HER WARMTH

~~Rafael~~

"I don't know who wronged you, Don," Griffin pleads.

Nobody answers him.

Lorenzo sits to Father's left, his glass still half full, a knife gliding lazily across his knuckles. He has thick, slicked-back black hair, thin glasses, a crisp button-up rolled to his elbows. The kind of man who looks like an accountant until he doesn't.

Beside him sits Marco, silver at his temples, the only one in the room smiling at Griffin like he isn't bleeding through his shirt. He nods and pushes an empty glass toward me.

I pour myself a shot of whiskey and don't look at Griffin.

"Rafael, you know Griffin."

A slight nod in his direction. That's all he gets.

"Griffin here is going to tell us a secret, aren't you, Griffin?" The knife stops gliding. Lorenzo's eyes drift to the wounded man with something close to boredom.

"I don't know his name, padre. I swear it."

"You hear that, Don? He begs for mercy." The knife leaves Lorenzo's hand and finds Griffin's shoulder. The scream that follows rattles the glass in my hand. I pour myself another shot and keep my eyes fixed on the far wall.

"Mercy." Father lets the word sit in his mouth like something rotten. He looks me over before emptying his glass. "Maybe I'll let Rafael kill you, Griffin. It'll take him a minute. He'll miss an artery or two." A pause. "You know he can't aim for shit."

I say nothing. Griffin is sobbing now, a low, broken sound.

"Don, please. I have told you everything I know."

"It's a pity you know nothing."

The second knife crosses the room before I register the movement. It finds Griffin's throat with a quiet, horrible precision. We sit and sip our whiskey until the room goes still. Then Marco leans back and lights a cigar.

"De Luca Corp treating you well?"

I set my glass down. "Running smooth. But I'd much rather have your job."

He laughs through the smoke. "The last man you were supposed to kill rattled to the cops."

I glare at him. He's not wrong, and we both know it. I didn't confirm the kill. Rookie mistake. It cost three members of the Famiglia thirty years. They still have twenty-eight to go. Twenty-two with good behavior. I've counted.

"Your father thinks it's time for a redo."

Carlo Vitale steps out from his corner, sharp-eyed and unhurried. Oldest man in the room besides Father. He watches me the way hawks watch things they've already decided about.

"What kind of redo?"

"Your time to be Don is approaching." Father rises from his chair and crosses to where I'm sitting. I look up at his drunken frame and wait. "Someone in the Famiglia is feeding information. We have a mole." He glances at Marco. "What do we do?"

"Send a message," Carlo says flatly. "I can handle it in a day."

"A message isn't enough." Marco pounds the table. "Someone smells weakness. We need to show strength."

Father silences them both with a single flick of his wrist.

"Rafael will handle it."

Marco's laugh is short and humorless. "Don, forgive me. Rafael has never killed anyone. Not cleanly. Let him start small. Shake down the renters. Work his way up."

"That's a reasonable place to start," Vittorio agrees from the corner.

"No." Father's voice doesn't rise, which is somehow worse. "He must prove himself now. If he doesn't kill the mole, the mole will kill him. It's plain and simple."

The words settle over the room like smoke.

"You're willing to let me die?" I say it quietly, but I mean it.

"If you die so easily, then you were never meant to lead this family." He sets his glass down on the table with a sharp crack. "I have let you be a boy long enough. This is your mark as a man."

"Don-"

"Dismissed."

I hear my chair scrape against the wood as I stand. The sound is too loud in the silence. I walk out of the room and don't look back.

---

"Enzo, I'm outside. I need more drinks, girls with jewels dipping between their breasts, the whole nine yards. Pick up the phone."

Nothing.

I pace the front of the Romano estate with my phone pressed to my ear, the whiskey still warm in my chest, doing very little to dull the edge of what just happened. Enzo is either dead asleep or completely occupied, which means I'm out here alone with my thoughts, and that is the last place I want to be right now.

I pick up a handful of loose gravel and start throwing it at his window. One by one.

The guards on watch exchange a look and say nothing. Enzo and I have been doing this since we were twelve, drunk and stupid and pitching rocks at each other's windows at all hours. To them I'm just the annoying best friend. I've always been grateful for that. It won't last much longer.

"Why are you always lurking about?"

I turn.

Sofia is standing in the doorway wrapped in a sheer white lace robe over a yellow ribbed pajama set, her hair loose around her shoulders, her feet bare on the stone step. She looks like something warm in the middle of a cold night. She crosses her arms against the breeze and tips her mouth into a wry smile.

I pocket the gravel. "Why are you always finding me?"

"You're always so loud." She laughs and comes to sit on the front steps.

I follow without thinking, settling close enough that I can feel the warmth radiating off her. That's the honest reason. I am drawn to her warmth the way you're drawn to a fire when everything else is cold.

"Enzo moved out to the guest house last week," she says. "For privacy. So you've been throwing rocks at an empty window."

"Brilliant." I lean back against the steps and close my eyes, and for a moment the only thing I can hear is the soft rhythm of her laughing at me.

"You never answer my questions." I can hear the smile in her voice. "Why are you really here?"

"I needed to blow off some steam."

"That's not an answer."

"It's the only one I've got tonight."

She shifts beside me, and I feel her fingertips graze my arm barely there, just a brush, like she's deciding whether I'm worth the comfort. I keep my eyes on the sky.

"It's nothing I can't handle," I say. "Just the responsibilities of being the next Don."

"Oh yeah. No biggie." Her voice is dry.

I glance at her and find her already looking at me, legs crossed, leaning just slightly in my direction. The lace robe has slipped off one shoulder. I look away.

"I just needed one night before everything changes." I can't tell her the rest of it. Her loyalty belongs to the Romanos, and mine is about to be tested in blood. "Before I have to step fully into the Famiglia."

She's quiet for a moment. "I understand that more than you know. Our whole lives are loyalty to the family. It's hard sometimes to see where they end and you begin."

She says it simply, without drama, and that's what gets me. She actually means it.

I look at her then. Really look. She's gazing out at the dark stretch of the grounds, her chin resting lightly in her hand, a small pout pulling at her lips. Everything about her is soft in a world where nothing is.

"Who are you," I say slowly, "when there's no Mafia? No title, no family name. Just you."

She turns to look at me, surprised by the question.

"Who are you?" she asks back.

I don't have an answer. The guy I should be would stand up right now, say goodnight, and walk back through those gates. He'd remember that she is a Romano. That she is Enzo's little sister. That whatever this is would cost more than either of us can afford.

But the guy I am?

I reach for her.

I pull her into my lap slowly, giving her every chance to pull away, my hands settling at her waist. She doesn't pull away. She makes a small startled sound when she feels exactly what she does to me, and I watch the surprise flicker across her face then something else, something warmer.

I'm smiling before I mean to.

And I swallow the sound of her with a kiss.