Chapter 15
Fifteen
Rafael
My father's house sits on the North Shore like a monument to everything I have spent my adult life trying to escape.
The drive from Club Genesis took forty minutes, and I spent every one of them trying to reach Persia on the phone she refuses to answer.
The calls roll straight to voicemail, her sweet recorded voice telling me she cannot come to the phone right now, and with each unanswered ring the knot in my chest pulls tighter until breathing feels like a conscious effort.
She is angry with me. She has every right to be.
I showed her the file on her father in a room full of strangers and expected her to process a lifetime of betrayal while I conducted business like nothing had changed.
I am a bastard of the highest order, and the woman I love deserves so much better than the devil she has bound herself to.
But right now, I need to handle the man who started all of this.
The Milano estate sprawls across three acres of manicured lawn, all ivy-covered brick and towering windows that reflect the last light of the fading sun like accusatory eyes.
I grew up in this house, learned to walk in its marble hallways, bled on its Persian rugs when my father's lessons became too physical to ignore.
The memories press against my skull like fingers searching for weak points as Drake pulls through the iron gates and up the circular drive.
"You sure about this?" Drake's voice cuts through the silence, his steel-gray eyes meeting mine in the rearview mirror. "Enzo has been quiet since the wedding. That usually means he's planning something."
"He has been quiet because I have been too busy with Persia to give him the attention he craves." I straighten the cuffs of my jacket and check the gun holstered beneath my arm, a habit so ingrained it requires no thought. "Time to remind my father who actually runs this family."
We step out of the SUV and the front door swings open before we reach the steps. One of my father's men, a broad-shouldered enforcer named Carmine who has been with the family since before I was born, gestures us inside with a face carefully wiped of expression.
"Mr. Milano is expecting you in the study."
Of course he is. My father has always preferred to conduct his manipulation from behind the massive mahogany desk that once belonged to his father and his father before that.
Three generations of Milano men have sat in that leather chair and destroyed lives with the stroke of a pen or the pull of a trigger.
The fact that I refuse to take my place in that particular throne is just one of many disappointments I have delivered to Enzo Milano over the years.
The house smells exactly as I remember, furniture polish and old money and the faint undertone of cigar smoke that has seeped into the very bones of the structure.
Crystal chandeliers cast warm light across oil paintings of ancestors who look down at me with the same cold disapproval my father wears like a second skin.
Nothing has changed in the decades since I fled this place, and somehow that makes everything worse.
Drake falls into step beside me as we navigate the familiar hallways, his hand resting casually near his weapon in a gesture that looks like habit but speaks of preparation.
He knows this house as well as I do. He spent enough nights here as a teenager, the two of us hiding in my room while my father raged through the lower floors, breaking whatever and whoever got in his path.
The study door stands open, warm light spilling into the corridor like an invitation.
I step inside and freeze.
My father sits behind his desk, looking every one of his seventy-three years in a way I have never seen before.
His skin has taken on a grayish pallor, his hands trembling slightly where they rest on the leather blotter, and the round spectacles perched on his nose catch the lamplight with each shallow breath he takes.
He looks diminished, weakened, nothing like the towering figure of terror who dominated my childhood.
But it is not my father's appearance that stops me cold.
It is the two men flanking him like bookends of betrayal.
Governor Barret Fiore stands to my father's left, his round spectacles catching the light and his face arranged in an expression of smug satisfaction that makes my blood run hot.
And to my father's right, silver hair swept back from a face that has haunted my nightmares since the day I stole his bride, Magnus Sterling watches me with eyes that hold nothing but murder.
"Ah, Rafael." My father's voice carries none of its usual command, but the cruelty underneath remains unchanged. "So good of you to finally visit your aging father. I was beginning to think you had forgotten where you came from."
"I know exactly where I came from." I keep my voice level, my body loose, even as every instinct screams that I have walked into a trap. "What I do not understand is why you have invited two men I am actively working to destroy into your home."
I feel no need to sugarcoat the truth.
Magnus's smile pushes the need to bury my fist in his face to the top of my must-do list..
"That's the problem with you, Milano. You think you're the only one capable of making alliances."
Drake shifts beside me, his hand moving closer to his weapon.
I feel the tension radiating from his body, the coiled readiness of a man who has survived decades in this world by never being caught off guard.
But we are outnumbered here, in enemy territory, with my own father apparently siding with the men who want to take everything from me.
"Father." I turn my attention to Enzo, searching his face for some explanation that makes sense. "You damn fool. You are blinded by greed. What have you done?"
The old man leans back in his chair, and for a moment I see a flicker of something that might be regret before his expression hardens into the familiar mask of disappointed patriarch.
"What I should have done years ago.” He pauses.
“Found a partner willing to do the dirty work needed to get us out from under all these fuckers like the men of Genesis.
What a stupid fucking name. Forget the heir. I no longer care."
“You should. The second you turn to dust, this bastard will thank you for the wealth and empire and then set to erase your existence.”
My father actually rolls his eyes like no one would dare defy his word even beyond the grave.
"I have an heir on the way," I say, though the words are sour on my tongue. "Persia signed the contract. Her father witnessed it at Genesis not three hours ago. And I’m damn sure she’s already carrying my child."
Fiore's laugh is ugly and bitter. "That contract is worthless without the girl to fulfill it. And my daughter is currently on her way to righting this disaster. She has an obligation to me and I aim to make sure she follows through with it."
The world narrows to a single point of focus. "What did you say?"
Magnus steps forward, his movements carrying the lazy confidence of a man who believes he has already won. "Your pretty little bride is back where she belongs, Milano. In my possession. Where she should have been all along if you hadn't interfered with matters that didn't concern you."
The rage that erupts in my chest is volcanic, all-consuming, threatening to incinerate every scrap of control I have spent decades cultivating. I take a step toward Magnus, my hand reaching for the gun beneath my jacket, and that is when my father moves.
The shot catches me in the left shoulder, spinning me halfway around with the force of impact. Pain explodes through my body, white-hot and blinding, and I stagger against Drake, who catches me before I can fall.
"Stay down!" Drake shoves me behind the nearest armchair and draws his weapon in a single fluid motion, firing twice in rapid succession. The first shot knocks the gun from my father's trembling hands. The second buries itself in the wall inches from Fiore's head as the governor dives for cover.
I press my palm against my shoulder and feel blood seeping through my fingers, hot and slick and entirely too plentiful.
The bullet went through, I think, based on the fire radiating from both front and back, but the pain is making it hard to focus on anything except the primal need to get to Persia.
My own father shot me.
The realization settles into my bones with a weight that threatens to crush what remains of my control.
I have spent my entire life trying to earn this man's approval, trying to prove that I was worthy of the name Milano despite never being the son he wanted.
And in return, he put a bullet in my shoulder to help the men who want to destroy everything I have built.
"Enough." Magnus's voice cuts through the chaos, calm and commanding.
He has not moved from his position near my father's desk, has not even reached for a weapon, watching the violence unfold with the detached interest of a man observing animals in a cage.
"We did not come here to kill Rafael. Not yet, anyway. "
Drake keeps his weapon trained on my father, his chest heaving with controlled breaths. "Give me one good reason not to put the next one between the old man's eyes and then it will be your turn, Magnus."
"Not yet,” I tell Drake. I push myself upright, ignoring the fresh wave of agony that rolls through my shoulder, and meet Magnus Sterling's gaze with everything I have left. "What do you want for her?"
The smile that spreads across his face is the most terrifying thing I have ever seen.
"What I have always wanted, Milano. What was promised to me before you decided to play hero." He reaches into his jacket and produces a phone, turning the screen toward me to display an image that makes my heart stop beating.