Chapter 9 #2
‘Last night, on the roof, you were kinda… decent. Definitely edges that need smoothing, but you’ve got training,’ he says, tone shifting – still smooth, but with a new kind of edge. ‘Who trained you? Let me guess, those sadistic bastards up in Bosco di Malabotta?’
I freeze.
That’s the real game now. Not sex or power. Information.
‘I train myself,’ I reply, deliberately cool. ‘Late-night YouTube binges and a few too many Bourne movies.’
He stares. Waits. He’s trying to get under my skin again, but I keep my face still. My pulse betrays me, but barely. I’ve spent too long learning how to lie without blinking, courtesy of a cruel and frigid tormentor in the Sicilian hills.
‘Hmm.’ He studies me like I’m a puzzle with one missing piece. ‘Cute. But not true.’
I tilt my head. ‘You going to cry about it?’
His jaw tics. He didn’t expect me to pivot. But I don’t let up. I smile. Saccharine sweet and lethal. ‘Nice try, Enforcer. But I’m not green enough to hand you my entire life history just because you made me blush a little.’
His eyes darken with interest. And that, more than anything, makes my skin prickle. Because I might’ve thrown him off. But not nearly far enough.
Still, I manage a glare, but I can feel the blush painting my skin from collarbone to cheekbone, feel the sting of it in my scalp, my chest, between my legs.
I hate that he sees it. Hate more that he likes it.
And I really hate that a twisted part of me wants to find out exactly what else he’d put in my body if I let him.
Just when I think the silence will stretch my nerves to the breaking point – a feat in itself since I’m usually unflappable – Rafa pulls something from behind his back and tosses it onto the bed beside me. My tablet.
The sight of it makes my throat close. That was supposed to be locked and hidden. Untraceable.
He’s seen everything. The search trails. The fake aliases. The breadcrumbs I stole, borrowed, and begged for, which led me to him.
And the other searches?
‘You’ve been digging in places you shouldn’t, bedda mia,’ he says, low and quiet.
I avoid his gaze, stare at the screen. ‘So?’
‘You need to stop.’
My jaw sets. ‘Or what?’
He doesn’t answer.
The silence that follows is loaded, coiled tight like a noose. It stretches long enough that my pulse starts to thrum in my ears. I hate not knowing.
So I look up, my voice quieter when I ask, ‘Are you one of the people I’ve been trying to find?’
His dark caramel gaze doesn’t waver. He doesn’t say yes. He just repeats, ‘You need to stop.’
The air turns heavy with things unsaid.
I look down at the tablet, fingers itching to snatch it back, destroy it, pretend it doesn’t exist. But it’s too late.
A thread of sick realisation curls low in my gut.
I was hunting shadows and stumbled into something real. And now… now I wonder if he is the key. If this brutal, unreadable man might be my way in.
But at what cost?
I force my expression to stay still.
Rafa watches me too closely. I can feel the weight of his stare like a palm on my skin. Waiting for me to flinch. For me to speak. He doesn’t offer interpretation. He doesn’t need to. He’s measuring my silence, reading every micro-shift in my expression like a language he’s fluent in.
‘You know what I’ve been looking for, don’t you?’ I murmur, eyes narrowing.
He raises a brow, all lazy challenge.
I nod at the tablet still resting between us. ‘Anyone with half a brain and access to the dark web could mimic an encrypted interface. The information could be fake. I haven’t had a chance to verify it yet.’
His eyes glint. ‘Careful, picciridda. You’re two seconds away from making me show you just how real this world gets.’
I snort. ‘That supposed to scare me? I grew up at a table where the dessert spoons were bugged and the steak knives came engraved with kill orders.’
He leans in slowly, gaze fixed on mine. ‘I do scare you, baby assassin.’ His grin sharpens. ‘And it’s a very bad idea to challenge me while you’re cuffed to my bed.’
‘I’ve had worse ideas,’ I shoot back. ‘At least they didn’t involve trusting a walking hard-on with a murder record.’
That earns a low, dark laugh. ‘You’re dying to find out if that murder record extends to orgasms? The answer is yes, tigra. I can in fact kill you with how well I fuck you.’
I roll my eyes. ‘Confidence looks good on a man, Salvatore. Pity you keep mistaking it for a god complex.’
He leans in slightly, smirk curling at the edges. ‘Ah, bedda. You keep poking the monster, and you’ll find out just how complex I can get.’
I hate the way my breath catches. Hate more that he sees it.
His smirk deepens, fucking glows. ‘That got your attention.’
‘Shut up.’
He straightens, turning serious in a blink. ‘I’m going to uncuff you now.’
My body goes still.
‘If you try anything,’ he says softly, like he’s sharing a secret, ‘I’ll put you down. One shot. Back of the skull. Be rid of my Mancinelli problem’ – long fingers snap, sharp and lethal – ‘just like that.’
‘You won’t get away with it. My family won’t let you get away with it. And I suspect some factions in your family won’t be too happy.’
His jaw clenches and I know I’ve hit a raw nerve. ‘I’m not some common capo they can demote, Sofiya. I’m the blade they send when diplomacy fails. The secret they bury before it breathes. Half the famigghia’s scared of me, the other half owes me their lives. So no – no one’s coming to rein me in.’
