Chapter 10
RAFAELLE
The hum of the Mancinelli jet is low and constant, a soft growl beneath my boots as I lounge in one of the cream leather seats, fingers curled around a crystal tumbler of Scotch I don’t remember ordering.
We’re flying over the Alps, en route to Nice, where a chopper will take us to Monte Carlo. The sky outside the cabin windows is bruised gold, sharp with late afternoon light.
Across from me, Sofiya buckles herself into her seat like it’s war prep. Chin high. Mouth tight. Legs crossed in that unconscious, regal way that belies the fact that she’s been raised in senseless violence and knows how to bite harder.
I take a sip, let the burn coat my throat, then settle in. Time to play.
‘I have questions about your grandfather. You’re going to answer them.’
She doesn’t look at me. Doesn’t blink. ‘You want to start this now?’
I smile lazily. ‘We’ve got air miles to kill, bedda. And I do enjoy killing.’
A flash of anger tightens her jaw. Good.
‘When?’ I press. ‘When’s the last time you laid eyes on Bonafacio?’
She exhales hard through her nose. ‘Laid eyes on him? The day you trigger-happy Salvatores laid waste to our warehouses and killed our men a year ago.’
‘Hardly trigger-happy. It was in retaliation of what El Topo thought he could get away with.’ My eyes drop to her chest which isn’t quite as calm as she tries to project. ‘Pure tat for tits.’
‘Seriously. Is everything sexual innuendo with you?’ she demands through another sweet blush.
God, I love watching that. I’ll give my pinkie toe to witness a full-body pre-climax flush as I pound her cunt hard enough to make us both taste heaven.
I shrug. ‘I like to fuck, tigra. And a beautiful, willing woman front and centre always brings out my basic instincts.’
‘Willing? I guess I’m adding delusional to your fourteen-year-old out-of-control hormonal tendencies.’
‘You think you’re not willing?’ I nod at her chest. ‘Maybe you should tell that to your fuck-hot body.’
She starts to look down. Catches herself and lances a glare at me.
I smile. Then switch it off as the subject at hand slams back home. ‘So you haven’t seen him. Have you talked? FaceTimed? Smoke-signalled?’
She purses her lips, a tell I’m beginning to recognise and would need training out of her. Unless that siren’s mouth is pursed around my cock, sucking me off like I’m late with rent and she needs it from my balls.
‘Four months ago. Somewhere in Sicily.’ She stops.
‘And? You don’t want me to drag every piece of info out of you, baby.’
‘It’s not worth writing home about. He was drunk and paranoid and mumbling about rats and unfinished business.’
The lethal blade of my rage sharpens. ‘Unfinished business in what way? Did he mention Fallbrook?’
‘No.’
I lean forward, elbows on my knees. ‘Out of interest, where were you the night of Cesare and Maddie’s wedding?’
Her head snaps towards me, eyes blazing. ‘Excuse me?’
‘You heard me.’
Her hands clench on the armrests, knuckles whitening momentarily, before she gains control of herself. ‘You think I helped orchestrate an ambush on my own sister’s wedding night?’
‘I think I’ve seen betrayal take prettier shapes than yours.’
Her seatbelt unsnaps and she’s on her feet before I can blink, hands yanked forward like she might strangle me with sheer fury.
‘Vaffanculo. You think I’d put Maddie in the line of fire?
She made her choice and I respected it long before she walked down the aisle and married your brother.
Be an asshole about everything else, but not that. ’
Her voice cracks, just once. A fault line in her otherwise perfect rage.
Something hot and irrational coils low in my gut.
Because she means it. She’s not lying. And it hits me harder than it should – how beautiful she is when she’s furious, how fierce and loyal and real she looks with her eyes bright and voice shaking.
I want to soothe her. Touch her. Push her back into that plush seat and kiss every ruffled inch of her.
The thought alone unsettles me. Deeply.
So I shut it down and pivot.
‘We land in an hour,’ I say, smoothing my voice back to neutral. ‘After that, we’re dealing with the other problem.’
Sofiya doesn’t sit. ‘Tell me about the trafficker.’
‘Guy collects passports like trophies and little girls like vintage cars. Keeps them drugged in a villa up in the Monte Carlo hills. Pays off police to keep his filthy habits. He will not live to see another sunrise.’
She shivers. I don’t miss it.
I rise too and close the space between us, not touching but just standing close enough that she’ll feel my body heat. Her perfume’s soft and unassuming – white orchid and citrus – but beneath it, I smell her. Salt and adrenaline. Gunmetal.
‘I take him out,’ I murmur. ‘You watch and learn. Unless you want to make it a team effort.’
She glares up at me, lips parting like she might say something else – might scream or kiss me or both – but the pilot’s voice comes over the intercom.
