Chapter 6 #5
His touch isn’t threatening. But it isn’t gentle either. It’s… studying.
“Still hurts?” he murmurs, fingers grazing the edge of the scar.
“Not really.”
“You didn’t flinch when it happened.”
“Because I’ve felt worse.”
He doesn’t ask what, and I’m not sure if that’s mercy or strategy.
His hand falls away and he turns from me, walking toward the tall cabinet across the room and opening it. The dark wood creaks faintly as he reaches inside, grabbing a bottle and two crystal glasses, his back momentarily to me.
And that’s when the idea slithers through me. Silent. Clean. Sharp.
My fingers drift down to my purse still sitting at the edge of the desk beside me. I flick it open without looking and slide my hand in, fingertips brushing the familiar bottle near the bottom.
I pull one pill free and fold it into my palm.
Just a vitamin. Nothing dangerous. But it feels like power.
And when Rafael turns back around, he doesn’t notice the slight shift in my fingers, or how my hand now rests lightly on my thigh, the pill tucked in my fist like a promise.
He pours into one glass, then the other, eyes scanning my face like he’s measuring how much truth I brought with me tonight.
“What else did Alessio say?”
I lean back slightly, expression calm.
“Someone in Calderone’s circle is feeding false intel to both sides. Making the Italians think you’re planning to cut ties with them. He said the Bratva’s name is being whispered where it shouldn’t be—and someone wants that tension to snap.”
“Someone always wants that,” Rafael says, handing me a glass. “But few are dumb enough to rush it.”
I take the drink. Sip once. Let the burn settle on my tongue.
Rafael turns again, his back to me now as he stares out the window. His glass is still untouched. And I move like smoke.
I rise slowly, quiet as the thought behind it, and walk to his desk—my hand gliding low, close to the rim of his glass.
I drop the pill. It sinks fast. The remnants begin to dissolve at the bottom like mist curling in liquid amber.
I sit again, crossing my legs. And wait.
He finally turns back to face me, picks up the glass without looking, and takes a slow drink.
I watch his throat move as he swallows. And then… I smile.
“You know, I wasn’t sure if you’d actually drink it.”
He pauses. Glass still in his hand. His eyes lift slowly to mine. Cold. Sharp. “What did you just say?”
I tilt my head. “The drink,” I murmur. “You’re surprisingly trusting for someone who keeps knives in his walls.”
Rafael’s eyes lower to the glass in his hand. He tilts it slightly, and that’s when he sees it. The cloudy swirl of white, dissolving slow and soft at the bottom like a secret still whispering.
He stiffens. Just slightly. And his voice comes out low. Measured. But darker now. “What the fuck did you put in this?”
I stare at him with the calmest smile I’ve ever worn.
My heart isn’t even racing.
“Poison,” I say simply. “Fast. Painless. But effective.”
A pause. A long one.
His jaw tightens. But he doesn’t move. He doesn’t panic. He watches.
“That so?” he asks, voice quieter now. “And why would you kill me in my own home?”
“Because I didn’t,” I say flatly—then burst into soft, genuine laughter. “Relax, Romanov. It’s a vitamin.”
He doesn’t laugh. He just stares at me.
Then sets the glass down and steps forward slowly, eyes still locked on mine. “You think this is funny?”
“I think it proves a point.”
“Which is?”
“That if I’d been a man—if I were Alessio or one of your rivals—you never would’ve let your back turn to me. You never would’ve taken the drink without checking. But because I wore a dress and played a role… you underestimated me.”
He’s quiet. Deadly quiet. But something flickers in his eyes. Not anger.
Respect? Curiosity? Desire?
Maybe all three.
“You wanted to make a statement.”
“No,” I say softly, leaning forward again. “I am the statement.”
Another pause. The tension between us now is no longer just sharp. It’s liquid. Dripping between every word.
“You said you wanted me close,” I murmur. “Then don’t waste my time with easy assignments. I held your life in my sights once—and you didn’t even know it.”
His gaze sharpens. “You’re not going to tell me when that was, are you?”
“Where would the fun be in that?”
He takes a slow breath. Steps back once. Then pours another drink— another, from the same bottle. And sips it while keeping his eyes on me.
“Noted,” he says.
“Good.”
“So what do I give you next?”
“Something harder.”
“And if you fail?”
“I don’t.”
