Chapter 13 #2
I side the blade between his ribs. One precise upward jerk. Heart pierces and his life ends. No screams. Just the soft sound of a man condemned by his own appetites.
Sofiya joins me as I wipe the knife on Lupo’s silk pocket square. ‘Efficient,’ she whispers.
‘It’s what they pay me for.’
I feel her sharpened gaze and I smile to myself. I have her hooked. For as long as I want. I just need to decide that measure of time.
Lupo’s body’s still warm when we slip out. Two minutes later we’re over the side, splash-silent into black water.
Behind us, The Nerissa still sparkles. Music, champagne, oblivious sin cruising towards open sea with a corpse cooling in its study.
Sofiya treads water beside me, moonlight slick on her face. For a heartbeat the world is only salt, and pulse, and shared breath.
I reach out, hook a hand behind her neck, pull her mouth to mine – hard, claiming, salt-sweet. She gasps but doesn’t pull away. For three seconds we forget blood, war, family.
Then the RIB inflatable drifts close, a silent reminder that we’re not free and clear.
I break the kiss, tastes of sea and danger lingering. ‘Baseline trust, bedda. I’ve got you.’
She swallows, and her eyes sparkle in the dark. ‘And I’ve got you.’
I smile and gun the motor towards the lights of Monaco, leaving a dead monster adrift and one very alive temptation at my side.
Sofiya
I’m still vibrating when we hit the beach, blood-warm water licking at my calves as Rafa drags the inflatable onto the damp sand.
Adrenaline always leaves me jittery, but tonight it feels different – hotter, dirtier, like I swallowed live wires. The salt air can’t scrub the iron scent from my nostrils or the sting of Lupo’s fear from my tongue.
The easy violence with which Rafa broke that asshole’s wrist makes me… hot.
I clutch the waterproof satchel stuffed with passports and ledgers, aware of how my hands tremble despite years of conditioning.
And conditioning started early.
The Past – Summer
Age Twelve
Mancinelli hunting lodge, Madonie Mountains, Sicily
‘You shoot a deer once or twice – okay, five times – from over four hundred and fifty yards during one hunting season,’ I mutter under my breath while I walk, half-numb from recoil and teenage outrage, ‘and suddenly your dreams of becoming an equestrian champion or a dance instructor are out the window. You had hedged your bets – just in case the horses detested you, just in case the stables smelled too strongly of manure.’
But the second Bonafacio saw the grouping in the deer’s ribs, something predatory lit behind his eyes. Sealed my fate.
From then on, my summers weren’t tennis lessons and learning to swing my hips like my sisters at the country club; they were dawn hikes to isolated ridges, target practice on dangling tin cans, sketchy guerrilla fire-and-manoeuvre drills with ex-soldiers who smelled of sweat and gun oil.
Winter
Age Fifteen
Palermo docks
First human shot: a smuggler who thought hiding behind a refrigerated container made him invisible. I vomited afterwards – behind a stack of pallets where no one could see.
When I straightened, Nonno ruffled my hair and told me he was proud. That I had a bright future ahead of me.
Pride should have felt warm.
It felt like acid.
Tonight
Monaco Shoreline
Ten kills in eight years and that acid still burns.
I keep waiting for the guilt to dull or harden into something useful. Or at the very least, something I shrug off when I need to. It never has.
Instead it roams in pockets, manifesting in sudden, unpredictable sinkholes that chew through my composure.
Right now, one of those craters yawns wide at my feet.
I bend, brace my palms on my thighs, breathing too fast as the last fifteen minutes replays on a loop.
As if I need something else to admire about him, Rafa kills clean.
I kill because someone told me I had the gift.
A gift I couldn’t return or give away or even complain about because had it been wielded by a man, he would’ve been given a kingdom.
Instead I got watched, controlled, and even the slightest deviation from total acceptance would’ve made me a liability in Nonno’s eyes.
Why am I thinking about this? Getting emotional instead of emotion-free?
And why does the wetsuit feel like a fucking straitjacket? I swallow rising bile. ‘Shit.’
Rafa steps close, dripping seawater, dark hair pasted to his skull. Even soaked, he radiates that unholy mix of easy strength and feral promise.
The Enforcer. My temporary stay-of-executioner, possibly my mentor. My family’s enemy. My—
‘Breathe through it,’ he orders, voice low, calm, annoyingly steady. His hands stay at his sides; he’s smart enough not to grab me. ‘Dump the flight-or-fight juice before it bottles up. Shake your arms out.’
I do it, rolling my shoulders, flicking wrists, sucking air that tastes of brine and monsters. Still, the memory blurts: Lupo’s eyes bulged, lips shaped around a plea that never made sound.
You did that, Sofiya. You helped.
Another pocket of guilt tears open.
Rafa sees it. Of course he does. ‘First one’s a bitch,’ he murmurs.
‘Even if it’s not your literal first.’ He angles his body, shielding me from the glow of a boardwalk café a hundred yards away, giving me privacy without retreating.
‘He had girls in cages. You gave them a shot at breathing free air. Let that be louder than the hesitation in your pulse.’
I bark a brittle laugh. ‘You give TED talks now?’
‘Only the after-dark edition.’ A flicker of humour softens his feral edges. ‘Come on, picciridda. You did good.’
I block out the ‘for a Mancinelli’ and ride the wave of praise.
Good.
The word lands strangely. I’ve never sought moral applause. I do what must be done. For my family, eternally at war with someone or something. Because I’m useful, non-hysterical. All the ways that deflect the fact that I don’t have the Y chromosome.
