else in the world. The details don’t matter so long as we’re together.”
“I like that. All of it.” She leans into my shoulder, my arm around her hips. “Maybe we can have a nice little villa in a small Sicilian town. Away from too much craziness.”
“What about Newport News? What about getting the scoop?”
I’m teasing, and we both know it.
She laughs softly and says, “Never say never! I could do a smaller beat for some Sicilian newspaper. Don’t laugh at me!”
But it’s too late as my chuckles rival hers. I cup her face and draw her lips to mine. We give each other kisses, our lips curled at the edges.
Both so damn tempted to smile.
“I can’t even knock the hustle,” I say. “You are a journalist at heart.”
“So was my bio dad. He stayed on Vito Bellucci’s ass. Maybe that was why he was murdered.”
Portia’s speaking partially in jest—at least distracted by how we snuggle close under the moonlight—but what she’s said is as plausible as any other theory.
What would cause Don Vito to target Portia’s birth parents? His news reporting, or did it have something to do with Jerrod James?
It’s the end of our conversation for the night.
Portia tilts her head up and we kiss ’til we head inside and get ready for bed.
Hours later, once Portia’s asleep against my chest, breathing slow and even, I lie awake, turning things over again.
My mind goes from replaying the lost dinner memory to the family photo I’d seen Portia staring at. Then it goes to everything we know about the past.
It seems the answers are slowly floating to the surface, but in the meantime, the rest of the picture’s so damn murky.