We stare at each other again. This time, there’s no space left between us that isn’t charged.
He lifts his glass toward me slightly. “To vitamins and daggers, then.”
“And to underestimating the wrong girl.”
His glass still hangs loosely in his fingers, but the burn in his gaze is hotter than the liquor in either of our veins.
I watch the way his throat moves when he swallows, slow and controlled.
His control is everything. But even he doesn’t realize how much of it I’ve already stolen.
“You ever killed anyone?”
The question lands between us like a blade. Casual. But it isn’t. Not when he asks it. Not when the room feels like it’s holding its breath.
I don’t react right away. Just stare at him. And think about the way my finger curled around the trigger that night on the rooftop, Rafael’s chest in the center of my crosshairs.
I think about how steady my breath was. How calm my heart stayed. How ready I felt. Even if I never took the shot.
“No,” I say finally, slow. Honest. But not soft. “Not yet.”
A flicker flashes in his eyes. Approval? Curiosity?
Maybe something darker.
“But that doesn’t mean I won’t,” I add quietly, meeting his gaze. “I’ll do what I have to. If someone puts themselves between me and what I want…”
“Then what?”
I smile, slow and razor-edged. “Then they made a very stupid mistake.”
Rafael leans against the edge of the desk again, but he doesn’t look away. He studies me like he’s searching for the crack in the mask. For the girl buried beneath the fire.
But she’s gone. And the woman in her place doesn’t need to pretend anymore.
“Killing changes things,” he says eventually.
“So does lying. So does betrayal. So does surviving.”
“All true.”
He sets the glass down with a soft click. The air thickens. “But the first kill—it marks you,” he continues. “There’s a before and an after. And you don’t get to go back.”
I tilt my head, unbothered. “What if there’s nothing I want to go back to?”
A beat passes. Then another. And I see it. The moment something shifts in his expression. It’s not pity. It’s not fear. It’s understanding. And that’s more dangerous than anything else he could feel.
He moves then. Not fast—but with purpose.
He comes to my side, not standing this time, but sitting on the desk beside me. Close. Too close.
But I don’t shift. I don’t lean away. If anything, I lean in.
His gaze drops—slowly—to the slit in my dress, then back up to meet my eyes, asking a question he doesn’t say aloud.
And I let him.
His hand moves to the fabric. Fingertips trailing the edge of the slit, pushing slowly—inch by inch—until it reveals the leather sheath against my thigh.
The dagger glints faintly in the low light. His fingers brush the strap, then glide beneath it, curling around the hilt.
He slides it free in one clean, silent motion. The cool metal flashes between us as he lifts it to his line of sight, turning it slowly in his hand.
“Italian steel,” he murmurs.
“Custom made.”
“You carry it like it belongs to you.”
“It does.”
He glances at me then, a flicker of something unreadable dancing behind his lashes. “And yet you haven’t used it.”
“Not everything sharp has to draw blood to prove it’s dangerous.”
He laughs softly under his breath, dragging a thumb along the blade’s edge. “You’re full of clever little lines, Isabella. ”
“Or maybe you’re just finally listening.”
He rests the blade flat against his palm for a moment longer, then turns it in his fingers—offering it back to me.
I don’t take it immediately. I let our eyes hold. Let the quiet between us stretch taut and electric.
Then I reach forward, slow, and slide the dagger from his hand—my fingers brushing against his palm just long enough to feel the warmth there.
I don’t sheath it yet. I let it stay in my lap, exposed. A reminder. A promise.
“You’re dangerous,” he says, low.
“Only to the ones who deserve it.”
He leans in, just slightly. “And who decides who that is?”
I smile again. This time, it reaches my eyes. “Me.”
The moment lingers—thick with unspoken things. His voice still echoing in my head.
You’re dangerous.
So is he. But I knew that the second I saw him through the scope of my rifle.
Rafael stands. No warning, no shift in tone—just fluid, sharp motion like a blade being sheathed.
He grabs both of our glasses from the desk and turns slightly. “Come,” he says. “There’s something I want you to see.”
I blink once. Not at the words. But at the tone. Low. Even. Almost casual. But with Rafael, casual is just control in disguise.
He walks without checking if I’m behind him.
Because of course I am. And I follow—heels silent on the dark wood floors, the weight of my dagger once again warm against my thigh.
