I don’t even blink. “I’d burn the entire compound for any of those boys, Leonardo.” I let that settle. Then I turn my head and meet his eyes. “But for him?” I smile, slow and fucking feral. “I’d burn everything else too.”
The silence after that is thick enough to choke on.
Leonardo doesn’t respond. He just watches Julian score again, watches the bloodthirst in his smile, the unholy joy in his blade work. Watches the ghost of a boy he once considered a liability become something sharp enough to cut kingdoms down.
And I sit there beside him, smiling, because I don’t have anything left to hide. He knows now. They all will. That boy? That chaos? That addict they thought they could break and discard? He’s mine. And I’ll scorch the earth before I let anyone touch him again.
Leonardo stands slowly. Not like a man rising above me, but like a man sealing something. He moves to my side, silent leather and cologne, then places a hand on my shoulder. His fingers tighten once, affectionately. “You did good, Rafael,” he says. And that? Thatfucking means something. Leonardo doesn’t praise easily. Doesn’t hand it out like wine or warnings. When he says it, it’s law. And it lands somewhere between my ribs and my spine like heat, like gravity, like a goddamn knife turned warm.
I look up at him. “I’ll be taking that NHL rink,” I say. “For myself. And for my boys.”
Leonardo’s brow lifts—not insulted, not surprised, just watching. He holds my gaze for a long second, eyes unreadable, then his hand squeezes again—just a breath harder—and he nods.
That’s it. Permission. Approval. Trust.
Leonardo Bellini wouldn’t let his own son do what I’m doing. Ezio is blood, yes, but his leash is short and golden, too easily tangled in his father’s shadow. The boy has been trained, sculpted, shaped to fit neatly within the walls of this world. I was never meant to stay. I ran. Fought. Bled my way free. And still—Leonardo gave me the keys to the parts that matter. Because I earned every fucking nod, every mission, every kill, every inch of power that wasn’t born into me but taken.
And now I’ll take that rink. Take that game. Take this war. And I’ll make it into a cathedral for boys no one believed in.
He pulls his hand back and walks toward the door, coat swinging like a judge’s robe. He doesn’t look back. He doesn’t need to. We understand each other. We always have.
And as much as I hated this life growing up—hated the blood, the name, the fucking obligations—I’d still rather die for these boys than live outside it again.
25
JULIAN
It hits me mid-turn. A sound. A moan. Familiar. Too fucking familiar. It threads through the cold like a wire pulled tight, slicing straight under my skin. My skates screech as I twist, nearly eating the ice. My whole body jerks, a violent convulsion I don’t control, heart slamming so hard I swear I taste copper at the back of my tongue. I spin again, frantic, wild, breath caught somewhere between my ribs and my throat because I know that sound—know it like muscle memory, like trauma, like goddamn scripture carved into the marrow of my spine.
It’s me.
My moan. My gasp. That high, broken noise I’ve only ever made with my face smashed into a mattress and a cock shoved so deep inside me I forget how to breathe. But it’s not coming from my mouth right now. It’s drifting through the rink on a loop, tinny and obscene, echoing off concrete and steel like a ghost I never buried.
I whip around like something hunted, panic boiling under my skin like poison, eyes scanning the ice so hard everything blurs into streaks of red and black. Finn’s laughing at something Vlad muttered—sharp, feral. Luca’s chasing Misha with a stick raised like he’s about to sacrifice him to the hockey gods. Kai is talking to Noah near the bench, calm as a surgeon. None of them have a phone out. None of them are looking at me.
And then I see him.
Ezio Bellini, standing by the rink doors, not even dressed to train. White jacket, immaculate, one shoulder leaned against the wall like this entire fucking place exists forhis convenience alone. The Bellini brat, the golden son of the devil himself. Phone held loose in one hand like it’s nothing.
Except it’s not nothing. Because I can hear it. Because that sound is mine.
That fucking tape.
Me and Nathan. Hotel room. Six months before the scandal. Before everything rotted from the inside. Me tied down, moaning like a fool, smiling like a boy who believed he was loved. Begging him to fuck me harder. Whispering things into his throat that should’ve died in that room and nowhere else. The tape I watched so many times I stopped seeing myself and started seeing a ghost wearing my face.
Ezio is watching me now with that exact ghost reflected in his eyes. Like he’s been waiting for the moment I hear it. Waiting to enjoy the fallout. His mouth curls—lazy, cruel, aristocratic poison. He tilts the phone just a fraction, enough for me to catch a flicker of motion on the screen: my own thighs spread wide, my lips forming words I don’t let myself remember sober.
I don’t remember skating. I don’t remember dropping my stick. My body just moves, blades shredding the ice as I charge the boards with enough force to bruise bone. Ezio doesn’t flinch, because of course he doesn’t. The prince of this mafia pit doesn’t flinch for anyone. Not when Leonardo kisses his forehead. Not when the whole compound lifts his name like a threat. Not even when Rafe looks right through him.
But he looks at me. Right at me. And he plays my moan again.
The second I hit the boards, I vault them like they’re nothing. One hand on the top rail, the other already curling into a fist, ready to break something beautiful. “Turn it the fuck off,” I snarl, voice scraping out of my chest raw and shredded.
Ezio’s response is to slip the phone casually into his pocket, like he’s teasing a dog with a treat. Still smirking, proud of himself. “Well, well,” he murmurs, silk stretched over venom. “Didn’t realize you were mic’d up, Reaver.”
My fist slams into his collarbone. Not hard enough. I want bone. I want blood. I want that smug look wiped off his perfect fucking face. “Where did you get it?” The words shake out of me—rage, terror, humiliation all spiraling together.
Ezio leans in like we’re sharing a secret. His breath ghosts over my cheek. “Found it,” he says softly. “Like a treasure.”
