Page 59 of Made for Vengeance (Dark Dynasties #3)

And now it had found me anyway, had ambushed me in the form of Grace O'Sullivan—stubborn, brilliant, defiant Grace, who had never stopped fighting me even as she'd surrendered to me, who had seen through my masks to the man beneath, who had made me question everything I thought I knew about myself, about what I wanted, about what kind of man I could be.

"Rafe," Luca said softly, breaking into my thoughts. "We'll find a way. We'll get her back before this marriage can happen. But we need to be smart about it. Strategic. The Rafe Conti way, not the Patrick O'Sullivan way."

The distinction—the reminder of who I was, of the reputation I'd built as the calculating, controlled counterpart to Dante's more direct approach—helped center me, helped pull me back from the edge of the rage that had been threatening to consume me for days.

"You're right," I acknowledged, forcing myself to stop pacing, to take a deep breath, to regain some measure of the control that had defined me for so long.

"Reaction is what Patrick wants. What he expects.

We need to do something unexpected. Something he can't prepare for because he can't imagine it. "

Luca nodded, relief evident in his expression as he saw me beginning to think like myself again, to approach the problem with the strategic mind that had made me so valuable to the family, so feared by our enemies.

"What's the one thing Patrick O'Sullivan would never expect from a Conti?" I asked, my mind racing ahead, considering possibilities, discarding approaches that were too obvious, too predictable, too easily countered.

"Surrender?" Luca suggested, only half-joking. "A white flag? An admission of defeat?"

"Exactly," I said, a cold smile spreading across my features—not the expression of genuine humor or warmth, but the predatory grin of a man who has spotted his prey's fatal weakness.

"Patrick expects retaliation. Expects aggression.

Expects us to come at him with force, with threats, with the full weight of Conti power and influence. "

"So we don't," Luca concluded, following my reasoning. "We do the opposite. We... what? Apologize? Offer concessions? Pretend we don't care that he's taken her?"

"We negotiate," I said, the plan taking shape in my mind with crystalline clarity.

"We request a meeting. Formal, respectful, through proper channels.

We acknowledge his right to retrieve his daughter from those who took her against her will.

We express regret for the misunderstanding, the complications, the disruption to family relations. "

Luca's eyebrows rose in surprise. "You want to apologize to Patrick O'Sullivan? The man who abandoned his daughter for months, who's now planning to marry her off to a cartel leader against her will? The man who?—"

"I want him to think I'm apologizing," I corrected, my voice hardening.

"I want him to believe he's won, that he's broken me, that I'm willing to accept defeat in order to salvage what remains of the relationship between our families.

I want his guard down, his suspicions eased, his attention focused on his victory rather than on protecting what he's taken. "

Understanding dawned in Luca's eyes. "A Trojan horse approach. You get inside his defenses by appearing to surrender, and then..."

"And then I take back what's mine," I finished, the possessive pronoun slipping out before I could catch myself.

"What should be hers," I amended, acknowledging—if only to myself—that Grace was not and had never been a possession, a prize to be won or lost in games between men who saw women as commodities rather than people.

She was a person. Brilliant, stubborn, fierce Grace, who deserved the right to choose her own path, her own future, her own fate—even if that choice led her away from me, even if she decided that freedom meant a life without Rafe Conti in it.

The thought sent a fresh wave of pain through me, but I pushed it aside, focusing on the plan taking shape, on the steps needed to implement it, on the myriad details that would determine success or failure in this most important of operations.

"I'll need Dante's approval," I acknowledged, knowing that a direct approach to Patrick O'Sullivan, even under the guise of negotiation, would require the family head's explicit support. "And his participation, to make it convincing."

"He'll give it," Luca assured me. "He sees how important this is to you. How it's... changed you."

The observation hung between us, loaded with implications neither of us was quite ready to articulate fully.

How Grace had changed me. How my feelings for her had transformed me from the cold, calculating enforcer to something more complex, more human, more vulnerable than anyone in the family had seen since our mother's death.

"I'll talk to him," I said, already moving toward the door, energized by purpose, by the first real plan that felt like it might succeed, might bring Grace back before Patrick could implement whatever he had planned for his suddenly valuable daughter.

"Rafe," Luca called as I reached the door. "What if she doesn't want to come back? What if, given the choice, she chooses neither Patrick nor you? What if she just wants to be free of all of this?"

The question stopped me, forced me to confront the possibility I'd been avoiding since learning of her abduction.

That Grace might not want to return to me.

That she might see this as an opportunity for a different kind of escape, a different kind of freedom than either man in her life was offering.

"Then I'll help her," I said finally, the words torn from somewhere deep and honest. "I'll give her money, resources, protection—whatever she needs to build the life she wants, away from all of this. Away from me, if that's what she chooses."

The admission—the willingness to let her go if that was truly what she wanted—cost me more than I could express.

But it was truth, raw and unvarnished. I loved her enough to want her happiness above my own, her freedom above my desire to possess her, her choice above my need to control every aspect of her existence.

Luca studied me for a long moment, then nodded, something like respect flickering across his features. "You really do love her," he said softly. "Not just want her. Not just obsess over her. You actually love her."

"Yes," I acknowledged, the word simple but carrying the weight of a revelation, a transformation, a fundamental shift in who I was and what I valued most. "I do."

That night, alone in my bedroom, I stood at the window watching darkness settle over the estate grounds.

The day had been productive—Dante had approved the plan, arrangements were being made for a formal approach to Patrick O'Sullivan, intelligence was being gathered on the security surrounding Grace, on her exact location within the O'Sullivan estate, on the timeline for the proposed marriage to Alejandro Vega.

Everything was in motion. The pieces were falling into place. Within days, I would be face to face with Patrick, would be implementing the next phase of the plan, would be one step closer to bringing Grace back where she belonged—or setting her free, if that was truly what she wanted.

The thought still hurt, still sent a pang through me that felt like physical pain.

But I had meant what I'd said to Luca. If freedom was what Grace chose—real freedom, not just a different kind of cage—then I would help her achieve it, whatever the cost to myself, to my own desires, to the future I had imagined for us.

I moved to the dresser where a framed photograph stood—Grace at her piano, unaware of the camera capturing her in a moment of private joy, of connection to the music that had always been her escape, her solace, her one true freedom even in captivity.

I had taken the photo myself, had kept it close during the months of her stay, had looked at it in moments of doubt or frustration or the rare instances when my conscience had troubled me about what I had done, what I continued to do to a woman who had never asked to be part of my world.

I picked up the frame now, my fingers tracing the curve of her cheek, the line of her jaw, the fall of her hair across her shoulders as she bent over the keys, lost in the music, briefly free of the constraints I had placed upon her.

"I'm coming for you," I whispered to the image, the words both promise and prayer. "Whatever it takes. Whatever the cost. I'm coming for you, Grace."

And in that moment, in the silence of my room with only her photograph as witness, I made a vow—not just to retrieve her from her father's control, not just to prevent the fate Patrick had planned for her, but to give her what I had never truly offered before.

A choice. Real freedom. The right to determine her own path, her own future, her own fate—even if that choice led her away from me, even if she decided that freedom meant a life without Rafe Conti in it.

It would destroy me. Would leave a hole in my life that nothing could fill. Would take from me the one person who had made me feel something beyond the cold calculation, the controlled violence, the emotional distance that had defined me for so long.

But I would do it. For her. For Grace. For the woman who had changed everything about who I thought I was, who I could be.

Because that, I was beginning to understand, was what love truly meant.