Chapter 14 – A House Full of Knives
Valentina Cruz
Mafia mansions aren't like what you see in the movies.
There are no dramatic staircases or velvet walls.
No cigar smoke curling through chandelier light while men discuss "business."
It's quieter.
Colder.
More… calculated.
Like living inside a wolf's ribcage and pretending it's a home.
⸻
By day three after the ambush, the tension in the house was a living, breathing thing.
Everyone was polite — too polite.
Doors were closed more than they were open.
Loyalty was suddenly a whisper, not a vow.
And Rafael's second-in-command, Marco, had developed the habit of disappearing.
At first, Rafael brushed it off. "He's handling logistics."
But logistics don't usually involve encrypted phone calls at 2 a.m. and blood on your shirt collar at breakfast.
⸻
"Something's off," I said one morning, sipping burnt espresso in the sunroom.
Rafael leaned against the doorway, tie undone, eyes shadowed with lack of sleep.
"You've said that every morning this week."
"Maybe it's because every morning I'm right."
He smirked, but it didn't reach his eyes. "You want to tell me who I should fire?"
I looked out at the garden. Marco was walking the perimeter, talking into his phone.
"Fire? No. Follow. And fast."
⸻
Later that night, Rafael did exactly that.
He tailed Marco to a run-down butcher shop on the edge of town — the kind of place where no meat was ever sold, but bodies were sometimes stored.
I waited in the car.
Sweaty palms.
Knife strapped under my dress again.
The usual.
When Rafael came back, his expression was carved from stone.
"Well?" I asked.
His jaw ticked. "He's talking to someone on Mauro's payroll."
"Should I say 'told you so' now or later?"
He gave me a look. "Now would be fine."
"Told you so."
⸻
When we got back to the mansion, the knives were out.
Not the literal ones.
The social ones.
Dinner was served like we were one big happy family.
Marco sat across from me, smiling.
Too much teeth. Not enough soul.
I played nice.
Passed the salt. Complimented the chicken.
Waited.
Rafael waited too.
Until dessert.
"Marco," Rafael said, slicing into tiramisu with deadly calm. "Where were you two nights ago at 3 a.m.?"
Marco blinked. "Excuse me?"
"You told Arturo you were home sick."
"I was—"
"Funny," Rafael cut in, "because I followed you to a butcher shop on Calle Sombra."
The room froze.
Marco paled. "You… what?"
Rafael stood. Slowly. Deliberately. Like a storm stretching its legs.
"Did you think I wouldn't notice? That you could sell pieces of me to Mauro without me smelling the rot?"
"I didn't—"
"You did," I said. "I saw the blood on your cuff this morning."
His eyes flicked to me, and for just a second, the charm cracked.
Then he ran.
⸻
It wasn't a long chase.
Rafael caught him in the hall.
A punch to the jaw.
A thud against the marble.
A knife pressed to his throat.
"Why?" Rafael hissed. "After everything?"
Marco spat blood. "Because you forgot what this life costs."
Rafael's voice dropped to ice. "Then let me remind you."
He didn't kill him. Not then.
But when Marco was dragged away to the basement?
Let's just say he wouldn't be walking straight for a long, long time.
⸻
That night, Rafael sat beside me, staring into the fire.
"He was like a brother."
"I know."
"He held me up when my father died. When I was bleeding out in Madrid, he dragged me to safety."
"So why did he do it?"
He didn't answer for a long time.
Then finally: "Because love fades. Power tempts. And money screams louder than loyalty."
I put my head on his shoulder.
"I won't betray you," I said.
His arm wrapped around me — slow, firm, real.
"I know."
And for the first time in days, I believed him.