CHAPTER 1
Rafa Rosso
People think freedom has a price.They’re wrong.
Freedom has a fucking algorithm.
I’m the Underboss to the Italian Mafia. But I don’t carry a gun. I carry code like a blade between my teeth. I’m the architect behind Rosso’s digital empire: classified files, surveillance grids, bank accounts, offshore secrets. I rule the dark web like a shadow king. My name, BitVenom, whispered across the dark web forums, always followed by a hush of fear. I’m the digital devil who can erase a person from existence with a few keystrokes or, worse, expose every secret they ever tried to bury.
I run my fingers across the keys, the only sound in the room. My mind isn’t on the screens, though—it’s elsewhere, wondering, drifting. The truth is, I’ve had enough of this life. Enough of being the ghost in the shadows, the one everyone relies on, but no one reallysees.
I’m done with the backdoors, the hacks, the endless surveillance. I’m done with playing puppet-master from behind the scenes, controlling every move with a keystroke, pulling every string with a whisper because my brother demands it. I’m tired of being the one who ensures they never fall, the one whokeeps the organization from imploding in cyberspace. The truth is, no one else can do what I do. No one else has the mind or the skills to handle all the pieces. But they don’t appreciate it. Hell, they don’t even realize what it would take to keep them afloat without me.
They’re too busy pulling triggers, too busy fighting over territory. I’m the one who really runs things from behind the curtains as the Underboss, but no one ever sees it. They just think I’m some tool. The tech genius. The guy who doesn’t get his hands dirty. But it’s more than that.
I didn’t sign up to be a goddamn cyber strategist for a criminal empire. I didn’t sign up to be the one who pulls off the impossible, who ensures every heist runs smoothly, every account stays hidden, and every wiretap goes unnoticed. I didn’t want to be the one always thinking three steps ahead, always knowing the next move before anyone else.
I want a life. A real life. I want something other than this endless cycle of lies, manipulation, and bloodshed. They don’t understand that this life is suffocating me, that every day I spend in this chair, staring at these screens, I lose a little more of myself.
If I stay, I’ll become nothing more than a pawn in a game I never wanted to play. But if I leave... what will happen then? My last name is Rosso. Leaving will create chaos for Vito. I think it’s the real reason I haven’t left. I’ve been waiting for things to die down with the Irish before I make my move. But I suppose there is no such thing as the right time. He will always be facing a new enemy.
I have to break free from the life that’s become a cage —a death sentence—a way to take control of my own damn future outside of the family business. It’s why I’m setting up this exit plan. It’s why I have safe houses all over the city. Vito can figure out something once I’m gone. Our father made do withoutsomeone with my skill set. Vito will too. I have to trust that my brother can run the Mafia without me.
Three monitors glow in front of me, each running simultaneous operations that will ultimately dismantle the threads connecting me to the Rosso Family. I’m finally utilizing my hacking skills and degree from MIT to achieve my ultimate goal. Disappear. BitVenom is rewriting the tapestry of my life while the rest of New York sleeps.
Five identity packages with corresponding documentation. Three offshore accounts that are untraceable to the Rosso Group. Seven properties purchased through shell corporations that will activate in sequence once I pull the trigger. A self-destroying digital footprint that will erase me from the family’s books.It will be as if I were never born.
Six months of meticulous planning. Every contingency is calculated. Every variable accounted for—nothing left to chance.
I rub my eyes, the blue light stinging after eighteen straight hours of coding. My safe house in Tribeca hums with the sound of servers cooling themselves. No one knows about this location. Not Vito. Not my crew. The only heartbeat in these walls is mine, and soon, not even that will remain.
My phone buzzes. Vito’s name appears on the screen.Fuck. He never calls after midnight unless someone is dead or about to be. I silence it and go back to my algorithm. The last thing I want to do is speak to him. Three more minutes and I’ll have the diplomatic passport locked in. The phone lights up again. Persistent bastard.
I grab it, irritation crawling up my spine. “What?”
“Where are you?” Vito’s voice is too calm. The kind of calm that precedes bloodshed.
“Working.” Not technically a lie.
“Lavoro,” he echoes, a smile in his tone that doesn’t match the hour. “Always working, little brother. The one with the brain. That’s why I need you at the estate. Now.”
I glance at my screens. The last sequence is almost complete. I’m on a deadline. If I don’t leave now, I’m not so sure I’ll be able to escape.
“Can it wait until morning?”
“No. It cannot.” His cold voice is enforcing that this isn’t a suggestion, it’s an order. A heaviness settles in my chest. With three keystrokes, I lock the encryption and close the laptop.
“I’ll be there in twenty.” There is no point in challenging him.
Twenty minutes later, I pull up to the Rosso estate. It stands like a fortress on the Upper East Side, built on old money, founded on blood and extortion. Guards nod as I pass. These men have watched me grow from a scrawny kid to the Underboss who controls the Family’s digital empire. They respect me, but they fear Vito as they should.
Vito waits in his office, but he's not alone. Rina sits curled in the leather chair by the fireplace, her legs tucked under her, a book open in her lap. She looks up when I enter, and the warm light catches the unmistakable curve of her belly beneath her robe. Visibly pregnant, and somehow still the most composed person in any room she occupies.
"Rafa." She smiles, setting the book aside and moving to rise.
"Don't get up," I say immediately, crossing to press a kiss to her cheek. "What are you doing awake at this hour?"
"Keeping him company." She casts a glance toward Vito that carries an entire conversation in it — something betweendon'tbe too hard on himandI already told him as much. She gathers her book and her tea, unhurried. "I'll leave you two."
