I don’t move. Don’t speak. But for once, I agree with Leonardo’s son. And that makes me feel sick.
Leonardo sips his wine again, thoughtful. “It’s tempting,” he murmurs. “To keep him close. To make him bleed for us again and again. Especially if people are watching.” He sets the glass down with a soft click and looks at me. “What do you think, Rafe? You’ve been quiet.”
My voice is ice. “He’s not going anywhere.”
Leonardo smiles. So does Damiano.
Ezio grins like he just won something.
And somewhere deep in my chest, I know I’ve just stepped over a line I can’t come back from.
“That’s my good boy,” Leonardo croons, the words slow and mocking, laced with ownership that doesn’t belong to him. Not anymore. Not since I bled for my own name. Not since I started claiming things for myself.
I don’t look at him. I let the words rot in the air between us. “He won’t be skating for at least a month.” My voice is flat, final. Not a suggestion. Not a negotiation. A fact.
Leonardo’s smile falters like I slapped it off his face. His fingers, still resting neatly on the tablecloth, curl slightly. “And why’s that?”
“Because,” I say, slow and deliberate, eyes locked on his now, “for that little stunt that won you that pretty number, he almost bled out. He needs to heal.”
The temperature drops like a blade. Damiano stops scrolling. Viktor looks up, finally. Ezio raises an eyebrow, intrigued. Leonardo leans forward, steeples his fingers again, but the warmth’s gone now. What’s left is cold calculation, sharp as the edge of a garrote. “You think I’m unaware of what he did, Rafe?”
“I think you’re aware of the profit,” I snap. “I don’t think you give a shit about the kid’s thigh being held together by Kai’s fucking fingernails and morphine.”
“He’s not a kid.” Leonardo’s voice turns sharp, the velvet stripped away. “He’s a junkiewho happens to be able to skate. Don’t romanticize it. He knew what the fuck this was when we brought him in.”
I stand, slow and quiet, not enough to provoke—just enough to remind every bastard in the room that I’m not a fucking rookie either. The chair creaks under the shift, and for one breath, nobody moves. “He’s mine.”
Leonardo’s smile doesn’t crack, but his fingers tap once against the stem of his wine glass. That tiny tick—the only tell he ever gives when something cuts a little too close to the bone. “Dear boy,” he murmurs, voice dripping with fondness that curdles the air, “you are mine. He is mine. The entire rink full of monsters is mine. But I can appreciate”—he pauses, takes a delicate sip of wine—“the protectiveness of our little star.”
I almost roll my eyes. Almost. Instead, I lean forward, resting my forearms on the table, tone clipped and sharp. “How much did you make off that game?”
Leonardo blinks slowly, tilts his head like he’s considering whether to lie. But he knows better. With me, he always knows better. “Almost ten million,” he says finally.
I nod once. Let that number settle between us. The weight of it. The price of blood.
“So he already won back the debt he had to you.” My voice is iron. “He’s no longer yours.”
The room freezes. Leonardo’s smile dies by inches. He sets his glass down with a quiet clink, then folds his hands together like a man praying to a god he doesn’t believe in. “That’s not how this works,” he says, still smiling but with eyes like gun barrels. “He doesn’t walk away just because he bled pretty once. He’s not free, Rafe. He’s owned. Just like the rest of us.”
I tilt my head. “Then consider this a renegotiation.”
Leonardo leans back slowly, the chair creaking beneath him as he studies me with the kind of quiet calculation that makes men disappear. He doesn’t rush. Doesn’t blink. Just looks—like he’s peeling me open with nothing but the weight of memory and ownership. He fucking raised me, after all. Fed me discipline instead of food. Gave me a gun before I hit puberty. Taught me to slit throats cleaner than I could tie my skates.
He knows what buttons to press. But so do I.
“Fine,” he says at last, the word a low exhale of smoke and iron. “Renegotiation.” He lifts his chin slightly. “He’s yours.”
There’s a beat—almost long enough to taste victory. “But you’re still mine.”
My jaw tightens. There it is. The hook.
“And if he loses…” Leonardo’s voice turns almost gentle, like a lullaby sung in a graveyard. “It’s your head.”
I don’t flinch. Don’t speak. Just stare back, pulse steady. He wants to see me twitch. I don’t give him the satisfaction.
“And he doesn’t leave the compound,” Leonardo adds, voice clipped now, sharp. “Not for food, not for practice, not even to piss on the sidewalk. Not until I say so.”
There’s iron in the air now. Every man at the table is still.
