Chapter 40 STEPHANO
She’s alright. Sasha’s words keep echoing in the back of my skull, but the fear hasn’t drained out of my veins yet. I hurl an expensive crystal glass against Marcello’s even more expensive wall. It shatters. Nobody reacts. Three other glasses already died violent deaths.
We thought our women would be safe at Toni’s mansion. We were wrong. The traitors are in our midst. How the fuck do you protect against that?
"We can’t kill them all," Marcello repeats, his answer to my first, very reasonable suggestion. He gives me a look. "Jesus, Stephano. When did you become so fucking ruthless?"
I drag a hand through my hair. Probably around the time I met Oksana, but I’m not admitting that out loud. And as much as I hate it, he’s right. No, we can’t kill them all. Some of these men died defending our home today. Their loyalty wasn’t the problem.
"If they’re hiding within Toni’s men, they’re everywhere," Enrico mutters, pinching the bridge of his nose. He looks sick. We all do.
At least he talked to Cat.
I got Sasha.
The bastard almost gave me a heart attack. No doubt on Oksana’s instructions. And he enjoyed every second. Suddenly, my mind pivots sideways, cold, calculating. Raf’s does too.
Our eyes meet.
Firewall.
The unspoken word snaps between us like a live wire.
"I need to see Sophia first," Raf's voice is tight.
I nod. I understand. I feel the same magnetic pull toward Toni’s mansion, toward Oksana. I need to see her with my own eyes, hold her, make sure she’s really unharmed.
"We’ll take Oksana," I tell him. "She’ll be useful."
He nods his agreement. I learned during the Caracas trip how Raf and Oksana met, and I know he has the same appreciation of her skills that I do. I only ask, "Your place or mine?"
Smugness flickers across his face, cleaning the worry lines for a moment. "Mine. You haven’t seen it yet. And not to brag, but I own a few things that will make you green with envy."
He’s probably right. Ever since I pieced together who Raf really was—not his parentage, but his empire—I’ve been torn between killing him and admiring him.
There were moments when killing him was very, very tempting.
Like the day Marcello told me Raf had taken Sophia.
In that moment, I regretted not putting a bullet in him when I had the chance.
Not because I feared him, but because I knew exactly what Marcello was feeling. The agony of chasing shadows, hoping one of them is your brother.
But back then? I didn’t think Raf running his little Omertà Infernale was a threat.
He was cleaning our streets for us. As long as he never touched La Famiglia, I could tolerate his methods.
Hell, sometimes I appreciated them. And even when Omertà was linked to Igor Pavlov—even after Igor tried to kill Marcello twice—I still kept my mouth shut.
Why?
Because I had no proof that Igor acted on Raf’s orders. Igor was a ghost with ten different masters. I wasn’t about to start a war on a rumor.
I thought I could control it. Keep an eye on him since we were working so closely together. Maybe even nudge him away from crossing any lines.
A mistake.
A mistake that somehow turned out all right—but a mistake all the same.
By the time Omertà Infernale became Umbra Arcana, it was too late.
Too organized.
Too powerful.
Too… useful for me to make accusations that might not stick.
So I did my own investigation.
I tracked him to Venezuela when he stopped answering my calls. It didn’t take long to realize he was fighting his own demons. I didn’t know everything, but I knew he cared for Sophia. Enough that the contract on Marcello’s head hadn’t come from him.
And I knew one more thing: If I told the others the truth, they would vote to kill Raf first and ask questions never.
And for some godforsaken reason… that bothered me.
Because somewhere along the line, I started to like the bastard.
Now I'm glad he's alive. He'll actually make a damn good Don. If I weren't convinced of that, I would have fed him to the fishes along with Edoardo. Consequences be damned.
The yacht shudders as it slows, the engines humming slowly down into a low growl.
We’re all quiet, spent, wired, and not nearly drunk enough for what’s waiting on land.
Raf finishes his whiskey and sets the glass down with a soft click, his expression unreadable but sharper somehow.
Marcello checks his phone again, jaw working.
Enrico stands, restless, pacing. Toni stares out the window like he can see his house from here and will jump into the ocean if he has to.
I don’t have to ask what they’re all thinking.
I know: We weren’t there.
We weren’t there when our women needed us.
That kind of guilt is something every man in this room understands far too well.
When the yacht finally kisses the pier, we move fast. The cold wind slaps me across the face as I step onto the deck, stinging and bracing.
Marcello’s coat whips behind him in the breeze.
Enrico mutters a dark curse under his breath.
Toni clenches his fists like he’s holding himself together through sheer force of will.
Raf just breathes, a slow, deep breath, one that sounds like a man balancing on the knife-edge between restraint and violence.
The helicopter Toni ordered is already running at the pier, rotor wash blasting the dock with frigid gusts. No one speaks as we climb in. There’s nothing left to say.
As the helicopter lifts, the wind roars around us. From the air, New York looks small, distant, and almost peaceful. But when Toni’s mansion comes into view, the illusion shatters.
It looks like a war zone.
