Novelas de Jersey

The Montoya dining room was loud in the way only powerful families were loud….not shouting, not chaos, just too many conversations happening at once, all of them important to someone.Rafael sat two seats down from his father, posture straight, jacket buttoned, fork moving when it was supposed to. He nodded at the right moments. He smiled when someone made a joke. He looked like he belonged there.He didn’t feel like he did.The clink of cutlery against plates grated on him. The sound kept pulling him back to the table whenever his thoughts wandered too far which was often.Don Eduardo spoke from the head of the table, voice steady and authoritative. Ports. Routes. Percentages. Names Rafael had heard his entire life.Lucia sat beside him, elegant as ever, her knee brushing his under the table when she shifted. At one point she leaned in and said something about the wine.Rafael nodded, even though he hadn’t heard her.His mind was stuck on Alessio.Not anything dramatic, just the memo

28The city blurred as Alessio drove, sunlight cutting across his windshield, horns clawing at his ears. His grip on the wheel was tight , knuckles white, every muscle in his arms strung tight like a bow about to snap. He didn’t know where he was going, only that he couldn’t stay. Not in the house with Isabella’s oblivious smile, not with the weight of the news still burning on his skin like a fresh wound.The engagement.Rafael and Lucia.He pressed his foot harder against the accelerator. The car roared as if it too understood his fury, his helplessness.He lied to me.The thought repeated like a drumbeat in his skull. Napoli. The trip Rafael had claimed was all business, that had left Alessio waiting like a fool for his return. He’d believed it. God help him, he had believed every word Rafael said, every half promise whispered into the dark.And all along, Rafael had been meeting her. Smiling at her. Agreeing to this.Alessio’s breath came sharp, ragged. The streets of Palermo twi

The house was silent, but Alessio’s mind was not.Sleep had not come easily, not after the warehouse. Even now, hours later, his body still felt coiled, as if waiting for the sound of a gunshot that never came. He had tried lying in bed beside Isabella, but her steady breathing only sharpened the ache in his chest. So he had left her there, slipped out into the study, and sat in the dark with nothing but the decanter, the faint hum of the city outside, and his own pulse.He thought of what could have happened. What should have happened, maybe.Enzo Romano had been circling him like a wolf. The bodyguard he’d brought had vanished, traitor or coward, it didn’t matter. He had been alone. Outnumbered. And Enzo had tossed that photograph at his feet like a curse. A photograph Rafael had sworn no one would ever see.If Rafael hadn’t come, what then?Would they have beaten him? Shot him in the back of the head, left his body in that warehouse to rot among rust and shadows? Or worse. would t

One week after the dinnerAlessio hadn’t seen Rafael in days.Not really. Not in any way that mattered.They’d shared space, a glance across a lobby, a car ride with others, a distant nod during a meeting. But there had been no words. No lingering looks. No accidental touches. Just ice where fire used to be.And Alessio was pretending that was fine.Pretending he hadn’t noticed the shift in the way people looked at Rafael now, more careful. More respectful. Or maybe more afraid.He’d heard whispers. That Rafael had been sent to handle something in Siracusa, and that he’d done it clean. Quiet. No witnesses.No survivors either.Alessio didn’t want to believe it.He didn’t want to think about the man he used to fall asleep beside now being spoken of like a weapon.Still, when the Eduardo deal came up , a meeting scheduled without much detail, Alessio hadn’t thought twice about going. It was routine. His father’s idea. A quick sit down with Don Eduardo, about port access in Trapani.Noth

Three days after the weddingAlessio stood outside the Montayo estate with Isabella on his arm, listening to her talk about wine pairings as if the knot in his stomach were something he could ignore.It wasn’t.The doors opened before she even knocked, as if someone had been watching from behind the curtain and the household staff greeted them like it was routine. Like this was already his life.He stepped inside, and it felt like walking into a past he didn’t belong to.Javier Montayo stood at the end of the hall, composed in a dark suit, his expression carved in stone.“Papà,” Isabella said, cheeks flushed with warmth, the perfect daughter. She kissed him on both cheeks, lingered a moment.Alessio extended a hand. “Don Javier .”A firm shake. “Welcome to the family.”He said it like a formality. Like a chess move.Dinner was already being plated.The dining room smelled of roasted lamb, citrus, something herbal Alessio couldn’t place. The table stretched long and gleaming under soft

The car was too quiet.Rafael gripped the steering wheel, his knuckles white where skin met bone, the leather cold under his fingers despite the warmth still clinging to his suit. The engine hummed, tires rolling against asphalt, smooth and soundless like a secret.He didn’t turn on the radio.Noise would feel like cheating.Outside, the night hung low over Naples, golden streetlamps blurred against the windshield, storefronts closing, couples walking hand in hand, unaware of the situation that had just split his world open. A wedding. A celebration. A future he should have ruined but didn’t.He took the long way home. Drove without purpose, letting the streets curve him away from the villa. He passed the sea. Parked for a while beneath a bridge. Smoked a cigarette without thinking. When he lit the second one, he noticed his hands were shaking.He had said nothing all day.Clapped when expected.Smiled for photographs.Held his sister’s hand and told her she looked beautiful and she h