"I am Sophia Orsi," I state with all the bravado that comes from dropping my name. It's a currency. A get-out-of-jail-free card. A name that opens closed doors and lets you go and do whatever you want. I expect him to flinch. To apologize, but there is nothing. So I add, "Carlos Orsi is my father."
My stomach drops when he still doesn't seem to care. Maybe he's not from around here and doesn’t know who my father is?
But then he laughs.
Laughs.
The sound punches a hole right through everything I thought carried me: my name, my father, our power. My name is a handful of letters to him, useless as confetti. For a second, I don't know whether to feel outraged or stunned. The laugh breaks a covenant I never thought could be broken in public.
Before I can form a plan, things tilt. He grabs me by the arm, and the two others take Gigi's, Camilla's, and Izzy's.
"Hey, you can't do that," Gigi exclaims, but the barrel of a gun shoved into her side shuts her up.
Helplessly, I look toward the gyrating bodies on the dancefloor. Nobody is paying us any attention. A waiter coming our way gets my hopes up for a millisecond before she takes in the men. Her eyes widen as she pivots and makes a beeline in the other direction. We pass people, none of whom look at us. I want to scream, grab one of them, but the image of the barrel pressed into Gigi's side makes me move forward without saying anything.
I meet a man's gaze, and he smiles at me. Winks. And just like that, I'm past him. I try to look back, but he obviously doesn't notice anything wrong, or he doesn't care.
Steadily, we move toward the back exit like we’re a line of clothes on a rack. One of my heels slips on the grimy floor, and the hand on my arm tightens painfully, keeping me going. The moment we step outside into a dark alley, a stench assaults my nose: old trash and diesel. The latter brings the white box van into reality, parked, idling, with blacked out windows and a passenger sliding door yawning open like the hungry maw of a beast—awareness of what is about to happen kicks in.
My insides turn to mush as horror floods me. This can't be real. It just can't be. The realization of how stupid all of us have been ditching our bodyguards hits me like another punch to the gut. We fucked up. We fucked up big time.
Gigi yells. Her voice brings me back to the present. I know one thing for certain: the moment we get into thevan, we'll be doomed. Outraged and panicked, I drive my elbow into the guy's side who is holding me. He grunts with pain but doesn't let go. Izzy kicks out at another, and Cammie tries to run.
The guy holding me never lets up, another grabs Cammie by the hair, shoving her toward the van, while the third pushes Izzy and Gigi toward the wide-open door.
In that clipped, absurd instant, fear chokes me, because I know what the next act looks like. I picture the van taking us away, not for a dramatic ransom or a ridiculous family lesson, but for something smaller and lonelier and much more final. My chest hollows. My father’s name feels useless on my tongue. Hopelessness overcomes me. Something I've never felt in my life.
Suddenly, in the middle of this chaos,heappears. Raffael.
I only half-register the details: cold blue eyes, a presence that swallows the light, the faintest curve of a scar above his cheek, the certainty in his movements. He isn't afraid. Not of the men, not of what he has to do. And when everything else around me fractures, that anchor of calm draws my focus, holds me together. There is a promise in his steady gaze. I got you. Everything else fades, except the certainty that he will get us out of there. That he will save us. Me.
He appears in the alley like something the night conjured up: like an avenging angel of death. His eyes are ice.He moves as if he has rehearsed this exact slow, inevitable assault a thousand times: a hand on a gun, a single step, and the world contracts to the sound of my breath.
He doesn’t hesitate.
He folds into motion like a machine built for one thing—killing. It should terrify me how calm he is. But it doesn't. The promise of death in his expression should terrify me. But it doesn't. The steadiness with which he's holding the gun should terrify me. But it doesn't.
Neither does the spray of blood from the man holding me as a shot tears the air; his body snaps forward and goes still with a sick, sudden thud, he gurgles, and something wet and warm hits me. Glass explodes into glitter around us, and my ears ring like a bell. My legs forget how to hold me. I want to scream, and I can’t. All I can feel is the hot, stupid thud of my heart, half terror, half something else, becauseheis here, and he’s moving for me, and that thought makes my whole body want to collapse and stand up at the same time.
People scatter like paper. The van driver slumps; a man inside the van scrambles and gets hit through the windshield. I watch it all in a kind of suspended disbelief; my body knows to crouch and to be small, but my head is too busy cataloging him, the way he moves, the reliability of his violence, the absence of swagger, and the presence of absolute control.
My heart stutters in a way I’ve never let it before. It’s not fear—not precisely. It’s a jolt of somethingraw that answers his presence: relief, yes, and something else I am not ready to name. He's close enough to be dangerous for reasons that have nothing to do with orders or bloodlines. He's close enough that when he looks at me, it feels like condemnation and protection braided into one.
He kneels over one of the men and leans in like a doctor inspecting a wound. He whispers something low and merciless; the man starts to plead, and I feel a sudden, ugly satisfaction that there will be consequences for that laugh—for ignoring my name. A final shot rings out. He's dead. My stomach flips, but I don’t look away. There is no forgiveness in me for what would have been done to us.
When it’s over, Raffael stands tall over the blood on the concrete, holding the gun that just killed five men in under a minute. He steps closer to me like he’s stepping into the only place he ever belonged.
“Come on."
My hand is small when he takes it. It's damp and trembling, and he closes his fingers around it like someone catching the last rope down a cliff. After telling us that he'll have to call this in to our brothers and fathers, he doesn’t speak again, only leads us to the van, shoving bodies out, before motioning for us to get in. All four of us look at each other before reluctantly climbing into the blood-covered van. My eyes land on chains, forged into the walls, and I know who they were waiting for. A shudder moves through me.
There are two benches, but the four of us squeeze onto one, holding hands, still in shock and disbelief.
Raffael shoves another body out of the driver's seat, and the slowly dying ringing in my ears allows me to pick up the sound of sirens. Of course, somebody heard the shots. We need to get out of here. We're not exactly the kind of people who hang out and wait for the cops.
After that, my memory thins, turns into a ragged film of light and sound. I feel the press of the others next to me: Gigi's fingers tight in mine, Cammie with her jaw set like stone, and Izzy humming something thin. We are all a knot of glitter and blood and adrenaline. We are daughters of men who have taught us to keep our emotions under control. Crying will have to wait.
Cold wind comes in through the shattered windshield, blowing our carefully coiffed hair all over the place while Raffael drives. He calls someone while we move. I think Nestor—my father's second-in-command. He told us he'll have to call this in, but hearing him talking to Nestor brings the reality of it home.
