Chapter 11 #6
Immediately, the world shrank again.
The engine roared to life with aggressive power, louder than before, as if the car itself was reacting to what had just happened.
We pulled away fast.
Tires gripping the road sharply.
Acceleration pressed me back into the seat, the force steady but firm enough that my stomach tightened instinctively.
The city blurred into motion around us, though I could not see it. I felt it instead—the shifting turns, the sudden straight stretches, the way Ramiro drove like distance itself needed to be erased.
I swallowed.
“I don’t think I can be a weak link to Rafael,” I said, unsure even as I spoke. “I’m Italian. I don’t think my own people would target me just to reach him.”
The confidence didn’t quite hold.
“They won’t see you that way,” he said after a pause. “It won’t matter where you’re from. If taking you gives them leverage over Rafael, that will be enough.”
My throat tightened so sharply it almost hurt to speak.
“So if Marcelo exposes my marriage to Rafael... I become the weak point?” I said slowly, the realization settling in. “A target.”
“Yes,” Ramiro said without hesitation.
My stomach dropped so violently it felt like something inside me had been yanked downward.
I clenched my fist so hard my nails dug into the leather seat beneath me.
God, I should have been more careful.
My phone.
So small. So ordinary.
And yet it had just become a weapon against me.
It hadn’t even occurred to me—how easily something could be taken without sight to guard it.
How a simple distraction could become exposure.
How quickly my privacy could vanish in a world built on watching.
If I could see...
That man wouldn’t have been able to get close enough.
That thought made my chest tighten even more.
Blindness wasn’t just absence.
It was exposure.
“I’ll speak to Rafael about it,” he said. “I hope he gives the order for the man to be silently executed. That way, the secret stays buried.”
My breath caught.
“Executed?” I repeated sharply, my head turning toward him instinctively. “You can’t just kill an innocent man.”
There was no hesitation in my voice now.
“He stole from me and invaded my privacy, but that doesn’t make him disposable—especially since he hasn’t even revealed anything.”
“So you suggest we wait until he leaks it before we act?” Ramiro replied. “You underestimate what exposure like that would do—not just to you, but to everyone. Tess and Rafael included. No one can know Rafael has a new family. It’s dangerous for all of you.”
My chest tightened as I looked away from him.
He made sense... and yet the idea of Marcelo being dealt with so permanently unsettled me more than I expected.
The car slowed slightly, then turned with less force.
A few seconds later, the vehicle eased forward, then finally decelerated.
The tires rolled over smoother ground.
We had arrived.
The car stopped.
A soft electronic click echoed as the locks released.
I reached for the door handle immediately, my fingers finding it quickly now out of habit more than confidence.
I pushed the door open and stepped out into the night air.
It was cooler than the club.
The sudden absence of noise made everything I had just heard feel louder inside my head.
My legs felt slightly unsteady as I straightened, the ground firm beneath my shoes.
I kept one hand lightly on the car for orientation, breathing slowly as I tried to settle the storm inside my chest.
“Boss...”
Ramiro’s voice came from the driver’s side of the car. He had stepped out as well.
I turned my face toward the sound instinctively, though my eyes found nothing but darkness.
The house remained a map I could only reconstruct through memory and touch, never sight.
Still, I knew where I was standing.
And I knew him was here.
Rafael’s presence always announced itself before anything else.
“A Spanish guy found out at the club that Loretta is married to you.”
My fingers tightened faintly against my side.
Ramiro continued quickly, as if trying to smooth the edges of what he was saying.
“Loretta didn’t spill it. He stole her phone and went through it while she was distracted.”
“Is he dead?” Rafael asked, his voice deadly calm.
My stomach tightened immediately.
Ramiro answered carefully.
“Not yet,” Ramiro replied. “I held off waiting for your orders. Do you want me to proceed?”
“You don’t wait for orders on matters like this,” Rafael said, voice low and dangerous. “If he could steal from Loretta so easily, he will not stay silent. You understand what exposure like that means. And why was she allowed out of the house without me being informed?”
My breath caught in my throat.
Ramiro’s voice stayed steady. “She insisted on going out alone. I didn’t think it would escalate into anything like this. I was still watching her.”
Ramiro added quickly, “My apologies, boss. As for the Spanish guy... I’ll handle him before the night is over.”
“If the Spanish guy has already leaked the secret, there will be consequences.”
