Chapter Five

Coda

The dining room at Rafe's is a fortress of dark wood and high windows, the air thick with the musky scent of brandy and power. Yet, it's one of the few rooms in the house that doesn't feel like a mausoleum. Despite the changes Amalia has made to the place, the whole goddamn house still feels cold.

Not this room. It's warm and inviting, laughter soaked into the walls. The last fucking place motherfuckers like us belong. Each man gathered in the room—Luca with his devil-may-care grin, Gabriel's simmering silence, Mattia's calculating gaze, Diego's unreadable expression, and Domani's stoic presence—is an extension of the empire we've built. Any other day, I'd be proud to sit among them.

Today, I don't have the fucking patience. I'd rather be home with Karina.

I can't tell Rafe that.

Time has chiseled away some of his rougher edges, leaving a mellowed titan in its wake, but he's still the Capo. We come when he calls, not the other way around.

Maybe I can hurry this shit along, though.

"Rafe," I say, my voice slicing through the laughter like a knife. His attention shifts to me, immediate and encompassing.

"Miles Alessepo may be moving a large shipment of guns into Chicago."

The words hang between us, heavy with implication. I don't need to spell anything else out. This is his kingdom. He knows why that's a fucking problem.

He arches his brow in a silent command for elaboration. "And you know this how?"

I hesitate for a long moment, my loyalty to the Valentino family and La Cosa Nostra warring with my desire to shield Karina from this life and her father's sins. It's a fracture in my oath I never anticipated, a crack in the armor I've worn since I was nineteen.

Cazzo. What is she doing to me?

Whatever it is, I won't allow her to quit. This feeling—I need it.

"His daughter, Karina," I admit, the words tasting like a betrayal on my tongue. She shouldn't be involved in this. "She overheard him on the phone."

There's a shift in the air as everyone at the table processes this. The only one not surprised to hear her name is Domani. Everyone else eyes me sideways, recalibrating, assessing—trying to figure out what I'm doing with her.

Am I so far gone that I'd use his daughter to get to him, or is this something else?

I don't answer the unspoken question because I can't. Because it's both. It started out—or so I told myself—as a way to get to him. But I think that was over before it ever started. This is something else, something that stretches far beyond her father or vendettas. This is…Cristo. I think this may be absolution.

How do you explain that? I certainly don't have the words.

"Use him," Diego's voice slices through the silence, his suggestion threatening to sever the last thread of my control. "If he wants to play the same game Santorum played, let him pay the same price. He can kneel and kiss Rafe's ring the same way."

"It worked with Santorum," Luca agrees. "Having the Superintendent under our thumb is useful."

My hand crashes down on the polished mahogany, the sound echoing like a gunshot. Glasses shudder. Heads turn.

The room goes silent, every eye locked on me.

"No. He's been dirty for too long to be easily controlled," I growl. "The motherfucker murdered my parents. He has his own daughter seeking solace in my arms. He deserves death."

The silence stretches on. I don't think anyone knows what to say, but I want Alessepo out of power. Until he falls from his perch, his daughter will live in fear. That's not acceptable to me.

"He's right," Gabriel finally mutters, meeting my gaze across the table. "If I could go back and do it again with Santorum, I'd have killed him." He shifts his gaze from me to Rafe. "We only control what we know, and there's far too much we don't know when they're surrounded by other badges all day, every day. I'd rather not have to look for a fucking target on our backs every goddamn day. Santorum was too much of a coward to move against us. Alessepo isn't. If we try to control him, it'll blow up in our faces."

We all know there's no silence like that waiting behind that particular line, and no brotherhood like it either. Even if we get Alessepo under our thumb, there's no guarantee we keep him there. If he betrays us to his brotherhood, it ends badly for all of us. With Santorum, it was easier. He was a bitch. Alessepo has been dirty for twenty-five years. We all know his brothers have swept his crimes under the rug in that time. If he runs to them now, we become the hunted.

That's not a risk any of us want to take.

"I'll make it look like a gang hit. No ties to us." I'm not asking for permission—there's no need. They can see the writing on the wall just as clearly as I can. "Once he's gone, Karina's safe and any threat to our operations dies with him."

Rafe's hand rests heavily on the tabletop, his fingers tapping a slow, deliberate rhythm. "Think this through, Coda," he says, his voice soft. The man never yells. His voice carries command without him raising it. "Miles isn't just some two-bit crook. He's connected—more than you realize. Take him out, and you're not just poking the bear. You're declaring war on the entire force."

I feel the weight of his gaze, the obsidian depths of his eyes boring into me. I stand on the edge of a looming decision, with massive consequences stretching out before me, and Rafe knows it. He's seen more war, brokered more peace, and buried more enemies than any of us. His caution is a mantle resting heavily on my shoulders.

"Provoking him isn't just about revenge. It's playing roulette with everything we've built," he continues.