‘We have a little turbulence ahead. Please take your seats and fasten your seatbelts.’
The chopper waiting for us in Nice is sleek and black, Salvatore power disguised as discretion. She doesn’t speak the whole ride to Monte Carlo, and I let her stew in it.
Let her feel the weight of my control and intent like a noose.
The suite Furia Racing booked for me is on the eighth floor of the H?tel de Paris. One bedroom, one shared living space, and a marble bathroom big enough to drown in.
Sofiya walks in, her spine ramrod straight.
She pauses when she sees the single suite key in my hand.
‘Where’s yours?’
I toss it into the air, catch it. ‘This is ours.’
Her brows snap together. ‘You’ve got to be joking.’
‘Nope.’ I lean in, grin sharp. ‘Two bodies. One bed, if you play your cards right.’
She growls something in Sicilian that sounds like a death threat.
And God help me, I hope she tries.
Again.
Sofiya
‘This is a joke,’ I mutter, stepping into the suite like I’ve walked into a trap. Because I have.
Opulence drips from the walls – plush velvet chairs, a balcony overlooking Monte Carlo’s glittering coastline, a bed far too large and far too central in the master bedroom. One bed. One key. One goddamn walking hazard.
I’ve lost count of how many times the Enforcer has come close to kissing me. Taunting me. Messing with my body chemistry. Making me wet enough that I’ll need to visit one of the many boutiques on Avenues des Beaux-Arts to replenish the three panties I usually pack in my bug-out bag.
Rafa tosses his duffel onto the chaise longue like he owns the entire principality. ‘You want me to sleep on the floor, picciridda? Because I’d still make it look good.’
I spin on him. ‘You think this is funny?’
The worst part is he clearly does.
That crooked smirk, that infuriating glint in his eyes like he’s waiting for me to throw something at his head just so he can catch it mid-air and call it foreplay.
And God help me, there’s a part of me that doesn’t hate it.
His crude, brazen, completely unfettered attitude should make me want to shove him off the balcony. But instead I’m pinging between shock and the urge to laugh. Or slap him. Or both. I don’t recognise myself at all.
Because for the first time in my life, I’m not tempted to deck a guy for calling me beautiful. I used to shut that shit down back in high school with a sharp fist and a sharper tongue.
Now? I just stand here, pulse hammering, fighting a smile like some starry-eyed idiot in a cheap romcom.
And he knows it.
The bastard knows.
‘I think this is convenient.’ He’s already unzipping his jacket, tossing it aside to reveal a black T-shirt that clings to every brutal, gorgeous line of muscle.
‘It’s Monaco on race weekend. Suites book fast. Unless you want to share a bunkbed with Renzo and his twelve hair products, this is the best you’ll get. ’
I fold my arms tight. ‘How exactly am I supposed to explain this to my family? My father, the lieutenants? That I’m shacked up with the Salvatore Enforcer in a luxury suite while my grandfather’s still MIA?’
He raises a brow. ‘Don’t explain it. Let ’em squirm.’
‘They’ll think I’ve switched sides,’ I snap. ‘They’ll think I’m like Maddie.’
That stings more than I want it to.
Only a year ago, I was the one disrupting the quiet whisper campaign. Why would Maddie run away with Cesare? Why would she sleep in the same penthouse, breathe the same air?
Sure, I was stumped as hell at her behaviour, but I never turned against her.
When Bonafacio raged about Maddie’s betrayal, when he demanded blood and strategy in equal measure, I stalled him. Lied. Delayed. Fed him false leads while Maddie slipped deeper into Cesare’s world.
I wasn’t the reason the wedge split our family – I was the one gripping the cracks, holding them together with shaking hands.
But it wasn’t enough.
Bonafacio unravelled anyway. Spun himself into paranoia and fury. And when he finally snapped, it wasn’t me he blamed.
It was her.
And he tried to kill her. His own granddaughter. The one person I’d fought – quietly, desperately – to protect.
He tried to kill someone he knew I loved, even after I bent over backwards for him. Over and over. Even after I bled and obeyed and turned myself into exactly what he wanted – a weapon.
I never chose this destiny, but I still broke myself trying to be perfect in it. It still wasn’t enough.
And now here I am.
Living a fucking echo.
I could ask Rafa to keep it quiet, but that would be like asking a wolf not to howl under a full moon. Just planting the idea would be enough for him to announce it to the whole damn world.
Instead, I quietly excuse myself, step into the marble-clad bathroom, make a single call that, fully leaning into my mafia princess persona, delivers me a second room in my name.
One floor down. Just in case.
I message Russo, the most senior of the bodyguards that I know are travelling with the Mancinelli Racing Team this weekend. Then, biting my tongue tip, I send one more to my father.