Chapter 12 #2
The Venezuelans. That’s today’s target—specifically, Matías Rivera and his boss's ghost network. We launch simultaneous penetration attacks, me from one end of the system, Stephano from the other. Two clean injects, encrypted probes, flooding into the outer shell of their mainframe.
"Firewall just rerouted," I murmur, watching the heat signature shift on the map.
"Redirecting," Stephano says, typing like a machine. "I’ve got a patch under their data node. Going in from the left—wait—fuck."
He leans back in his chair, shaking his head in disbelief. "They just torched my shell. Full firewall reversal. I’m locked out."
I frown, my own keys still clacking. "That fast?"
"Like they saw me coming before I logged on."
I shift tactics, switch protocols, burrow into a quieter sublayer. But then, I, too, hit a brick wall. No error code. No rejection message. Just… nothing. I sit back slowly. "They scrubbed my signal. Shit."
Stephano scrubs a hand down his face. "These assholes aren’t just running a cartel. They’ve got state-level cyber defense."
I nod, watching the static on the screen like it might offer a way back in.
"Remind me," I rub my chin. "Why are we digging through their shit again?"
Stephano doesn’t answer immediately. He walks over to the espresso machine in the corner and fires it up, like he needs something bitter to go with what he’s about to say. "You heard about the accountant, right?"
I glance up sharply. "Toni’s guy?"
"Yeah. Alfonzo. The one who handled La Famiglia's finances. He was kidnapped outside a friend's house a few days ago. He and his wife."
"Shit, I heard something yesterday, but nothing specific," I admit, stretching the truth just a little. Then, for good measure, I add the next part as a question. "It was the Venezuelans?"
Stephano sets the espresso down untouched and nods. "The wife was tortured to death in front of him. We assume he cracked and told the Venezuelans everything. Toni had to clean it up himself."
Toni—Antonio DeLuna—is the new capo of the DeLuna family.
His father was killed in the middle of a dinner by Carlos.
That massacre reverberated all the way down my totem pole, so of course Omertà Infernale dug into it.
That’s the sort of thing I specialize in.
When a capo breaks the code of Omertà, we follow the paper trail until the rot shows itself.
Edoardo and Carlos buried the whole affair the old way—threats, intimidation, whispers in dark corridors, kept the cops out, and mollified the other families with bribes and gifts.
Edoardo is our new Don of the five families, a position he never earned.
He’s too young, too inexperienced, and from what little I’ve seen, a complete asshole.
I’ll never be like him. I won’t ignore the men and women who work for me, no matter how low they are on the list—no matter how high I rise.
I haven’t met Toni in person, but everything I’ve learned points to a cold, calculating man. I’m sure he’s nursing revenge against Carlos after Edoardo forbade him from taking it. For now, Carlos is tied up in an extortion trial, and I’m watching—biding my time to see whether I need to step in.
Right now, I'm still absorbing the fact that the Venezuelans were gutsy enough to send an obvious declaration of war against us. Even more curious is that this specific crew is based in LA, while we're here in NYC. "Fucking hell."
"Last night there was a meeting," Stephano continues, filling me in about something I have no business knowing. But I do. I wired their conference room a year ago.
"Toni reported the incident with the accountant, and we're now looking actively into the Venezuelans. Specifically, what information they got out of Alfonzo."
And why. Stephano is shrewdly leaving that part out, just like he's leaving out that Edoardo and Carlos tried to have Toni eliminated from the playing field. Permanently.
After all, Toni's family is responsible for money laundering, so the accountant falls under his supervision.
In the end, it was Edoardo who looked weak, because he refused to declare war on the Venezuelans.
Not only that, he played it like he and Matías Rivera were best buddies all of a sudden, raising suspicion from many of the present capos, and making himself look weak as fuck.
Stephano walks back to his chair and pulls up another feed, oblivious to the storm in my head. Or maybe not. Stephano isn’t oblivious to anything. He just knows better than to ask when a man’s silence is made of razors.
I glance sideways at him. He’s different from the others. Not cut from the same loud, brutal cloth. If anything, he’s closer to me than anyone’s ever been. We think the same way, chess moves in code, long games hidden in zeros and ones.
And maybe… maybe he could have a place in the world I’m building.
I don’t know yet.
But if he stays useful—if he stays loyal—he could be more than an ally. He could be a friend.
My mind snaps back to the screen.
I reopen the encrypted data file we managed to scrape before the firewall locked us out. A partial directory. A few blurred photos. A name: Yesenia Montilla.
Stephano leans forward. "Matías Rivera’s cousin’s sister-in-law. Venezuelan banking elite. Multiple flagged transfers into real estate here in Manhattan."
I nod slowly.
"Their network’s bigger than we thought," I murmur.
He smirks. "Wanna bet it leads straight back to Edoardo’s latest business partners?"
I smile coldly. "I don’t bet on what I already know."
"I might need you to go to Puerto La Cruz, try to get information the old-fashioned way if we can't get through their firewalls," Stephano informs me.
Fuck.
Going to Venezuela is the last thing I want to do right now.
Omertà Infernale has been growing enough that I might soon be able to walk out of the shadows and be my own man.
Refusing Stephano is not an option, though, not while I officially work for him.
Unless I'm ready to cut ties and expose myself for who I really am, there is no way for me not to go.
At some point, I will do it, and maybe that time is now.
Maybe that's the reason I ran into her today, of all times.
"You don't look happy," Stephano observes.
"Humidity and my hair don't get along well," I deadpan.
