Chapter 4
SOFIYA
I barely have a moment to get over my shock of confirming the Enforcer’s identity before he’s bending low, tossing my bound body over his shoulder.
Dear God.
Rafaelle Salvatore. Not just the Salvatore enforcer but the Enforcer.
For the best part of a decade, a name that usually meant little more than the mafiosi’s epitome of a ‘big scary guy’ had gained cult status on the pitch-black areas of the internet and the world.
Before he’d ever carved out a rep as the world’s most untraceable assassin very few knew him to be, Rafaelle Salvatore was already a legend. Scarier than Luca Brasi, deadlier than most ‘made men’ ever dreamed of becoming. He didn’t just enforce, he dismantled.
He disappeared men without leaving bloodstains behind. Because unlike the brutes who relied on muscle and mayhem, Rafaelle operated on precision, patience, and a terrifying kind of restraint that only made the explosion worse when it came.
As the shadow to his older brother Cesare, he’d never claimed a definitive title, had been seemingly content to assume the usual enforcer role for the ruthless delivery of justice and pain for the Salvatore Organisation.
Entire crime families whispered about him like a curse word, a bedtime story gone wrong.
And absolutely no one wants to see the unhinged assassin – the true Enforcer – in their rearview mirror.
I heard the whispers, of course, had gone looking for myself and failed many times.
But I kept going because usefulness is currency in my family. One mistake, one weakness, and they cash you out.
Maybe that’s why I kept looking for the Enforcer. Who else to learn from but the best? And I had to learn to be better. To carve out something sharp and terrifying in myself so I wasn’t disposable.
So no one, not even my grandfather, could look at me and see the lesser daughter. The girl who wasn’t born first, or male, or enough.
I didn’t want admiration. I wanted immunity.
But never in my wildest dreams did I think…
Shit. I was bluffing before, hoping he’d show his hand one way or another. While fervently praying the most lethal assassin in the world wasn’t really on the rooftop a quarter mile away from my family’s hideaway house, aiming his rifle at my brother’s head.
God, what if I’d been five, ten seconds late?
Would Narciso be dead right now?
I swallow, will myself not to shake as the most sought-after assassin on the dark web walks me off the rooftop, taking me God knows where.
When I got the alert from the mole that I pay eye-watering sums to keep me informed that the Enforcer was sniffing around my family, I thought… hoped it was a cruel joke.
The confirmation that the threat was credible sent me rushing from my hideout in Queens.
I’d spent the past two days utilising my most prodigious skill and analysing every possible place the assassin could hit from, leaving the clever little gadgets that would alert me of suspicious movement within a half-mile radius of my family home.
It’d been a wild shot in the dark, but worth it because I knew the general movements of the bodyguards my father employed.
And the fact that since my grandfather attempted to assassinate his own granddaughter and her new husband, none of my sisters were allowed outside after 9 p.m. Having them all in one place helped because I knew the Enforcer would strike here.
When the sensor sounded, my heart dropped through the floor.
Now it’s somewhere near my ankles as he carries me off the roof and down several flights of stairs like I weigh nothing.
My dry mouth turns to sawdust as he takes the stairs with the ease of a man confident of his surroundings. Confident the predator has conquered his prey.
‘Where are you taking me?’ I hate the tremor in my voice and pray he thinks it’s because I’m upside down. I squeeze my eyes shut when a wave of dizziness washes over me. But I force them back open. Remain alert.
‘Come on now, you know better than that, duci.’
I grit my teeth at the lyrical endearment that rolls so smoothly off his tongue. Duci. Sicilian for sweetheart. A term for lovers and benign relationships.
Not toxic, decades-old vendetta-craving characters in a macabre play that has seen several members of both our families dead in the ground, some as recently as a year ago, at the wedding of Cesare Salvatore to my older sister, Maddelena.
Bitterness sweeps through the dizziness, souring my stomach.
I’m not sure who I blame more for this – Maddie for deciding that, out of the billions of men on earth, she would fall in love with Cesare Salvatore, first-born grandson of our family’s enemy, or my grandfather for the bloodlust he’s kept stoked, even though it’s ripped our family and countless others apart.
To be fair, Orazio Salvatore holds more than his fair share of the blame.
Between those two bone-headed, old-fashioned men, they’ve perpetrated the eye-for-an-eye vinnitta which shows no signs of dying anytime soon. And conveniently, Nonno has gone into hiding, leaving the rest of us to bear the brunt of his actions.
Would they mourn me or would I become just the latest casualty of their war? If my poor mother dropped dead from the years-long stress she’s been carrying, I’m 100 per cent sure my father will barely mourn her for a week before he’s back to carrying out Nonno’s commands.
My sisters would mourn me. Sure, we’re not as close as other siblings, probably on account of the divisive nature and the sheer hell of living under Bonafacio Mancinelli’s roof and thumb.
But we don’t hate each other. Which is a plus, I guess.
And I’m certainly not the warm and fuzzy type. A plus in my line of work and essential in the role Bonafacio dropped me into on my fifteenth birthday.
While other girls were fumbling with makeup and crushes, I was learning how to break bones and fake identities.
From the moment my grandfather realised my ability, my life’s goal was made clear. Every soft edge was to be filed down until I was all blade.
I was different. I was useful. Sentiment was a liability. Empathy was weakness.
Even now, when I catch glimpses of the girl I might’ve been – laughing freely, trusting easily – I shove her back into the shadows.
Because that girl wouldn’t have survived.
