Then I moan out his name on purpose. “Rafe.” And that’s exactly when the door creaks open behind him and Ezio walks in.
Too late.
He steps straight into the sound of my mouth still open, into the flash of my tongue dragging slow across Rafe’s lower lip, into the sight of my hand fisted tight in the front of Rafe’s shirt like I own him. Which I do. Which he knows.
Ezio stops mid-step.
I don’t stop moaning. I break the kiss slow—drag my teeth down Rafe’s bottom lip, bite just hard enough to sting, lick the hurt away, then smirk against his mouth like I’m tasting victory itself. Only then do I look over Rafe’s shoulder right at Ezio.
His eyes go dark, pupils swallowing the gold until they’re nothing but shadow. His mouth tightens into a thin, bloodless line. His jaw clicks—wrong, painful, a small, wet grind of bone and cartilage that should be satisfying but only makes me hungrier, only reminds me how good it felt to crack it open the first time.
And I smile so wide it should be illegal.
Welcome to war, golden boy.
I’m the fucking captain now.
Ezio doesn’t speak at first. He just stands there like someone rewrote the rules of his kingdom and forgot to send him the memo. His gaze bounces from the black jersey stretched across my chest to the C stitched over my heart to the black tape wrapped tight around my throat like a collar I chose for myself. I can see the math breaking behind his eyes—addition, subtraction, division by zero. He’s Leonardo Bellini’s son. He’s supposed to be the heir, the name, the crown. He’s supposed to inherit the ice, the power, the fear.
And instead? He’s a fucking benchwarmer while I make out with the man who owns this room, while I wear the letter he was raised to believe was his birthright, while the entire team watches me claim what he thought would always belong to him.
He doesn’t look at Rafe.
Coward.
He looks at me.
And I smile wider, lips still tingling from the kiss, breath still coming short and hot. “Hey, Ez,” I say, voice rough and lazy with satisfaction. “Glad you could make it. Did your jaw remember how to walk, or did you just follow the scent of relevance?”
The room wheezes.
Finn loses it first—slaps his stick against the lockers with a sharp crack and howls like a hyena on molly, the sound bouncing off the cinderblock walls. Misha whistles long and low, muttering something in Russian that I’m pretty sure translates to “rip his teeth out next time.” Luca buries his face in a towel and starts cackling so hard the fabric muffles it into something that sounds like a scream trapped underwater. Even Kai—cold, unreadable bastard that he is—lets one eyebrow twitch upward. That’s a full belly laugh in Kai-speak.
Ezio’s face goes blank. Not rage. Not humiliation. Worse. Control.
He smooths a hand down the front of his jersey—black like the rest of us, no number, no letter, just fabric that hangs on him like it’s waiting for permission to matter—and takes two slow steps into the room. His jaw clicks once. Loud. He winces but doesn’t let the pain show on his face. He just looks at me like he’s trying to remember the last time someone looked down at him from a throne he didn’t build. “You’re not captain,” he says.
And before I can open my mouth, before I can throw fire at his Gucci-laced resentment, Rafe does. “Yes, he is.” It drops into the silence like a blade into meat—clean, final, irreversible.
Ezio twitches, a small, involuntary jerk that betrays the crack in his composure before he can hide it.
I don’t turn. I don’t need to. I can feel Rafe behind me, close enough to smell the faint trace of soap and sweat and whatever dark thing he washed off before walking in here, warm enough to burn against my back. He hasn’t moved since I kissed him. Since I claimed him in front of the entire room. Since I claimed this team with my mouth on his and his name on my tongue.
Ezio stares at him, but Rafe’s eyes are on me—on my shoulders, on the rise and fall of my breath, on the black tape wrapped tight around my throat like a vow I made to myself.
Ezio tries again. “I’m—”
“You’rebenched unless I say otherwise,” Rafe says, still calm, still looking at me. “Julian leads tonight.”
Ezio’s hands fist at his sides. His knuckles bleach white. He’s shaking—not from fear, but from shame, from the slow, creeping realization that this—this whole night, this game, this war—isn’t about bloodlines or birthrights. It’s about who earned it.
And I did. Not with politics. Not with a last name. With pain. With fire. With goddamn tape on my throat and bruises on my knees and Rafe’s voice in my ear sayinglive, motherfucker, breathe because I told you to.
Ezio tries to pivot, voice tightening. “My father—”
“Gave me the team,” Rafe says.
That shuts him up. Because it’s true. Everyone in the room knows it. Leonardo Bellini might’ve fathered Ezio, but he raised Rafe. Made him into a weapon. Sharpened him in blood and silence and let him lead from the shadows because Ezio was too busy posing for spotlights. Rafe doesn’t need the C.