"Understood," I grunt. "But he took my parents from me, and now he's terrorizing Karina. He dies. That's non-negotiable."

Rafe nods once, accepting my decision as easily as if he made it himself. He may be Capo, but he put us in charge for a reason. He knows I don't make this decision lightly. But he knows what it is to lose a parent violently. And he knows what it is to risk it all to defend a woman. If anyone understands the path stretching before me, he does. He's walked it.

By the time I reach my place, I'm all but vibrating with pent-up energy, a beast prowling in his cage. I need to see her, touch her. Cristo. Fuck her.

She meets me at the door, her hair falling around her like silk. Her eyes reflect the same raw hunger coursing through me. She doesn't say a word; she doesn't need to. Her body colliding with mine says it all.

"God, I missed you," she breathes against my chest.

"Every second, angioletta." I inhale her scent—sunshine in a world of gunpowder and blood. Cristo. Just the smell of her makes my dick hard.

She leans up, seeking my mouth. I let her have it. Her lips are my salvation, each kiss fortification against sins yet to be committed.

Rafe's warning resonates against my skull as I press Karina against the entryway wall. I'm torn between the relentless drive to obliterate the man who destroyed my world and now threatens her safety and the risks that come with such a vendetta.

"Karina," I growl, my voice like gravel.

She responds to the need in my voice on instinct, reaching for my cock. Her hand wraps around me through my pants, searing me even through the fabric.

"Fuck," I hiss, all thoughts of Rafe's warning and her father vanishing as she undoes my belt, her grip tightening around me.

I gently push her down, guiding her to her knees. Her eyes are pools of liquid fire as she looks up at me, my dick in her hand. "Show me you're mine, cara."

Without hesitation, her lips part, her sweet breath washing across the head of my cock. She sucks me in deep, obliterating me with her obedience.

My fingers tangle in her hair, grounding myself to earth as she consumes me. Her mouth is a velvet vise threatening to unravel my restraint.

We fall into a rough rhythm, the kind that borders on sacred and profane, as I take her mouth, using it as if it's mine to take.

It's what she wants. I see it in her eyes. I feel it in her touch.

"Karina," I rasp, her name rooting me to earth as much as my hands in her hair do. I rock into her mouth, rough and unsteady, desperate and aching. The intensity of her gaze never falters. She takes everything I give her, every punishing thrust, begging with those pretty gray eyes for more.

I groan, thrusting into her mouth again as my balls draw up. And as I hold her there, the world outside ceases to exist. There's only her. There's only this. There's only love.

Fuck. I love her.

I pull her up into my arms, pressing her back against the wall as my mouth comes down on hers. I pour the emotion into her, branding her with it. Does she feel it? Does she know?

"Ti amo troppo per lasciarti andare." The words slip from my lips before I can stop them. I love you too much to let you go. It's a truth that terrifies me. In my world, love is a liability, a weakness. Yet here I am, wielding it like a fucking weapon, ready to carve through anyone who threatens to take her from me.

"I don't understand," she whispers.

"I said not even hell can pry you from my grip now, cara." That's not what I said, but it's close enough for now.

We haven't talked about it, but I think she knows I'm a man of violence, one with blood on his hands and murder in his heart. But she's here anyway. In my arms. I have to believe that's because she's falling for me, too. But I'm hedging my bets. I want her wild about me before she knows the truth. It's the only way I can guarantee I keep her in the end.

It's fucked up, but I never said I was a good man. I just said I was the one who needed her to survive.

"Show me," she says, her voice a siren's call that I'm helpless to resist.

"Show you what?" I ask, even as my hands roam over her, stripping her bare.

"Everything," she replies, her lips curving in a smile that's all sin and promise.

I lift her effortlessly as her legs wrap around me. My mouth crashes down on hers, claiming her as I plunge into her, deep and unyielding.

She gasps, a sound that sears itself into my memory, marking me. Fuck. I am hers, all the way down to my bones.

"Karina." Her name erupts more like a prayer spilling from lips that have kissed death too often.

Her nails dig into my shoulders, anchoring her to this moment, to me, and all I can think about is how right it feels to be buried inside her. This is where I belong—right here like this.

"God, Coda," she breathes, her voice laced with pleasure and pain as I fuck her.

"Shh, just feel," I command, though it's myself I'm trying to convince. Feel her warmth, her life, her love—feel everything but the cold hand of retribution that claws at my soul, demanding vengeance. For once, don't be me—the cold, ruthless motherfucker who lives and dies by the gun. Be hers, someone worthy of an angel.

"Coda," she whispers. "My Coda."

Her words silence the chaos churning inside me.

I hold her close and fuck her hard as her climax shudders through her. And I know one thing with terrifying clarity—I'll burn the world to the fucking ground to keep this, to keep her. Even if the flames consume me, too.