And I couldn’t afford weakness. Not now.
The silence in the office was thick enough to choke on. Heavy. Oppressive. Like the air before a storm breaks.
Rafael was flipping through papers on his desk, his movements casual and unhurried, like I wasn’t standing there having a complete internal meltdown. Like my entire world wasn’t balanced on the edge of a knife.
“I need to talk to you,” I said, my voice steadier than I felt.
He didn’t look up. Just kept reading whatever document had his attention, his expression unreadable. “Go on.”
I swallowed hard, my throat dry. “It’s about Vance. And deals. And my father.”
Rafael stopped.
His hands went still on the papers. He didn’t look up, didn’t move, but I felt the shift in the room immediately. The temperature seemed to drop ten degrees.
Slowly, deliberately, he set down the document he’d been reading and leaned back in his chair. His dark eyes finally lifted to meet mine, and the weight of his gaze nearly buckled my knees.
“Go on,” he repeated, his voice softer now but infinitely more dangerous.
I pressed my lips together, trying to gather the courage I’d been building for the past three days. Ever since Drew had confronted me. Ever since I’d confessed everything to him in our kitchen, watching his face shatter with betrayal and pain.
He’d listened. He’d asked questions. And then he’d told me I needed to tell Rafael myself.
“If you don’t,” Drew had said, his voice rough and hollow, “I will. And it’ll be worse coming from me than from you.”
So, here I was.
About to confess to the man who could kill me with a single word.
“Two years ago,” I started, my voice trembling slightly, “I went to Ohio. You sent me there to avoid Joaquin’s attention during that territorial dispute.”
Rafael nodded once. “I remember.”
“While I was there, I met someone.” The words tasted like acid. “Vance Donovan. He approached me at a club. I thought it was just…a hookup. A one-night thing. But the next day, he showed up at my hotel room with photos of us together.”
Rafael’s expression didn’t change, but something flickered in his eyes. Recognition, maybe. Or confirmation of something he’d already suspected.
“He told me that if you saw those photos, you’d kill me. That you wouldn’t give me time to explain.” I forced myself to keep talking, to get it all out before I lost my nerve. “He said he was FBI. That he had information about my father. About David Miller.”
“And you believed him,” Rafael said quietly.
“Yes.” The admission felt like swallowing glass. “He told me that the Bratva killed my father. That you were responsible for orphaning me, for leaving me with nothing. He said if I wanted justice, if I wanted the truth, I needed to work with him.”
I took a shaky breath, my hands clasped so tightly in front of me that my knuckles had gone white.
“So I did. I started searching through Bratva files. Looking for anything about David Miller, about what happened to him, about why I ended up at that orphanage.” Tears prickedat my eyes, but I blinked them back. “I found shell companies. Financial records. Donations to Father Vincent that went back to when I was five years old. And it all pointed back to Kamarov operations.”
“It would,” Rafael said, his tone matter-of-fact.
“I thought you’d killed him.” My voice broke slightly. “I thought you’d destroyed my family and then paid to keep me quiet, to keep me hidden away where I couldn’t cause problems.”
Rafael was quiet for a long moment, his fingers steepled in front of him. “And Vance convinced you to betray me.”
“He tried.” I swallowed hard. “He pressured me for intel. Wanted codes, schedules, shipment details. Anything that could damage Bratva operations.”
“And you gave it to him.”
“No.” The word came out fierce, desperate. “Not really. I lied to him most of the time. I played both sides. I used Joaquin and Beaumont—when they were still alive—as shields. Fed them minor information, let them act on it, made Vance think I was delivering. But I never gave him anything concrete. Nothing that would actually hurt the Bratva. I wanted to make sure before I went against you.”
