Chapter 19
RAFAELLE
The villa stands silent except for the rustle of cicadas and the crackle of olive branches outside my window. Light slants through carved shutters, painting beams across my face.
The air is still around me, as if holding its breath. Questioning my actions.
For the first time in weeks, months even, I’m not reaching for a gun, scanning heat signatures. Or stewing in anger – well, not entirely.
There’s always a nice simmer going on in the background, the soundtrack to my life since that fateful day in Manhattan.
Instead, I’m tying an apron around my waist – my mother’s apron, faded and frayed at the edges, smelling very, very faintly of the lavender and rosemary cuttings she used to keep in the pockets.
I know if I stop long enough to ponder those actions, they’ll point to a new strain of madness.
I’ve spent the last hour gathering herbs from the pristine garden kept by invisible staff – rosemary, thyme, basil – flavours she always said could save a bland dish.
The kitchen is old-world Sicilian – chipped terracotta floor, dark-stained wooden counters, beloved copper pots that gleam even under dim bulbs.
Sometimes, I still half-expect her to step in beside me, show me how to split an artichoke or braise a shoulder of lamb until the meat falls from the bone.
But that memory is a double-edged blade, a lesson in heritage, a reminder of loss.
Sofiya stirs through the archway, bare feet soft on the stone flagstones, her hair still damp from her shower.
I freeze at the sight of her.
She wears a scarf around her head, knot tied just off-centre. The careless, almost throwaway attitude to a beauty that blindsides and flattens you the moment you stop to stare. To acknowledge. To fucking worship.
A fucking centrefold in the sunlight. Did I think Sophia Loren?
Hell, yesterday, maybe. Today? After she’s taken a cock and gotten a taste of the power her pussy wields?
There’s new, frightening – if I was some wet-nosed fanculo, which I am fucking not – knowledge behind her eyes. I watch her pause in the doorway, her eyes narrowing, as if she’s trying to figure out why her assassin partner is wielding a wooden spoon and a butcher’s knife instead of a Beretta.
‘It’s lunch,’ I say, voice low. ‘I’m making pasta with lamb ragu, and fresh greens from the garden.’
She arches a brow, stepping closer.
The scarf frames her face like it frames a painting – delicate cheekbones, wet fringe of hair at her temple. ‘You cook?’
Something shifts. I shouldn’t answer.
She’s a Mancinelli. She shares the bloodline of the man who left my mother in a pool of it. The fact that I’m even in this room with her – let alone cooking for her – should have me questioning my sanity.
Maybe it was the sex. The obscene, toe-curling kind that drains the blood from your brain and reroutes it to foolish places. Or maybe it’s the way she asked, not with mockery, but with curiosity.
Real. Open. Soft.
I don’t know why I fucking do it.
But I do.
‘I used to watch her. My mother.’ My voice is quieter than I mean it to be. I grab a clove of garlic, slam and crush it under the flat of a knife, maybe with a little more force than necessary. ‘Help her. She eventually taught me.’
She leans against the counter, arms crossed. ‘Your mother taught you to cook?’
I toss the garlic into a skillet of olive oil.
It crackles. The scent of garlic and oil flares, bright and homey, with a hint of betrayal for sharing the product of her loving lessons with this woman.
But then… Mama loved to feed anyone bold enough to walk through Salvatore doors, trusting that, lamb or lion, her men had a reason for permitting entry.
My brain conjures her up, here with me. With Sofiya. Something jolts inside me. Because that image isn’t… as agonising as it should be.
Jesus. Was it only a year ago I called Cesare pussy-whipped? Among other deeply unsavoury names?
I push the taste of shame and reverse Schadenfreude away. Answer a question I shouldn’t have permitted in the first place. ‘She thought a man should know how to eat.’
Sofiya’s mouth curves into an odd, bittersweet smile. ‘A mother’s love – only way to a man’s heart, huh?’ She flicks her gaze away. ‘Funny, I always thought your type preferred training on live targets rather than simmering sauces.’
I chuckle, but it’s rusty – like a sword drawn after too long in its scabbard.
‘Mama gave me two gifts. One was the blade in my hand, the other was teaching me how to feed myself – and my enemies, sometimes.’ I stir the garlic, then add chopped onions, letting the fragrance swell. ‘Bones break better on a full stomach.’
She watches the onions sizzle, heat rippling off the pan. ‘You really think you can get me to eat a home-cooked meal after everything we’ve done?’
I splash in crushed tomatoes, season with salt and pepper, then add chopped lamb shoulder. The meat hisses as it hits the pan. ‘Too chicken to try, tigra?’ I taunt.
Sofiya’s chest rises, stills, then falls. ‘If I choke and you let me die, you’ll never find peace. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.’
