"The team is ready, Gia. Enzo is leading the extraction, with you. I’m taking the summit intercept." He finally looks at me, and for a second, I see the man who told me he loved me. "We’ll bring her back. Whatever happens... we’ll bring her back."
"And me?" I ask, my heart hammering against my ribs. "What happens to me after?"
He looks back at the screen, the blue light making him look like a statue. "We’ll see who’s left standing when the smoke clears."
I walk back to our bedroom, the house humming with the energy of a hundred men ready to kill. I look at the dressing room, half-finished and empty. I look at the bed where we collided in a storm of love and hate.
The personal rescue and the political war have merged. The lines are drawn. And as the clock nears zero, I realize that I’m no longer afraid of my father.
I’m only afraid of the silence that will come after the war.
I lie down, listening to the sound of boots on the gravel outside, and I pray for the first time in ten years. Not for my soul. But for the man who is about to go to war because of a girl who couldn't save her kid sister.
CHAPTER 38
RAFAEL
The air smells like wet earth and high-octane fuel.
I’m crouched behind a stone pillar on the elevated walkway overlooking the west wing of the Villa d'Este. It’s just before dawn. The world is bathed in a sickly, artificial orange glow from the security floods, but beyond the light, my men are moving like shadows through the pines.
I check the action on my rifle, the cold steel a comfort against my palm. My shoulder is screaming—a sharp, hot reminder of the bullet I took for a woman who lied to me from the second she married me. But the pain is a tether. It keeps me focused. It keeps me from thinking about the way she looked in that slip when I left her at the estate.
"Targets in sight," Matteo’s voice crackles in my earpiece. He’s in the command van a mile out, his voice as calm as a goddamn priest’s at confession. "O’Rourke convoy is entering the kill zone. Salvatore’s lead vehicle is behind them. They’re taking the bait, Rafe. Every single one of them."
"Copy," I mutter, my finger ghosting over the trigger. "Wait for the lead to hit the fountain. Then shut the world down."
I watch through the thermal scope. Three black SUVs roll into the courtyard, their tires crunching on the gravel Gia told them would be clear. Killian O’Rourke steps out of the first vehicle, adjusting his coat, looking like he already owns the Brotherhood’s territory. He thinks he’s here for a leadership summit. He thinks he’s here to watch me die.
"Fucking idiot," I whisper.
The lead SUV reaches the center of the fountain.
"Now," Matteo commands.
The world explodes.
The first RPG hits the lead vehicle, a violent, blooming flower of orange flame that tosses the two-ton SUV into the air like a toy. The sound is a physical blow, a deafeningCRACKthat echoes off the villa’s stone walls.
"Contact! Contact!" the Irish are screaming, their voices frantic as the darkness around them suddenly starts spitting lead.
My strike teams open up from the elevated walkways. It’s not a firefight; it’s a harvest. We have the high ground, the cover, and the element of surprise that Gia bought us with her betrayal. I see Killian dive behind a stone planter, his men falling around him in heaps of black tactical gear.
I’m not looking for O’Rourke. I’m looking for the silver-haired snake who orchestrated this whole goddamn tragedy.
"Matteo, where is Salvatore?" I roar over the staccato rhythm of the M4s. "I don't see his vehicle in the courtyard."
"Checking the thermal," Matteo says, his voice sharpening. "Fuck! The third vehicle—the one we thought was Salvatore—it’s empty. It’s a decoy, Rafe. He peeled off two miles back."
My blood turns to ice.
The compound. Laura.
"He went for the girls," I growl, already moving. I don't wait for orders. I don't wait for the perimeter to clear. I vault over the stone railing, my feet hitting the gravel with a jarring impact that sends a fresh bolt of agony through my shoulder.
"Rafael! Stay on station!" Dante shouts from the opposite walkway.
"Fuck the station!" I yell back, sprinting toward my hidden bike. "He’s at the holding facility! He knows she flipped! He’s going to kill them both!"
