Bound To The Ruthless Mafia Heir; Claimed By His Brother

Chapter Twelve: A Complex Puzzle

The words I overheard between Cassian and his doctor kept repeating in my head all through the night. Toxins, nerve damage, recovery of mobility will be impossible. It felt like I was holding a live grenade, and I had absolutely no idea who to throw it at.

By the time afternoon came around, the tension in the house was making me want to pull my own hair out. Or was it just me being paranoid?

I was sitting on the edge of my bed when my door swung open without a warning.

Rafael stood in the doorway, wearing a plain leather jacket and dark jeans. He looked totally different from the stiff, terrified Capo who had brushed me off at the staircase a few days ago.

"Get your jacket," Rafael said, tossing a pair of car keys up and catching them in his palm. "We're leaving."

I stared at him, completely caught off guard. "Leaving? Where? Cassian’s guards won't even let me look toward the front gates."

"Cassian approved it," Rafael said, giving me a small, reassuring smile that actually looked genuine. "He wants me to run some errands in the city, and he said I could take you along to get some fresh air. Come on."

I didn't need to be told twice. I grabbed my black leather jacket and followed him down the corridor, half-expecting Alberto to step out from a corner and stop us.

But the guards at the main entrance just stepped aside and opened the massive front doors for us.

Rafael's car was a sleek, dark muscle car that looked completely out of place among Cassian’s fleet of armored black SUVs. As we pulled out of the driveway and left the iron gates behind, I let out a breath I felt like I'd been holding for a week.

"You look like you just escaped a maximum-security prison," Rafael said, glancing over at me as he shifted gears.

"It feels like it," I muttered, leaning my head back against the leather seat. "I forgot what the world outside those walls even looks like."

"Cassian is just paranoid because of the recent security breaches," Rafael said, his tone casual and completely relaxed. "He's trying to protect the family, Belinda. You can't blame him for that."

I looked at his profile, watching as his grip on the steering wheel relaxed. He wasn't wearing his usual armor today. The hard, professional mask he always wore around his brother was completely gone, replaced by something much softer.

"Is he always like this?" I asked, keeping my voice low. "So cold? So controlling?"

Rafael sighed, slowing down as we hit the traffic heading toward the city center. "He wasn't always this intense, but he had to become a monster to keep us alive. You don't know the history of what happened to the Moretti name before you got here."

"Then tell me," I said, turning my body slightly in the seat to face him. "My father never told me the full story. He just said the Morettis were dangerous."

Rafael laughed, a dry sound that had a bit of sadness mixed into it. "Your father only knows the public version. He knows what everyone out there was told. A few years ago, the family was completely falling apart under our uncle Dante."

"Uncle Dante?" I repeated. "I thought he died of a heart attack."

"That's the official story we gave the commission," Rafael said, shaking his head. "The truth is much messier. Dante was a gambling addict and a terrible leader who was running our shipping lines straight into the ground. He owed money to everyone, including some very bad crews out of South America."

"What happened to him?" I asked, my curiosity spiking.

"He was found in a motel room with two bullets in the back of his head," Rafael said, his eyes scanning the rearview mirror. "The organization was completely vulnerable. The other families were circling like vultures, waiting to split our territory among themselves."

"And Cassian fixed it?"

"Cassian saved us," Rafael said, his voice filling with pride. "He was barely twenty-five, but he took over the captain's seat within forty-eight hours. He hunted down every single person who had crossed Uncle Dante, and he rebuilt the entire shipping network from scratch."

I listened to him speak, my stomach knotting up with a complicated mix of guilt and confusion. Rafael truly, deeply loved his brother.

He looked at Cassian like he was a god, and it made me wonder if that was why he was completely blind to the dark secrets that were rotting the core of this house.

"He did all of that alone?" I asked, testing how much he really knew.

"Solely on his own efforts," Rafael said firmly, turning the car down a quieter side street. "I was too young and too reckless back then to be of any real help. Cassian took the heat for everything, made all the brutal sacrifices, and never complained once. I owe him my life, Belinda."

His words felt like a heavy weight pressing down on my chest. I thought about the hidden file in the archives, the one that explicitly stated Rafael was excluded from the true power structure.

I thought about the secret payments Cassian was making to my father's shell company. And most of all, I thought about the doctor saying someone was actively making Cassian's mobility recovery impossible.

The urge to just scream the truth right there in the car was overwhelming. I wanted to tell him that his perfect, heroic brother was keeping massive secrets from him. I wanted to tell him that someone was poisoning him right under his nose.

"Rafael," I started, my voice trembling slightly. "What if Cassian isn't telling you everything? What if there are things about the organization that he's keeping completely to himself?"

Rafael pulled the car up to the curb near a quiet café and turned off the engine. He turned his head to look at me, his blue eyes searching my face with a soft, concerned expression. "What do you mean?"

"I just mean… he's a very secretive person," I said, losing my nerve at the last second. "Don't you ever feel like you're just a soldier to him instead of a brother?"

Rafael reached over, his hand hovering over mine for a brief second before he dropped it back onto the center console. "He's the Boss, Belinda. He has to keep a distance to maintain authority. But he's my blood. He would never lie to me about anything that truly matters."

I looked away, staring out the passenger window at the people walking down the sidewalk. His blind loyalty was terrifying. If I told him the truth right now without any hard, physical proof, he would probably just take it as an insult against his brother and shut me out completely. I couldn't risk losing the only person in this house who treated me like a human being.

"Yeah," I murmured, forcing a fake smile. "You're probably right."

We spent the next couple of hours walking through a quiet market, grabbing coffee, and pretending for a brief moment that we were just normal people.

Rafael laughed at my jokes, bought me a small pastry I didn't even ask for, and showed me a side of him that was incredibly charming. It made the reality of my marriage feel a hundred times worse.

By the time the sun started setting, throwing a deep orange glow across the city skyline, we turned the car back toward the estate.

The heavy atmosphere returned the second the iron gates closed behind us. The freedom was over, and I was right back in the cage.

"Thanks for the afternoon, Rafael," I said as we walked through the main foyer.

"Anytime, Belinda," he said, giving me a polite nod before heading down the hallway toward the strategy room. "Get some rest."

I walked up the grand staircase, my feet feeling like lead. I needed to see if Cassian was back in his study, or if he was still down in the lower levels with his guards. I walked down the quiet corridor toward his private wing, keeping my movements completely silent.

When I reached his door, I noticed it was unlocked. I pushed it open an inch, scanning the dark room to see if he was inside. The room was empty, the wheelchair nowhere to be seen.

I was about to turn around and leave when my eyes caught the edge of his mahogany desk. The single lamp on his nightstand was turned on, casting a dim light across the surface.

The silver medication tray was sitting right out in the open.

My heart skipped a beat. Alberto had hidden it in a drawer a few days ago, but now it was sitting right there on the blotter. I slipped into the room, closing the door behind me until it was almost shut.

I rushed over to the desk, my breathing shallow as I reached out and picked up the small plastic tray. I noticed the changes immediately. The old bottles I had seen glimpses of before were gone.

In their place was a different bottle. It was a dark amber glass container, completely fresh, with a crisp white label that looked brand new. Someone had already entered his room while we were out and swapped the medication.

I picked up the amber bottle, my hands shaking as I held it under the dim light of the lamp. I scanned the printed text, looking for a drug name, but there wasn't one. There was only a sequence of numbers and a blue pharmacy stamp at the very bottom of the paper.

I squinted, reading the tiny print on the stamp.

The replacement bottle had a pharmacy stamp linked straight to a clinic in Queens.