And the woman I am? Who lately attempts to flex wings that have long been nailed down? She’s still not sure she’s allowed to want more than survival.
I drag my morose thoughts from my family to the more dire situation at hand. ‘You’re going to kill me, aren’t you?’
He doesn’t reply, but I sense him contemplating the question. Is he pondering how he will do it?
My heart lurches again when I relive squeezing that trigger.
It isn’t the first trigger I’ve pulled.
But it’s the first one that’s been strictly personal. A decision made with fear and terror in my heart instead of on orders from my father or grandfather. And it’s also a kill – a failed kill – made without first verifying my victim’s identity.
Victim.
I swallow a hysterical snort.
Rafaelle is as far from a victim as Jupiter is from Venus.
‘Why didn’t you do it on the roof?’ I push.
‘Too messy, sweetheart,’ he rasps.
I lift my head when I realise we’ve reached the quiet street three streets away from my home.
My sensor went off at 1 a.m., which means it’s approaching 2 a.m.
Years ago, Nonno bought all the properties bordering our family home in Connecticut and either gave them to his men who held positions in the family business or razed it to the ground in the name of security.
The advantage was that no one could approach our home without being spotted by security.
The disadvantage was that deadly assassins like the Enforcer could stroll in and out without encountering another soul. The house we’ve just left belongs… belonged… to one of the lieutenants who was brutally massacred by the family of the man holding me prisoner now.
Maybe even he did the killing.
Desperation unravels down my spine as I fight the urge to ignore his warning and scream.
‘Don’t,’ he warns, his tone soft and deadly. ‘Seriously. Let’s not ruin this adventure just yet, sì?’
I open my mouth to tell him to fuck off. With my ankles and arms bound, my mouth is the only tool at my disposal right now. But he’s lowering me to the ground. Next to the electric sports car I drove here.
Another wave of shock cannons through me.
I’m not sure how he found it. I thought I’d hidden it well beneath the weeping willow a quarter mile away. Apparently not.
Shit.
In silence I watch him pluck the fob from his pocket, accurately guessing which one of the buttons opens the car.
He examines it, then arches his eyebrow at me again.
When I don’t answer, he pushes me to the ground with a callous shove. I land on my ass in the grass with an oomph and glare at him.
Asshole.
Insanely, stupefyingly hot asshole, with a body created for death and sin.
My face heats at the recollection of the imprint of his cock against my ass.
The Enforcer is packing a different kind of heat in his pants. The kind destined to leave a woman bow-legged and screaming for God and deliverance while secretly hoping both never come.
He slides behind the wheel of my car and flicks on the interior light.
I can’t look away from his profile.
The light shines on his jet-black hair sexily rumpled from the mask he took off. There’s a neatly trimmed stubble gracing his strong, square jaw, and his mouth… fuck me, his mouth is made for the dirtiest kind of depravity.
The feel of his hands tracing my body replays for the dozenth time and I have to clench my belly to stop the shiver tickling into being.
To distract myself, I side-eye the bag he dropped ten feet away.
He catches me looking. ‘Ask nicely and I might just show you my toys, baby,’ he says, his voice far too sexy.
Before I snap a killer response, he turns serious. ‘Programming the location of your stash house is amateur, even for you. So I’m guessing it’s somewhere you visit often enough not to need a GPS?’
My lips flatten, refusing to dignify his smirking observation with a reply.
The bastard is right, and we both know it.
I underestimated him. Just a little. I was focused on his body count and his battlefield history, not the fact that he’s wickedly clever in that unhinged, whiplash way that makes his smile feel like a blade slipping beneath my ribs.
Above all, I didn’t count on him being a Salvatore.
He watches me for a moment, quiet, too quiet, then nods – like he’s just made a decision I’m not going to like.
‘You know,’ he says conversationally, ‘if I didn’t know better, I’d think you wanted to get caught.
I mean, roof access without a backup exit?
Really? I’ve seen rookies with more survival instinct.
’ He gestures to the passenger seat. ‘Get up. Get in. Or I carry you like a bride, and we both know I’ll enjoy that way more than you will. ’
I hesitate, then climb to my feet.
I calculate distance, the knives I strapped to the undersides of the driver and passenger seats, how quickly I can free myself from the ties, grab one knife and shove it under his ribs if he blinks wrong.
But the eyes watching me mock my every strategy. He’ll come out on top in every scenario and fuck if he doesn’t know it.
Revel in it.
His hand taps the top of the passenger door, and he hums a jazz tune under his breath as he waits, all sexy deadliness and maddening calm.
I don’t speak. I can’t afford to. Not until I know where he’s taking me. Then again, maybe I already do.
I drop into the seat, my hands trapped under my ass.
He grins as he secures my seatbelt. And I swear he takes a quick sniff of my hair.
He drives, says nothing for ten minutes, right until we’ve left my family’s compound far behind. Then he pulls over, glances at me with that wolfish grin.
My heart jumps into my throat. He’s not going to kill me here.
He’s not, he’s not, he’s—
‘I need you conscious, but pliant. Cooperative’s too much to hope for this early, I think. But we’ll get there, won’t we?’ He smirks, then his hand lifts, fast and deliberate. I barely have time to scream before his fingers press against a pressure point beneath my ear with surgical precision.
I can only buck against his hold, my heartbeat roaring in my ears as my vision turns dark. Darker.
As the world fades in slow, humming spirals, his voice is the last thing I hear.
‘Don’t worry, bedda. I’ll take good care of you.’