Chapter 191 Rafael
The cold of the winter day nips at me harder than usual that morning. The frost hangs along the edge of the estate, sparkling with tiny diamonds of ice, taunting me with the serenity that pools in my chest. This day should be an uneventful one, just the thing for an easy task, a cup of coffee, and a scan of the news.
But I get the call from the gate guard: Rosalia never came back. He sounds strained and panicked, but it isn’t until I drive out into the street, turn the corner, and see the splash of red on the asphalt, the screech marks from , that the universe splits in two.
Blood. Enough to know she is alive.
She went to do a little shopping alone, I wanted to go with her but she insisted she wanted time alone to reconnect with herself and so I let her be while sending her out with a driver who doubles as a bodyguard and another bodyguard just in case.
I freeze. And then my mind reels. But then my legs start moving without permission. They start running as if possessed by panic and a fear I thought I would never know.
The pounding of my pulse is a deafening drumbeat in my ears.
Where is she?
Her car is there. I see the bodies of the bodyguards covered in blood and she is nowhere to be seen.
“She’s gone.”
I feel my chest tightening, the cold gnawing at the ribcage. All the instincts I have cultivated for years of family business and all the cruel teachings I have received from father and from the men who would kill me shout at me.
Control. I need control.
But it is slipping.
I am choking. My fingers are clenched into fists. My knuckles turn white. The anger begins as a confusion builds into raw, naked rage. There is blood swirling in the ground, my wife’s blood, and the one thing I care about above all else, is already taken from me: her safety.
I take out my phone, shaking with fear, and punch in a quick dial from memory.
“Rocco.”
“She’s been taken,” I growl . “I don’t know how. I don’t know by whom. But I will find her. I swear it on everything I am.that there will be no mercy.”
“Where are you?” Rocco's voice comes slicing through.
“Not so far from the estate. I’m moving now.”
In minutes, Riccardo is kitted out, Fiorella’s men are ready, and Rocco is already doing calculations, constantly calculating.
I get into my car, the engine growling like a war beast. My mind is racing, planning and plotting, escape routes and safe houses. But I know the enemy won’t tarry. Every moment counts. Every incorrect turn might mean death for her.
I can’t think of anything but her. The curve of her cheek, the way her laughter fills a room, the softness of her hand in mine. I won’t lose her.
But the anger in my chest never abates. It escalates. It curls within me, a living entity, poised to strike. Anyone who has ever laid a hand on my wife, anyone who has ever placed her in jeopardy, will live to regret it.
I grip the wheel tightly, with knuckles separating against leather.
“We find her location and move fast,” says Rocco. “Hit them before they know we’re coming.”
“I’ll make sure they regret it,” I snarl.
Nothing in the world will stand in my way. Not structures, not men, not the black strings of fate. Family comes first. Rosalia comes first.
The city shrinks around us while we drive faster than the law and reason would consider feasible.
Every street, every alleyway, every shadow is a trap, but I don’t care. Every second I waste is another second she is in pain.
I feel the anger in my throat. I feel it raking its way through my lungs.
And when we get out to the fringe, I know that is only the start.
The hunt begins now.
And there shall be no mercy.
Always.
The cell phone buzzes against the console.
Once.
Twice.
I don’t notice at first. My gaze is fixed on the road, the winter-gray streets flashing by us in a blur while Riccardo drives us all like the devil is at our heels. My teeth are clenched together so tight they ache. My breathing is too shallow, too faint, like the air itself has forgotten how to work.
It vibrates again.
Repeated
Rocco looks at me. “Check it.”
I don’t want to. I already know who it’s from. I can feel it in my bones, the way my stomach turns cold, the way anger crawls up my spine like a fire starter igniting a fuse.
I take the phone.
Unknown number.
The name could as well have been chiseled on the screen
Valenti
“We may be cruel, De Luca, but we are not heartless.”
Bring the money Antonio owes. All of it. Cash.
Be fast.
Your wife and the baby might walk away unharmed.
The world mutes into silence.
My sight blurs for a second. I taste iron.
Rosalia
The baby.
They are using my child and wife as leverage.
I sense a snap within me, not loudly, not dramatically. Simply a clean, cold break. The last fragile thing in me that believed a measure of control could be left in this set of circumstances.
I slowly lower the phone.
Rocco is watching me from the front passenger seat, his eyes alert, already analyzing my face. “What did they say?”
I don't answer right away. I'm too caught up in picturing Antonio’s face. His shaking hands. His oily voice begging for money that never was his to begin with, bringing Valenti scum into my house, into my wife’s life, into my child’s future.
I see him begging.
I see him lying.
I see him breathing.
This last bit doesn’t feel right.
“They want the debt,” I repeat finally, voice ominously calm. “All of it. They’re showing them mercy. For the baby.”
Riccardo swears under his breath.
Fiorella's voice is relayed from the speakers of the car. It is stilted, controlled. "They've sent the location then?”
“Yes.” My fingers grasp the phone until the plastic creaks. “They have her.”
Afterwards, a silence. Not the kind that is empty, this is thick with the weight of plans being made.
Rocco slowly exhales. "They're baiting you.”
"I know."
“They want you reckless.”
“I know.”
“And Antonio…”
‘When I see him,’ I interject, my voice falling to a low, lethal pitch, ‘I’m going to murder him.’
No hesitation. No heat. Just certainty.
Rocco turns completely towards me. “Rafael…”
“He sold her,” I grit between clenched teeth, the mask finally slipping to reveal the seething rage beneath. “He brought them into her life. Her father gazed upon his pregnant daughter and saw a pot of gold. I’m sure she herself will agree with me that he deserves to die.”
Fiorella whispers my name, like she's trying to ground me. She's not succeeding.
I recline in the seat, looking up through the windshield at the gray sky. Snow is a possibility. The thick clouds are low and heavy. The city is a place where everyone is holding their breath.
“They think I'll come alone," I tell them. “With cash. Like an obedient dog.”
“Let them think that.” Rocco’s mouth turns up into a pointed shape.
Riccardo cracks his knuckles. "We can trace the signal. Stall them. Make them comfortable."
"They won't be comfortable," I grumble. "Not for long."
My phone buzzes again.
Another message.
Tick tock, De Luca.
We don’t enjoy waiting.
My pulse pounds, but my hands are steady now. Too steady. The fury has coalesced into something fatal, something precise.
I type the response with my thumb.
I'm coming.
I don’t add anything else.
I don’t need to.
I turn to Rocco, looking at him directly. Brother.
"We do this my way."
He nods without hesitation. “Always,” he says
Fiorella’s voice becomes even more defined and precise.
“Rosalia comes back alive.”
“She will,” I say, and this time I am sure. “They haven’t killed her yet because they want leverage. That means she is still breathing. And that means we still have time.”
Riccardo looks at me. “And Antonio?”
I laugh. It is an empty sound that is not mine anymore.
“Antonio is already dead,” I say. “He just doesn't know it yet.”
The car is speeding, the engine roaring, as if it knows what is going on and is eager to get there. Streetlights blur by, like dying stars. Out there, my wife is in the hands of men who think mercy is something to be traded. They’re wrong. When all is said and done, there will be blood on the ground, and not one drop of it will be hers.
Antonio is about to learn what it means to annihilate the last thing that’s been keeping monsters like me under control.