Chapter 17 #3
I curled my fingers around it again and tucked the pendant beneath the collar of my shirt. “If you’re worried it’s cursed,” I said dryly, “you can relax. I don’t think it bites.”
That earned me the faintest smirk. “Does everything you wear have to be a weapon?”
I raised a brow. “Do you really want me to answer that?”
He didn’t.
We stood in silence again, the wind curling around us, brushing my hair across my cheek and stealing the tension with it.
But I could feel his thoughts from here—knotted and calculating, always moving. Still staring at me like the pieces weren’t fitting the way they should. Still not realizing that I wasn’t sure what pieces I even had to give him.
Rafael hadn’t moved, and neither had I. The city sprawled out below, lights twinkling in a quiet rhythm that made the night feel deceptively calm.
The pendant was warm where it rested against my skin now, tucked away, but not forgotten.
His question still lingered in the air—pressing against my thoughts like the wind pressing against my back.
He tilted his head slightly, still watching me out of the corner of his eye. “Were you ever familiar with organized crime before you met me?”
The words were casual. Effortless. But nothing about them felt simple. I glanced at him. His eyes were steady. Calm. I swallowed, tightening my arms across my chest. “Familiar?” I echoed. “Not exactly.”
He didn’t respond right away, so I kept going. “I mean, I knew it existed. You don’t grow up in the world I did and stay that naive. But no. I was never in it. Not like this.”
A breath passed. Not quite silence. Just a pause.
His voice dropped a little. “Did your mother ever mention anything about the Italian families? About their world?”
There was something in his tone I couldn’t quite place. Not suspicion. Not even curiosity. Just… patience. As if he was sifting through a pile of ashes for something he hadn’t seen in years.
I looked back out at the skyline. A breeze swept my hair to the side, strands brushing across my cheek. “No,” I said, quietly at first. “She never talked about that.”
He didn’t say anything, but I could feel him watching.
“She always warned me not to stay near people who could drag me into danger,” I added, glancing back at him. “She said… they come with pretty faces and charming smiles, but they bring ruin. She never named anyone. Just—her words. Warnings.”
His jaw shifted slightly. “Smart woman.”
“Maybe too smart,” I muttered.
We both stared ahead. The city blinked in silence.
“She kept me close for most of my life,” I continued. “And after she died, it was like… all those warnings never stopped echoing. I didn’t even know what I was listening for. But I kept hearing her voice.”
“And now?” he asked, voice low.
I hesitated. “Now I think I’ve stopped listening to her as much.”
That made him glance at me again. Not surprised. Just… knowing. “Danger doesn’t always come with a warning,” he said.
“No,” I agreed. “Sometimes, it comes with a name.” Our eyes met. The tension pulsed between us—slow and rhythmic, like a bruise beneath the surface.
“Is that what I am to you?” he asked. “A name your mother warned you about?”
I gave him a slow, careful look. “No,” I said. “You’re something else entirely.”
He didn’t ask what. And I didn’t offer it. Not while the storm still felt far too quiet.
The silence stretched again, thick with everything we hadn’t said. Naples flickered below, golden and alive, but it was nothing compared to the quiet in Rafael’s eyes.
Then his voice cut through it—low, direct. “If someone stood behind me right now,” he said, “gun raised, finger on the trigger… would you kill them before they could pull it?”
The question landed like a stone in my stomach.
I didn’t move. Didn’t blink. His words swirled around me like smoke—coating everything, setting my nerves alight.
Slowly, I turned to him. He was watching me, as always.
But not in the way he usually did—this wasn’t hunger, wasn’t teasing curiosity.
This was something else. A question that came from deep beneath the surface.
Would I?
My fingers twitched at my sides. “Is this a test?” I asked, my voice quieter than I meant it to be.
He didn’t answer. Just waited.
My throat felt tight. The pendant around my neck suddenly heavy. “I haven’t killed before,” I said. “You know that.”
He nodded once.
“But killing to protect you?” I hesitated. “I think the part of me that’s still angry at you would hesitate.”
His mouth curled just slightly—an unreadable expression.
“But,” I added, stepping toward him, “I’d do it.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“If someone was behind you right now, about to end your life… I wouldn’t let them,” I said. “Even if I wanted to throttle you myself.”
A dry chuckle escaped him. “Good to know.”