By the time the ragu simmers, its aroma drifts through the villa. I boil water for pappardelle – wide, rough-edged ribbons of pasta that soak up sauce like parched earth. I slide wooden spoons across counters, chop parsley, zest a lemon for a final flourish.
Behind me, Sofiya lounges on the sofa, sexy legs tucked, toes curled.
Occasionally she sniffs the air, a cute gesture of impatience I’m not sure she registers. When I twirl pasta into a shallow bowl and ladle sauce over it, I feel her track every movement.
Watch her inhale, the scent of lamb and tomato floating around her. Guilt flickers – she’s seen me drop men in their tracks, seen the same hands ladle red sauce now gliding gently across pasta.
‘It’s ready. Come here, bedda.’
She rises, a goddess gliding, hips moving differently after her first taste of a man between her legs.
I set the steaming bowl on the table, then pour a glass of Salvatore bottled Montepulciano for each of us. The wine swirls darkly, reflecting the sun as it dips towards the horizon.
I sit, eyes on Sofiya. No fucking way I’m admitting that I’m waiting for her verdict.
She lifts her fork. ‘To the chef.’
I nod once. ‘Buon appetito.’
The first bite is a baptism: pasta melting against my tongue, the sauce savoury, hints of garlic and basil weaving through tender lamb.
I watch her fingers tighten on the fork.
She chews slowly, eyes fluttering – like tasting a memory she wasn’t sure belonged to her.
She swallows, sets the fork down. ‘This is… incredible.’
I settle back. Smug. ‘Patience, technique, respect for ingredients – she made me believe cooking is a weapon, too. One that heals rather than kills.’
Cristu, Rafa. What next? Hand over your wish kill list?
Silence. She takes another bite. I can see the war in her eyes. A desire for nourishment, dread of vulnerability by chasing this connection… this fucking witchcraft between us.
‘Did she teach just you or your siblings as well?’ Sofiya asks, voice barely above a whisper.
I run a hand through my hair, pull, hoping to reclaim and restore some sanity. ‘I was the only one interested. It was… our thing. And maybe she knew where I was destined. Maybe she knew I’d need both the fuel and defence.’
Sofiya watches me with keen intent. ‘Sounds like you never had a choice on this… path.’
I stiffen, then force myself to relax.
So what if they handed Cesare the throne and me a gun? I was the second son, the spare who carved out a place no one could take from me, even if it meant becoming the monster they whisper and wonder about.
‘Choice is a luxury even in the kitchen.’ I lift my glass. Drink. Set it down with a decisive click. ‘Tonight, you drink that wine and tell me if you’ll help me find El Topo.’
She inhales and slants me a look. ‘I will help. But I don’t know if I can ever eat like this again.’
I push the salad bowl her way, greens tossed in lemon juice, shards of Pecorino. ‘You’re a warrior and a wanderer. Like me. Take the taste of home when it’s offered, tigra. It might not come around again.’
The warning is double-spiked. And I absorb the sensation of pain and grounding it brings. I was at risk of letting fucking sappy emotions get away from me.
She hesitates, then picks at the salad, each bite small, deliberate. I watch the muscles in her jaw work, like she’s fighting herself to swallow.
Suddenly she drops the salad fork, pushes back her chair. ‘I’m done.’
I set my wine down. ‘Done?’
She stands, a little unsteadily, but it’s not from wine. It’s from the shifting occurring beneath our feet.
‘Yes. I’m—’ Her voice cracks on the edge of something unexpected, and the rawness of it scorches me.
I screech back my chair, the sound jarring. But if I’d hoped it would be enough to knock some sense into this pazzo situation, I’m proven wildly wrong when my arms fall open of their own accord. Or, more accurately, under the spell of her fucking witchcraft. ‘Come here.’
She stiffens, then rounds the table. Stands next to me, a vision of bare thighs, newly deflowered Madonna’s face and potent killer.
‘Tell me what you’re thinking,’ I mutter. Yup, I’m jutu pazzu.
She laughs, grating. In this soup of bewilderment we’re both boiling in. ‘Where should I start? I’m right here in the middle of this metaphor of you and your mother and everything she loved. I should be appalled.’ She closes her eyes.
I lift a hand, trail it up her outer thigh to her hip. Draw her closer. ‘But?’
‘But right now, I want to stretch out on that sofa, ask a million questions I shouldn’t. Not think about the dozen ways I should defend myself if you try to kill me. Or the two dozen ways I should be thinking about how to kill you.’
I smile. Because how can I not?
‘No reason why you can’t do all of it. Lie down and dream of ways to kill. But while you do that, how about I kill you with orgasms?’
Her eyes drift shut and pink stains her cheeks. ‘I shouldn’t.’