"Tell me something I don't know." I remind Raf who he is talking to. I'm not Marcello or Toni, who don’t deal in information.
"Right," he huffs, another chuckle, "Fine." I can see him running his hand through his hair, trying to figure out what I know and what he should divulge.
"Look, we're all in the same boat," I push out, "Don Edoardo is a pain in all our asses."
The line goes silent for a moment as I feel Rafael weighing the truth of my words. Marcello’s, Toni’s, and Enrico’s war with Don Edoardo is personal in a way mine isn’t—yet. Blood grudges. Public insults. Wounds that were never given time to scab. My position is… different.
My father still plays both sides. I don’t like it, but liking it has never been part of the job. Gustave Conti isn’t reckless. He’s careful. Deliberate. He believes in balance, in keeping the wheels turning without flooding the streets with blood. As mafia men go, he’s always struck me asmeasured. Fair. The kind of capo who understands that restraint can be as effective as violence when it’s applied at the right moment. I’ve trusted that judgment. Deferred to it. Not because I’m blind, but because he’s earned that deference over the years of my watching him keep this family intact.
He has me stand openly with Marcello, Toni, and Enrico—lets me carry the risk, take the heat—while he keeps his channels to Edoardo intact. He calls it diplomacy. Insurance. I’ve never challenged him on it. In our world, you don’t question the man holding the house together just because you don’t like the way he stacks the bricks.
Bridges matter.
Even when you’re not sure which one you’ll eventually have to burn.
What Raf doesn’t know—what none of them know—is that somewhere beneath all that strategy, I’ve already reached a decision. Edoardo needs to go—now.
Not out of anger. Not because I want war. Because the longer he stays in place, the more rot spreads through everything he touches. This isn’t vengeance. It’s correction.
For good.
Even if it means standing across from my father instead of beside him. Even if it means disappointing the man who taught me how to think before I learned how to kill. I haven’t admitted it out loud yet. Not to them. Not evento myself—not really. When Gustave hears my decision, it should come from me. Face to face. No intermediaries. No softened version. That’s what respect looks like.
And that’s what I have for my father: respect. The transfer I saw, my father’s name in that ledger… It’s there, sharp and undeniable, but I haven’t found a way to hold it yet. Haven’t decided what it means. Haven’t let it change my opinion of the man I believe my father to be.
"Some are more in than others," Raf points out. I grunt, and he relents, "Donna Margarita's daughters are all hers and Don Silvestre's."
Nowthatis something I didn't know. If the old bat is in bed with the Venezuelans and, from the looks of it, has been for decades… "Fuck."
"Yeah." Raf agrees. A chuckle escapes him, a sound more like him. "Steph?"
"Yeah?"
"For what it’s worth, the reason I was in Venezuela was personal. It had nothing to do with the job."
I could point out that at the time he was working for me and that I had ordered him to go to Venezuela, an order he ignored, but I have a feeling that he'd rather work with me than against me, too. So I let it go.
"I'll let you know if I find out more. Will you do me the same courtesy?"
"Yeah," I rub my neck, not sure why I'm agreeing. Truth is, I kind of miss working with the bastard.
We hang up. I step back into the hall for air that doesn’t smell like bleach and fight, and three uniforms try to corral me with polite words. Dre ghosts in behind them with six of ours and a smile that shows teeth. The uniforms decide the hallway farther away is nice this time of night.
Through the glass, I look at the unknown woman lying too still under the hospital light. The possessive thing inside me rears up again—ugly, simple, honest.
Mine to protect.
Mine to possess.
Mine to break the city for if anyone tries to get at her again.
Dre nudges my shoulder, "Teams are on all entrances. Elevators are ours. I’ve got eyes on the ER dock and the roof. If you want a decoy ambulance, say the word."
"Do it."
I look at him. "When she wakes, nobody but me talks to her. Not the police. Not the doctors. She still wears my name tonight."
Dre lifts an eyebrow. "Yourname, huh."