I watch the way his shoulders move beneath his shirt. The slight sway of his step. Purposeful, confident. Like everything in this house bends to his will.
He leads me through a hallway I didn’t notice before—more shadow than light, lined with deep black wood and a single abstract painting that looks like smoke frozen mid-collapse.
We reach a room. It’s smaller than I expected. Not an office. Not a lounge. Almost… intimate. A private den, maybe.
Low light. A fireplace off to one side. A leather couch the color of storm clouds. And no windows.
Just walls. And the man standing in front of them.
Rafael hands me my glass back. “Sit,” he says, his voice velvet and smoke. “I want your opinion on something.”
I take the glass without blinking.
I don’t sit because he told me to. I sit because I want to see what a man like him shows when the doors are closed.
I cross one leg over the other, lean slightly back, and sip. The drink’s sharp. Not too strong. I barely notice the shift in flavor.
Rafael steps to the far end of the room and places his hand against the bookshelf lining the wall. His fingers press lightly over the wood—not random, not hesitant—and I hear a soft click.
Then he pulls.
The shelf swings open like a door. And behind it? A room. Hidden. Sharp. Metal glints everywhere.
It’s a weapons room.
And not just any weapons room. It’s meticulously organized. Rows of guns—pistols, rifles, modified semi-automatics—lined against matte black walls. Stacks of ammunition sealed in labeled crates. Shelves of knives. Tactical gear. Munitions.
It’s a vault dressed as a sanctuary.
My fingers tighten slightly around the glass. Not out of fear. Out of appreciation.
“This is where the real conversations happen,” Rafael says, voice smooth.
“It’s… impressive,” I reply.
“You know your way around this kind of setup?”
“I built something similar in Miami. Smaller. Less… extravagant.”
He raises a brow. “Of course you did.”
I take another sip of the drink. And this time, something pulls a little heavier in my chest.
Just a second. A pause. Not enough to notice. Not enough to worry. But I feel it.
And then it’s gone.
“That one—” I point at a matte black pistol mounted just above eye level, “—custom Glock 19. Shortened barrel. Suppressed. Clean job.”
“Most people wouldn’t catch that at first glance.”
“Most people haven’t fired one in the dark from half a mile away.”
His smile is subtle. But it’s there. “And here I thought I was full of secrets.”
“You still are,” I murmur, finishing another small sip. “But I’m not easily impressed.”
“No,” he says, stepping back from the open room and closing the door slowly. “You’re not.”
I shift slightly on the couch. And this time, I feel it again. A faint warmth spreading down the back of my neck. Heavier than the drink. Thicker than the air. I blink once. Shake it off.
“Tell me, Isabella,” Rafael murmurs, leaning against the opposite wall now, watching me. “Do you enjoy control? Or does it just make you feel safe?”
“Why not both?”
“Because people who like control rarely admit how much they fear losing it.”
“That sounds like projection.”
“Or maybe,” he says, “it just sounds like someone who’s been exactly where you are.”
My fingers loosen slightly around the glass. I place it on the low table in front of me, breathing slower now.
There’s a strange haze swimming in the corners of my vision. Like fog. Not enough to blind me. Just enough to slow me.
“You drugged me,” I say quietly.
Not a question. Not yet an accusation.
He lifts one shoulder in the faintest shrug. “I returned the favor.”
“That was a vitamin.”
“And this is something just as harmless. A test. You started it. I’m just finishing it.”
My body relaxes further into the couch. Not because I want it to. Because I have to.
A sinking warmth pools behind my eyes. My limbs go heavy. And yet I don’t panic. Not really. Because this isn’t fear. This is strategy. His.
“You should’ve told me,” I murmur, voice lower now. Slower.
“You didn’t tell me.”
“So this is… what? Revenge?”
He walks closer. Kneels in front of me, elbows resting lightly on his knees, gaze level with mine now.
“This is a reminder, malyshka, ” he says softly. “That I watch just as carefully as you do.”
My vision blurs slightly at the edges.
His face remains in focus. Sharp. Dark. Unmoved. But in his eyes… something flickers. It’s not victory. It’s fascination.
“Sleep, Isabella,” he says quietly. “You’ll wake up fine. But I want you to remember that in this house, I always play the last move.”
My lips part to answer. To argue. But the words tangle before they form.
And the last thing I see—Is Rafael standing. Silhouetted in firelight.
And the weight of my own game turned against me.