I exhaled and looked away, the city blurring beneath my gaze. “You really think that’s what I am to you?” I muttered. “Something you have to test, over and over again?”
“I think you’re a contradiction,” he said. “And I’ve stopped expecting clarity from you.”
I shot him a sideways glare, but he was already turning.
“Come with me,” he said. “I want to show you something.”
I hesitated again, but only for a breath.
He didn’t look back to see if I’d follow. He didn’t need to.
My feet moved before I told them to. I followed him down the hall lit only by gold sconces and velvet shadows, silence folding around us like a shared secret. His pace was unhurried, but I could feel the tension in him—coiled just beneath the surface, never resting.
He stopped in front of his suite, pulled a key card from his pocket, and opened the door. The lights were off, moonlight casting a faint silver glow across the marble floor and the glass decanters on a dark wood bar. I stepped inside behind him, the door shutting softly behind us.
I didn’t know what he was about to show me. But the look in his eyes told me this wasn’t just about a view or a memory. It was something deeper. Something that lived inside his silence.
And I was about to walk into it.
The dim light bathed Rafael’s room in gold, the amber hue flickering over the walls like candlelight, soft and low.
I stood there, just a few steps inside, my fingers still lightly brushing against the pendant Anna had given me earlier, the cool metal grounding me.
My thoughts were a mess—fragments of everything that had happened between us, the chaos of Naples waiting for us tomorrow, and the strange serenity of standing in a place that felt too intimate, too quiet.
Rafael didn’t speak at first. He moved with quiet precision, walking toward the dresser. He turned the dimmer on the wall until the overhead lights glowed low, washing the room in a warm, amber shadow. Then he turned his back to me and slowly reached for the hem of his shirt.
My heart beat once—hard—as I realized what he was about to do. “You always like undressing in dramatic silence, or am I just special?” I said, the sarcasm half-hearted, an instinct to mask the sudden shift in my chest.
He glanced over his shoulder, his mouth twitching like he wanted to smile but couldn’t quite get there. “Only when the moment calls for it.”
And then he pulled the shirt over his head, not rushed, not showy—just slow, deliberate, as if he knew the tension was thick enough to slice with a knife.
The second he turned, I froze.
The phoenix tattoo on his back spanned shoulder to shoulder, inked in masterful strokes—sharp wings stretching wide, the creature rising from flames and ash. But what caught me, what stole my breath, was the crimson red thread winding around the wings, like a ribbon binding it in place.
I blinked, staring, something inside me twisting. “You have one too,” I murmured, not a question. I stepped forward without realizing, my voice barely above a whisper. “The red thread.”
He turned toward me fully now, the shadows catching along the edges of muscle and ink, and for a moment, he said nothing.
“Yuri told me what it meant,” I added before he could speak. “That in your world, it symbolizes your first kill. He didn’t exactly ask when he tattooed it on me. Just gave me some poetic line about blood and fate.”
I paused, studying Rafael’s expression. “I didn’t regret it,” I added, quieter. “Still don’t.”
Rafael’s eyes settled on mine like they always did—steady, intense, too-knowing. “That’s one version of what it means,” he said. “The part Yuri tells people who’ve already crossed a line.”
I tilted my head slightly, unsure whether to brace myself.
He looked away for a second, as if dragging the words out from somewhere deeper.
“To me, it means survival. Every man who lives long enough in this world leaves something behind—his soul, his mercy, his softness. That thread…” he gestured toward the ink spiraling over the phoenix’s wings, “…is what binds the ashes of who I used to be. It’s what remains after fire. ”
My mouth parted slightly, but no words came. Because that? That I hadn’t expected.
“So when Yuri marked you with it,” Rafael added, quieter now, his eyes back on me, “he didn’t just link you to the Bratva. He tied you to something bigger. Something he should’ve told you.”
The silence stretched. But I didn’t break it. I stood there, feeling the thread braided into my hair and the one inked onto my skin burn like an echo of something I hadn’t fully understood until now.
And still—I didn’t regret it. Not a single thing of it.
I watched him, my fingers curling tighter around the pendant as Rafael turned slowly, the dim light brushing against the lines of his face, softening everything but the intensity in his eyes. There was something strange about the quiet between us—thick, like the air before a storm.
My heart was still tracing the edges of the phoenix on his back, the way the red thread wound around its wings like fire and fate, and I couldn’t shake the way it made something in my chest ache.