Episode 2

Chapter 2 - The Favela Boss

From the top of Morro do Falcao, all of Rio fit inside one window.

Rafael Monteiro stood in front of it, but he wasn't looking at the city. He was looking at his own sleeve, at a dark stain that wasn't his. It had been a long night down below, in the alleys. A settlement that should have been a conversation had turned into something else.

He rolled his shoulders, and for one instant the twenty-eight-year-old man the whole city feared wore only the tired expression of anyone else.

One of the boys appeared in the balcony doorway, cap in hand.

"Boss, the guys at the Rua Nova drug spot asked if they can get back to work."

"They can." Rafael didn't even turn around. "But Damiao sits out. He raised his hand to a pregnant woman last week, in front of everyone. That doesn't happen on my hill. Tell him to disappear before I decide to disappear him."

"Done, boss."

The boy left fast. On Morro do Falcao, Rafael's rules were few, and no one argued with them. Children and women were not to be touched. Anyone who broke that one only broke it once.

"Are you going to dinner with that face?"

Rafael closed his eyes for half a second before turning. When he did, he was someone else, his face lighter, almost boyish.

"Good evening to you too, Mom."

Dona Regina stood in the doorway, her robe tied at the waist, earrings still on because she never came downstairs without them. From the outside, Vila Monteiro might have looked like just another big rooftop slab at the top of the favela. Inside it was marble, and she made a point of that.

"Let me see that arm."

"It's not my blood."

"Is that supposed to make me feel better?" She took his hand, and her face softened in the way only hers ever did. "Rafa. You're twenty-eight years old."

"Here we go."

"Yes, here we go. Camila got married. Gustavo takes care of the businesses. Thiago disappears every weekend and comes back smiling like an idiot, so I've already handed that one over. Only you. You're the only one who stays at the top of this hill and doesn't give me a grandchild."

"Do you want a grandchild or a wedding?"

"I want you alive until you're forty." Her voice caught lightly. "A man alone in your line of work doesn't grow old, son. Men grow old when they have a reason to."

Rafael didn't answer. From the living room he could see the table set for three, and he knew, without counting, that two places would stay empty.

Thiago arrived then, still in his suit, his work badge forgotten in his jacket pocket. His older brother, the only one in the family on the right side of the law, with the Federal Police.

"Has Mom already asked you for a grandchild?" Thiago dropped into an armchair.

"Five minutes ago."

"Tell her to come ask me in a few months," he said softly, almost to himself, and one corner of his mouth lifted.

"What did you say?" Dona Regina turned her head.

"Nothing, Mom. Just that the food must be getting cold."

Dona Regina went to the kitchen for the serving dish, and Thiago used the chance to speak low, only to his brother.

"At some point I'll have to tell her. About Bia."

"At some point." Rafael glanced sideways at him. "A colonel's daughter, Thi. Does she know what she's getting into by marrying into this family?"

"She knows more than you think." Thiago shrugged, but there was a smile there. "And you? What are you trying to prove by dying alone in all this marble?"

Rafael didn't answer. He was thinking about the things he knew about his brothers and the things they didn't know about him when the phone vibrated in his pocket.

Not the regular one. The other one. Black, no contact name, the one that only rang for one reason.

He stood without any visible hurry. But Dona Regina, who had spent a lifetime reading that son of hers, noticed the way his shoulder went hard and his hand covered the screen. She noticed, and she didn't ask. She had learned a long time ago not to ask.

"Talk," Rafael said, already in the hallway, his voice dropping a tone.

On the other end, only a few words. A name, a place, a problem that only reached him when no one else could solve it. He listened to the end. His expression didn't change.

"Handle it. And don't call me again over this."

He hung up. For a moment he stood in the dark, the black rectangle in his hand. There was an entire world inside that device no one at that table imagined existed, a name whispered in other cities, in other states, and one no one dared say out loud.

He put the phone away and went back to being a son.

"Let's have dinner, Mom. Before you decide to marry me off again."

They ate. Dona Regina talked about a soap opera, about a saint she had promised a candle to if her son showed up with a decent girl by the end of the year. Rafael listened with half an ear.

Only later, after his mother had gone upstairs and Thiago had gone to "take care of some things," did one of Rafael's men appear in the balcony doorway. Young, cap in hand, pale.

"Boss. There's a situation. A child was kidnapped at the park this afternoon. A little boy, three, maybe four years old at most."

Rafael didn't even lift his eyes from the city.

"And what does that have to do with me? That's a police matter."

"The thing is, the guys demanded ransom. Half a million. But they didn't ask the boy's family for it, boss." The kid squeezed his cap. "They asked us. Sent the message to our number. And they sent a video with it. You need to see this video. Now."

There was something in the boy's voice that didn't match an ordinary kidnapping. Some fear that wasn't fear of criminals.

Rafael held out his hand for the phone. And without knowing why, he felt a cold current climb the back of his neck before he even touched the screen.

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