‘And you thrive in that, don’t you?’ I look a little deeper, spot the hairline fracture. ‘Or do you?’
He laughs, but there’s an edge to it. ‘Sure. I’m living proof that if you’re not born first, you better be born mean.
I carved a place for myself the only way that counted – in blood.
’ His voice dips lower. ‘I may be a fucking spare, bedda, but I’m still a much bigger deal than you’ll ever be. Don’t forget that.’
The silence stretches, a taut wire strung between us, humming with things unsaid. His jaw tics once.
I’ve definitely touched a nerve. I should be rejoicing. Instead I’m struck so hard by how much it echoes in me – this desperate need to prove yourself when no one handed you the crown.
I know what it is to live in the shadow of the heir, to be the insurance policy, the pawn trained for sacrifice. The one they praise only when you bleed for them.
I don’t want to find common ground with Rafaelle Salvatore.
No, no, no!
I grit my teeth so hard I taste copper. ‘Are you, though? Remember how we kicked your asses and won six races before you got your thumbs out of your asses last year?’
‘Minor inconvenience which we squashed like bugs. Remind me again who won both the Drivers’ and Constructors’ Championships?’
‘One shot. That’s all that’s ever needed.’
‘And you had yours last night and failed. So. Before I unlock you, I want to hear it. Say it.’
‘Say what?’
He smiles, like he’s savouring every syllable before it even leaves my mouth. ‘Promise not to be a bad girl and make me use the handcuffs for something less benign.’
‘I hate you.’
‘That’s not a no.’
I hiss in frustration – but the truth is, the throbbing between my legs is turning molten again, and he knows it.
And I hate myself more that part of me… wants to be the bad girl just to find out what he’d do.
Even as my mind races through training scenarios. There aren’t any for this – being tied up and drugged by an enemy who wants to screw me and kill my grandfather.
He walks to the bed and unlocks the cuffs, fingers grazing my skin. I pull away from the contact, glaring up at him. ‘You think finding a few traps I may or may not have put in place changes anything?’
His mouth curves, but there’s no humour in it. ‘No, but the one string of dead-end forum threads, dark-web bounties, stolen key logs and digital footprints so clean it makes most analysts look like apes in mittens? That changes things.’
I go still. ‘Are you saying I’m good, Rafaelle?’ I drop my voice, tease him with sultriness.
His nostrils flare as he drags the cuff off my other wrist and straightens, voice low. ‘You have talents, Sofiya. Talents I’m willing to explore. While you help me find your grandfather.’ He steps back, giving me just enough space to breathe. ‘It’s another condition for keeping you alive. For now.’
My heart thuds once, loud and suspicious. ‘That’s not the only reason you’re doing this, though. What’s the angle?’
He studies me for a long beat. Then shrugs, infuriatingly vague. ‘You’ve been sniffing at the feet of monsters, duci tigra. I might give you a few more breadcrumbs if you stop trying to get yourself killed.’
I narrow my eyes. ‘You’re still not telling me what they’re called.’
‘What who are called?’
A growl of frustration escapes before I can stop it.
His smile is all wolf now. ‘I’m trusting you, Sofiya. Which means you’re coming with me to Monaco tomorrow.’
‘Excuse me? The race isn’t till the weekend.’
‘I have some business to take care of. Billionaire with a taste for girls barely out of puberty. Human trafficking. The Grand Prix this weekend while I supervise Renzo and Dante will be the perfect cover. You’re coming with me.’
A part of me, the part I rarely let surface, sparks with something dangerously close to anticipation. I’ve heard stories about the Enforcer. Rumours sharpened by blood and myth. Now I get a front-row seat to watch him work?
I should hate the idea – being dragged along like a tool in his arsenal. But my pulse says otherwise. ‘And if I say no?’
‘You won’t. Those breadcrumbs I mentioned? You’re already fucking wet about the thought of them.’
I slap him. It’s automatic, instinctive, hard enough to sting my palm.
He barely flinches. Then grabs my chin, not rough but not gentle either. He leans close enough that I can pick out the gold flecks in his eyes. Beautiful. Mesmeric. Pulsing with the promise of derangement that shouldn’t fascinate me this much. But, God, it does.
He stares at me for the longest time, then he blows a breath over my mouth. It’s almost a kiss. A promise. Enough to harden my nipples, carve a path of hunger through my body.
He stays long enough for my brain to short-circuit with the drug of his proximity.
When he pulls back, he’s breathing hard. So am I.
‘The next time you bite me or slap me, picciridda,’ he growls, ‘I’m going to fuck you. Slowly. Deeply. Until you forget every reason you ever had to think you hate me.’
I’m shaking, but it’s not fear. It’s… heat. Confusion. My thighs press together under the sheet.
God, I hate how my body reacts to him. ‘I’m not yours,’ I whisper.
His eyes drop to my mouth. ‘Not yet.’
I swing my legs off the bed, trying to focus. Trying to shut out the throbbing between my legs and the twisting in my chest. This isn’t just another mission. I know weapons. I know kills. I know strategy.
But I don’t know him.
And I don’t know what the hell I’m going to do if I start wanting things I’ve never been trained for.