The Mafia’s Howl — The Alpha’s Forbidden Daughter

Chapter Seven: Rescue

Rose’s POV

Every inch of my body throbs with pain. I knew running was a risk, that they’d kill me if they caught me again. But it was that or die without fighting back, and I will never surrender to an enemy. I just pray the couple who handed me their phone got away unharmed.

What I never imagined was that Ethan Tanorra would be the one to rescue me. I hadn’t seen him since my fifteenth birthday, when we danced and he managed to scatter the storm cloud in my head. After that night, I was reminded yet again that marriage was forbidden for me. Not even my father’s warnings could erase the comfort that dance left behind. For years afterward, it became my refuge whenever loneliness swallowed me whole.

In the world I live in, girls are promised into marriage before eighteen. I’m twenty now, and I’ve turned down countless proposals, many of them from revolting old men chasing status. I thank my father every day for rejecting them on my behalf. I’m not naïve: I know any man who married me would inherit a generous piece of my family’s territory, giving him massive leverage, especially if he aimed to be Boss. Still, I can’t understand why Ethan’s team would rescue me. I know Niger is part of it, which explains a lot, but from what I overheard growing up, they only take destruction jobs, never rescues. Unless something primal drove him, like the instinctive pull I felt from him when he saved me, as if I were more than a mission.

There are only three rules I’ve ever been allowed to live by:

1. Rose Valentine cannot marry.

2. Rose Valentine cannot love.

3. Rose Valentine cannot be seen or draw attention.

By obeying them, I gained limited freedom. I learned how to fight, how to handle weapons, and, most valuable of all, I was allowed to attend the college course I wanted, a rare privilege for women in our world. Even so, the wolf blood buried in my veins is a secret I must never reveal.

By all logic, my hand should belong to Ethan, the man destined to be our next Boss. That night, he held me close on the dance floor, his scent strong and intoxicating, his warmth soaking through me. His voice was low when he told me to relax, to stop stepping on his feet. And those eyes, locked on mine with focus, not pity, not greed. He didn’t treat me like a child or a prize for auction. It was just a dance, nothing more. But for me, it lodged deep, planting a seed of comfort I never forgot.

For years, I accepted my fate as Bartolomeu Valentine’s daughter. But that seed never died. It whispered for freedom, for the warmth of that moment again. Maybe this was never meant to be my destiny. Maybe I wasn’t built to live behind glass.

Yet here I am. My convoy attacked, my brother bleeding, myself abducted, stabbed while being dragged into the arms of the very man I was told to avoid.

I don’t know what runs through Ethan’s head or what his ambitions are. But he doesn’t realize he’s holding a ticking time bomb in his arms. If my secret gets out, my family will be annihilated, and he’ll be dragged down with us.

Ethan Tanorra hasn’t lost anything with age. At thirty-four, he’s even more devastating. Eyes like shards of blue diamond, jaw tight as he lowers me into the car, pressing his jacket against my wound. He buckles me in, his mouth only inches from mine. I breathe deep, pulling in the mix of gunpowder, blood, and that scent I remember, spiced heat with a smoky undertone. Alpha. Raw. Dominant. It coils low in my belly, tugging instincts I’ve spent years suppressing.

I tense, pain slicing through my back as the wound rips open again. Eyes squeezed shut, I press my forehead to his shoulder and clutch his arm. His warmth steadies me.

“Don’t move,” he orders, pushing me against the seat. The motion makes me scream.

“Keep the jacket on the wound.”

“It hurts,” I gasp, nails digging into his shirt. “Make it stop.” Tears streak down my face.

“I know.” His fingers brush my cheek. My eyes flutter open, and his face is right there. “Hold on, Rose.” His breath drifts across my skin, voice low and steady.

“How?”

“Sleep.” He shuts the door, his tone final.

I haven’t slept in two days. Beaten, dragged like an animal from place to place. His presence is the last straw, my senses collapse. Voices blur as the car fills. My head tilts, and I’m gone.