Yet hearing it from him – this brutal, deranged, temporary guardian angel – sends heat crawling across my skin.
I look up, expecting mockery. Instead I find… concern. Uneasy, reluctant concern in coffee-brown eyes.
It tilts the world.
‘You really believe that?’ My voice cracks despite my best effort.
He nods once. ‘Unfortunate truth – monsters exist. People like us are the tax collectors.’ His lips twitch. ‘And I hate to say it, but you make an excellent auditor.’
It’s absurd, obscene – and oddly comforting. The pocket of guilt stops expanding.
Wind lifts my tangled hair.
Rafa reaches out, tucking a strand behind my ear. The touch jolts a fresh surge of adrenaline. Less fight, more heat. Memories stack back up – his kiss, his body covering mine in the water, a broken wrist in my honour, the constant crackle of tension since New York.
I’m not supposed to want this man. The impulse feels treasonous.
But want throbs low in my belly anyway, ratcheting up as we haul the RIB under pier shadows, secure it, trek to a service lift that dumps us in the hotel’s underground garage. A private elevator whooshes us up eight floors. Silence hums between us, thick with unspoken things.
‘You okay?’ he asks, softer, once we’re in the suite.
I nod. Lie. ‘Peachy.’
‘Prove it. Eat something, hot shower, forty-five minutes downtime for you while I take care of the final touches.’ His eyes harden a touch. ‘There’s also the matter of tracking Bonafacio’s last hidey-hole.’
Always planning. He’s the blade that never dulls.
And blades can cut the wielder.
‘You ever unwind?’ I ask.
His grin is all wolf, his shrug utterly unapologetic. ‘I either fuck something hard enough to incinerate my spine or find the next walking problem and delete it. Fastest reset button there is.’
It takes a full second for the words to land. ‘You get the high from one… call it a “fixed-variable operation”… by jumping straight to another?’
‘Adrenaline’s a habit,’ he says, eyes gleaming. ‘You taper it with sex or blood. Keeps the engine tuned.’
I huff, half shocked, half morbidly impressed. ‘That’s… efficient, I guess.’
He tilts his head. ‘Your turn, picciridda. How do you come down?’
Heat detonates under my skin. The honest answer is two fingers and the hotel showerhead set to pulse. ‘Music,’ I start – and under his arched brow, I add in a mumbled, ‘And… uh, water pressure.’
His laugh is low, devilish. ‘Should’ve known. Bet you look gorgeous falling apart under the spray.’
My cheeks flare. The tease should annoy me; instead, it sends a pulse between my legs. Damn him for resurrecting that memory. Damn me for liking it.
In the suite, Rafa strips out of his garments, muscles rippling as he wrings water into the sink, then dons slacks and a shirt, unbuttoned.
I peel off my clothes. A silk slip lies folded on the bed alongside towels, energy gels and bottled electrolytes.
He must’ve ordered turn-down service before we left.
I pop a gel, and sour cherry hits my tongue. Rafa watches, amusement curling his lips.
‘Good girl,’ he murmurs.
Heat darts under my skin. ‘Don’t.’
‘What? Praise?’ He steps closer and drops a towel over my shoulders. ‘You earned it.’
Praise again. Makes the guilt recede further, replaced by a frightening blaze of pride. But it’s a dangerous drug, rarely offered selflessly.
God, I should retreat to the shower. Instead, I grip the towel like a lifeline. ‘I’m still your enemy.’
He brushes knuckles down my cheek. ‘So be it, baby.’
I breathe him in – sandalwood, gunpowder, something dangerously male. My pulse hammers. The guilt pockets are gone, replaced by a craving I don’t recognise.
He dips his head and his breath skims my lips. ‘Tell me to stop.’
I should. The list of reasons scrolls through my brain – families at war, loyalties in tatters, Bonafacio, wounded and hiding but by no means vanquished. Even my sister Giada’s hidden existence is now a threat I need to keep a close eye on.
I should step away.
Instead, I fist the lapel of his open shirt and pull.
Our mouths crash. Raw, searching, nothing like the controlled kiss on the yacht. His hands frame my face, angling for deeper. I taste adrenaline, seawater, the lazy bourbon he downed before we left. I moan and he swallows it, responding with a growl that rumbles in my chest.
He walks me backward until my thighs hit the bed.
The towel slips, wetsuit half peeled to my waist. His palms drag down my arms, thumbs grazing the peaks of my breasts. Sparks scatter along my spine.
He breaks the kiss just enough to bite my lower lip. ‘Baseline trust,’ he rasps. ‘I won’t break you, yet – but I’ll bend you so sweet you’ll forget every goddamn rule your family drilled in your skull.’
The promise steals my breath. Shame flickers with how quickly duty dissolves in heat, but the guilt pockets stay closed. Maybe they can’t coexist with this wildfire.
I slide my palms beneath his damp shirt, mapping scars. Old knife, bullet, vicious lines near his ribs. Proof of battles fought alone by the mighty Enforcer. It twists something tender in my heart. My fingers linger over the space where I shot him.
With that same deranged impulse, I probe his bruise.
He hisses. Pulls back, eyes black with want. ‘Last chance, bedda.’
I swallow. ‘I get to drag your corpse out, remember?’
A wicked grin. ‘Well, okay then.’
He kisses me again, deeper, slower, like he’s savouring a victory. I let him. For tonight the monsters are one corpse lighter, and the war can wait outside our door.
Inside, two predators burn the guilt away in each other’s arms.