He smirks, "It'll be a last resort. We’ll try again to crack them in a couple of days. They're on high alert right now. But Raf, you're the only man I trust to send. You have the brain and the brawn."
I nod. I understand, even if I don't like it. Besides, it might be useful for me to find out what Edoardo is cooking up with the Venezuelans. One day, I will have a seat at the family table, and this is the kind of information that might help me get there sooner rather than later.
"Well, that was a bust," Stephano empties his espresso, and I take my cue to leave.
"See you in a couple of days," I say on the way out.
"I'll call you." Stephano agrees, thinking I'll go back to my own little desk to work on cracking the code to the Swiss bank accounts I've been working on.
He has no clue that Omertà Infernale did that a long time ago, and that I have no intentions of sharing that info with him.
But as long as he thinks I'm earning my paycheck, I'm free to do my own shit.
My body still buzzes with leftover adrenaline from the thwarted cyberwar and from seeing Sophia. It's not the kind that fades easily. I need motion. Speed.
Outside, my bike is exactly where I left it, leaning like a predator in sleep next to Mercedes, BMWs, Escalades, and all the luxury cars one could want.
Not me. My vice is this bike. The Ducati Diavel V4—matte black, custom mods, ceramic brakes, tuned exhaust—she is not just a motorcycle. She’s a statement.
Roar.
The Ducati comes to life with a sound that splits the night. She doesn’t purr. She growls, deep, violent, and guttural. She knows exactly what I need. Some might say I’ve got rage issues. They wouldn’t be wrong.
I do.
It’s not the kind of rage you punch out of your system or drown in bourbon.
It’s old. Bone-deep. Etched into the marrow of who I am. Because I know—I know—I’m not where I’m supposed to be. I was never meant to be someone’s grunt. Not Stephano's sidekick.
I was meant to be on top.
I might have been born and bred in shadows and forged in silence, but I will be crowned.
I don't know how I know this, but I do. It's in my DNA.
God help anybody in my way of getting there.
Because I will. One name at a time. One betrayal at a time.
I will bury anyone who thinks they can stand in my way.
This burn is what keeps me going, especially when I think of her. Sophia.
She's been married for three years. The thought tastes like metal in my mouth.
Just like I know I was born for something more—something bigger—I know Sophia was never his. Not truly. It doesn’t matter that she wears his ring or sleeps in his bed. None of it matters.
One day, she will be mine.
Not because I’ll take her.
Because I’ll show her.
Show her what it means to be seen. To be chosen. To be loved with every shattered piece, every shadow, every scar.
I’ll give her what she’s never been given before: a choice.
And if, when all is said and done, she still chooses him—if she truly loves him—I’ll walk away.
Even if it kills me.
Because more than I want to have her… I want her to be happy.
But until that day comes?
Nothing is going to stop me.
I twist the throttle and launch down Bowery like a bullet through smoke. The city comes into sight and blurs around me, steel, glass, and traffic lights that I ignore.
I run every red.
Every. Single. One.
The sound of the engine cuts through the night like a war drum.
Cars swerve. Horns blare. The wind whips around my helmet, the untamed power of the motor between my legs is just what I need.
I lean into each curve, taking the Ducati to eighty miles an hour, ninety, one hundred.
Somewhere behind me, a siren lights up in protest.
Let them come.
I spot the cruiser two blocks behind me in the rearview. NYPD. Their lights are blazing; their siren is wailing. They think they’ve got a runner. I chuckle. They'll learn. This is just what I needed.
I slice through lanes, split traffic like a ghost, take a hard left onto Canal, faster, tighter. I skid through an alley too narrow for anything but bikes and rats, but they’re still chasing. I imagine the cop calling it in and chuckle again. I’m already gone.
Two more turns. A narrow staircase. I angle the Ducati like a battering ram, jump the curb, and cut down a side street that turns into a tunnel.
The sirens fade. Then vanish. I pull up in front of the computer store I bought, and the old neon lights still flicker.
It looks just like the kind of store nobody on the straight and narrow would walk into. Just what I want it to be.
I honk twice—the signal for Yosh.
Any thug would love to get their hands on my bike—especially in this shitty neighborhood—but word’s gotten around: You don’t touch my bike.
Ever. Something Yosh learned the hard way.
He thought he was slick; he waited until I was inside, hands deep in code, before he slipped around the block and tried to hotwire her.
Got maybe three wires twisted before I was behind him, silent as death.
He still has the scars—I made sure they would be visible to any prick who thinks he can best me—but I didn’t kill him. That would’ve been too easy. Instead, I gave him something worse: a job.
I broke his wrist first, clean, loud, and brutal.
Made sure the bone snapped in a way that would never fully heal, effectively taking his ability to hotwire anything away.
Then I took my time carving a reminder into the inside of his forearm: a thin burn mark in the shape of a T, for thief, using the still-hot end of the throttle grip he tried to steal, and I made him a deal: He gets to keep breathing, in exchange, he sits outside the shop.
Every day. Every night. Every hour I ask.
Rain, snow, blistering summer. It doesn’t matter.
He guards the Ducati like a dog chained to a penance.
If anyone approaches my bike, Yosh has a story to tell—a living reminder of what happens when you try to take what’s mine.
If that isn't enough, he calls me, and I deal with it.
Now? People cross the street when they see the Ducati parked. Even cops slow down when they pass.
"Now?" Yosh appears sullenly.
"Now," I confirm, parking the Ducati and walking into the shop, knowing Yosh will keep his vigil like he always does.