Charred patches scar the lawn. Smoke lifts in thin, bitter ribbons from the hedges. Several cars are wrecked near the drive, one flipped on its side, the others shot to hell. Windows are shattered, debris scattered across the stone courtyard like a battlefield frozen mid-scene.
"Merda…" Marcello whispers.
Enrico inhales sharply. "Holy—Christ…"
Toni’s face goes gray. He grips the seat so tightly his knuckles turn white. This was his house. His home. They dared to invade.
Raf's eyes darken with something lethal. "That's a fucking warzone."
No one breathes for a moment.
My heart pounds once—hard—before anger and dread fuse into something cold and surgical, helped by the fact that I know Oksana wasn't harmed. As if…
The pilot descends fast, too fast, the skids slamming onto the helipad. Before the rotors even stop spinning, the doors are thrown open, and we hit the ground running.
The moment our feet touch the stone, chaos explodes toward us.
Cat flies into Enrico’s arms with a sob.
Violet practically leaps at Marcello, holding his face like she’s checking he’s really there, whispering frantic prayers against his mouth.
Scarlet punches Toni’s chest before hugging him so hard he winces.
Gigi stands on the sidelines, watching, holding her husband Vito's hand. Sophia launches into Raf, and he catches her like he’ll never let her go again.
It’s messy. Loud. Emotional.
The air is thick with relief and tears, and curses whispered into hair and necks. I feel all of it.
The guilt. The fear. The ache in my chest.
Oksana isn’t among them. I knew that. Still. That damn woman.
I don’t wait. "Toni," my voice is gravel, "where’s your dungeon?"
He doesn’t hesitate. "This way."
I break from the group without another word, boots pounding up the steps and through the front hall, Raf, Enrico, and Marcello right on my heels.
Toni leads us through two corridors, down a spiral staircase, and through a reinforced steel door.
The deeper we go, the colder the air becomes.
Damp. Stone. The scent of blood under it all.
At the bottom, in the dim yellow light of flickering bulbs, we find them.
Igio. One of Toni's men.
Bound.
Bruised.
Barely breathing.
Toni walks up to him, punches him hard in the stomach, so hard he might have dislodged his pancreas. Igio grunts.
Sasha stands, with his arms crossed, leaning against a wall. He has a shiner and blood on his shirt. He nods at me, then jerks his chin to the side, and my heart stops when I see her.
Oksana stands at the sink, her back to us, calmly washing blood from her hands. Blood speckled along her jaw, across her cheekbone, staining the white collar of her shirt. She’s humming under her breath, something Russian, something low. She turns before any of us speak.
Her eyes land on me, and they soften instantly. "Hey, honey," she says with a bright, utterly casual smile. "Welcome back. How was your day? Did you guys catch any fish? Oh, wait, no, you went to feed the fishies."
She walks right up to me, loops a hand around my neck, and kisses me, slow and sure, like nothing in the world could shake her.
I can't stop myself. I grasp her with all the restraint I can muster, trying to avoid breaking her bones while crushing her against me.
The kiss is hot and consuming, and it tells me everything I need to know. She's alive. She's unhurt.
Behind me, the others fall silent. The kind of silence that happens when even seasoned killers can’t believe what they’re seeing. When she pulls back, there is a warm glow in her jade green eyes, before her face turns cold, all business again. Sharp. Focused.
"So," she tosses a towel aside, "here’s what I know."
We form a rough semicircle around her, hardened men bracing themselves like lieutenants waiting for orders from a general.
"Igio didn’t know much," she begins. "These Venezuelan infiltrators? We already knew that they are all individual Cells. Completely isolated. They don’t know each other, which is why we couldn’t trace their structure."
Raf nods, jaw still tight. "Tell us something we don't know," he challenges. If I didn't know and respect the kind of relationship the two of them have, I would bristle against his tone. Oksana only holds up her middle finger.
"Patience, I'm getting there—" she lifts her phone "—I got his access code before he passed out. And the next hymn delivery. At least for Cappella del Corvo."
The room shifts. Every man goes still at the mention of the church the Cells are abusing for their own sick business. We've all done things that don't align with the Ten Commandments, but this? This is a desecration of the vilest kind.
"The Cells are going to pick up their hymns the day after tomorrow, have it staked out, and you'll get your rats." Oksana finishes. "In the meantime, the Venezuelan firewall will be down because of the restructuring within the Venezuelan organization." She winks.
Marcello chuckles under his breath in appreciation.
"So," she looks at Raf and me, "it's time for you boys to do your magic, you should be able to hack in and get all the things we need, including the names of every last Cell."
Toni whistles, low and awed. Enrico mutters something reverent under his breath, and Toni stares at her like she’s descended from the heavens and dragged vengeance with her.
Oksana claps her hands lightly. "Sounds like a plan? Good. Let’s move."
Then she glances at Igio's limp body hanging from the ceiling.
"Oh, and if one of you could put that bastard out of his misery? I just cleaned up."
She grins. They all stare at her. Speechless. Floored.
And me?
I feel it, pure, unfiltered pride rising like heat in my chest.
"That’s my girl," I say.
And every man in the room believes it.