When I wake, pain detonates down my spine. I lean forward, but a hand presses me back. I groan, pulled against a solid chest.

“Easy, Rose.” The voice is deep. Daniel Arin.

Whenever my brother met with his friends at home, I’d hide in the secret passages to eavesdrop. That was my only glimpse of the outside world. If they had caught me, I’d have been beaten and locked away. But I loved their stories, their missions, their kills. I know more about them than they think. I’d fantasize about the corpses, about studying hybrid anatomy to see how wolves and humans intertwined. Always, I slipped away when talk turned to s*x. My brother bragging disgusted me. Ethan’s blunt words, though, his voice describing how good it felt to f**k, burned in me like a brand. If anyone had known I was listening, they would’ve locked me up like a nun. My scraps of freedom are fragile, but the rebellion in me always claws for more.

“It still hurts,” I mutter, biting back another groan.

“We’ll be safe soon,” Kai says, voice mocking but oddly reassuring.

By their voices, I can place them: Daniel holding me, Kai beside him, Ethan silent up front. I lift my head just enough to catch Ethan’s eyes in the mirror. He stiffens, looks away.

“Where are we going?” I ask. “Have you heard anything about my brother?”

“Niger’s at the family hospital. He’ll make it,” Daniel answers.

“What did they do to you?” Ethan’s voice cuts from the front.

“They beat me. Starved me. Threw me in trunks until I lost count.” My arms wrap around me, the panic choking me again.

“He said you tried to run. True?”

“Kind of.” I lower my gaze, waiting for his rebuke.

“Tell us,” Daniel urges, his hand rubbing my arm. I drop my head against his shoulder, drained.

“Drink.” Ethan’s hand appears with a bottle of water, cap already twisted off. My trembling fingers grab it. I drain it dry.

“Thank you,” I whisper, handing it back.

“Now talk.”

“They left me tied in a room. I heard them… with that woman, torturing her husband. I was terrified they’d do it to me too. The window was open. There was a vine ladder outside.” I press my hands to my ears, chasing away the screams. “I couldn’t wait. I had to run.”

“How’d you cut the ropes?” Ethan asks, suspicion sharp.

I hesitate. My hidden blade is gone, but they don’t need to know.

“My bras are rigged with blades,” I admit softly. “I used one to cut free, climbed out the window. Sprained my ankle when I landed. I jumped fences, kept running, got a phone from a couple nearby. Did they survive?”

“No reports of civilian deaths,” Ethan replies. Relief floods me.

“Weren’t you afraid of what they’d do if they caught you?” Kai asks.

“No.” I meet his black eyes. “If I outsmarted them, I’d be fine. After that, all I needed was to call my father.”

“You’re brave, Rose,” Ethan says quietly, regret in his tone. “Brave enough to die young.”

“I’ll die anyway, someday. Sooner or later, it doesn’t matter.” I shrug, wincing as pain cuts deep.

“Finish the story,” Daniel says.

“When they spotted me, I ran. I tossed the phone with the line open so my father could track me. Then they struck my neck. I blacked out. Woke tied up again. Paul beat me until I passed out. Later, I overheard him cursing the new Boss and calling the mission suicide. Hours after that, you came.”

“They didn’t touch you?” Daniel’s tone softens.

“They weren’t allowed. I heard one of them say Samuel ordered them not to.”

“You know who that man is?” Ethan asks.

“No. But I heard Niger and my father mention him at one of our casinos weeks ago.”

“You’re coming to New York with us,” Ethan declares. “Nevada isn’t safe.”

What is happening? Fear claws through me, my brother broken, my father at war, my mother fragile and likely unraveling. Tears blur my sight. I clench my fists, chest heavy with guilt.

“Not sure,” Daniel says, but I hear the lie.

“Can I talk to my father?”

“Later. Sleep,” Ethan orders, shutting down the conversation.

Darkness closes in again. My father always warned me: exposure would destroy us. And now, because of me, Niger lies in a hospital bed, my father fights on too many fronts, and my mother may already be breaking.

Maybe he was right. Maybe I should never have been born.