“And you will never take my wife out again without informing me.”
My wife.
The words landed strangely in my chest.
Did he just call me that—when I had always been a wife in name only, never in presence?
I stood there, unmoving for a second, feeling the familiar frustration rise up beneath my skin.
“So I am to be confined within the boundaries of home and work?” I said sharply.
My voice carried further than I intended.
I took a careful step forward, fingers brushing the wall beside me for orientation.
My heels clicked softly, each sound giving me a mental image of distance closing.
I didn’t need sight to know I was being looked at.
I could feel it.
Ramiro shifted slightly.
Then I heard him step back.
Leaving space.
Rafael didn’t move immediately.
Didn’t respond immediately either.
Then his voice came.
“Yes. Especially now that we don’t know whether this marriage has been exposed or not.”
“I want you to know that I’ll be offering divorce papers in seven months, when my internship ends,” I said, my voice steady as I lifted my chin into the space where I knew he stood.
My voice was steady, even if my heartbeat wasn’t. “You can’t seriously expect me to remain in a marriage like this forever, can you?”
A low, humorless sound escaped him.
“That might work if I were just a billionaire,” he said evenly. “But I don’t just run a company—I control a faction of the Spanish mafia. In this world, divorce isn’t part of the tradition. Marriage is permanent.”
He paused.
“Besides...” his voice lowered slightly, “are you really prepared to walk away from Tess’s life?”
I exhaled sharply, forcing myself not to hesitate.
“I don’t care what traditions your mafia follows. I will leave,” I countered, my voice sharpening despite myself. “And if you try to stop me, know that my Italian family family won’t stand by quietly.”
My jaw tightened.
“And Tess... I haven’t known her for long. Five weeks, maybe. She’ll adjust. Children do.”
A pause lingered.
“If anything, you should start preparing her now—so she doesn’t hurt too much when I’m gone.”
Rafael moved.
Slow, deliberate steps.
Each one reshaping the space between us until it no longer felt like distance, but approach.
My body registered him before my mind fully caught up.
He stopped too close.
“I will burn down the entire fucking world—not just the Italian families—to keep you by my side,” he growled, voice dark and unyielding. “If you think for one second I’ll ever let you go, stop the fantasy right now.”
I lifted my chin toward his voice, even if I couldn’t see him.
“So this is your plan?” I said flatly. “Your revenge for what my father did—to keep me close so I can suffer quietly beside you? To remain a wife in name, a nanny in practice... never allowed to know anything more?”
A pause.
“You underestimate me. I will leave when my internship ends. Try to stop me—and you’ll see what I’m capable of.”
Then he stepped closer again.
This time there was no ambiguity left.
Heat brushed against my skin—his proximity so close it blurred the line between his presence and mine.
My breath caught slightly, but I didn’t step back. I refused to.
“You are not expecting anything more from this marriage, are you, Loretta?” Rafael’s voice was dangerously calm, almost mocking.
“Because you sound as though you are owed something you were never promised.”
He paused, then continued coldly, “If this tantrum is about the food you prepared that I refused to eat, then you failed to understand why I couldn’t touch it. Anything that reminds me of Zara... I hold in the highest esteem.”
“But you never loved her, did you?” I shot back, heart hammering.
“So why in the world can’t you just move on from her? Why does she still govern everything you do?”
His hand shot out like a viper, gripping my chin so tightly I gasped.
The pressure was bruising—harder than he’d ever touched me before.
“You know nothing about what I feel for her,” he snarled, breath hot against my face.
Despite the painful grip, I forced the words out.
“Whatever you feel for her is definitely not love. So why don’t you just spill the secret? What binds you to her so completely—what obligation, what debt, what truth are you refusing to speak aloud?”
My breath hitched,
“Why do you feel such overwhelming responsibility toward her? Did you kill her when she refused to die on that sickbed? After all, five years immobile would overwhelm anyone. Is that why she holds so much esteem in your eyes?”
“Loretta!” he barked.
His hand left my chin only to wrap around my throat.
Strong fingers squeezed, cutting off my air.
Black spots danced in my useless eyes as life slowly drained away, but I refused to beg.
I clawed at his wrist, silent and defiant even as my lungs burned.
Suddenly he released me.
I stumbled back, gasping and coughing violently.
I had never heard Rafael unravel like this.