Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
Valerio
F uck. Fuck. Fuck.
This was bad.
It wasn’t just bad, it was a fucking disaster. I thought I had more time. Those assholes wanted to take her from me, but I would not let that happen.
The image of those tears glistening in her eyes would forever be marred into my mind. I never wanted to see tears in her eyes ever again, and I would make sure that those dreams she told me about would become reality.
I was falling in love with the woman. Or more like, I had already fallen in love with her. She had my heart, and there was no getting it back.
She was my safe space, my peace, my damn fucking drug. I couldn’t quit her, and I couldn’t give her away. She was mine to have. My entire being was hers.
I stormed down the hallway toward my desired area. I was running on pure emotion at that point. All I could think about was the fact that her stupid brother was offering her up on a silver platter. He was using her like a chess piece.
How could he not see that he was letting go of his most valuable piece? If I were him, I would never allow for something like this to happen. Anastasia was highly intelligent, both intellectually and emotionally. She saw things from a different perspective than most did, which is what made her so skilled.
I could not let them take her from me, and if it meant that I needed to start a war in order to keep her, then so be it.
I reached the door to the study and pushed it open without knocking. My brother and sister-in-law both turned to face me. They were having their morning coffee whilst they looked over the company documents. It was a routine they loved doing together. Normally, they would have my niece and nephew in here while they played in their little play area, but today they were alone. The last thing I needed was for the children to see this.
“You need to stop it.” My eyes were hard set on Savina. From the look in her eyes alone she already knew what I was talking about. “You need to stop it, Savina, or so help me God, I will blow all this shit up.”
Her eyes narrowed, but she didn’t move from her place. “Don’t be stupid, Rio. You know as well as I do that I don’t have the power to stop anything. I am simply a ward.”
Her answer was not the one I was looking for.
I moved toward her, my strides large and deliberate. I was not here to debate or to play games. All I needed from her was a simple yes.
I had almost made it to her when my brother stood from his seat and blocked me.
“What is the meaning of this?” Andres came to stand in between me and his wife. Savina stared me down with a cool gaze while my brother looked at me like he wanted to murder me. “Valerio, I have been patient with you, but I will not stand for you disrespecting my wife. What is the meaning of this?”
My chest heaved up and down hard. I had unloaded a lot. Truthfully, I knew that she could do nothing for me. This was another family’s matter, but she had the power and the backing that I could use if the worst turned to worse.
“Valerio.” Andres steeled his back and widened his stance. “I won’t ask you again. What is the meaning of this?”
“Your brother is in love.” Savina stared into my eyes.
Andres eyes widened. “In love? In love with who?”
I didn’t speak, and neither did Savina. We just stared at each other with the same lethalness we reserved for our enemies. I had always liked Sav. She was like the sister I never had, but in recent years we had drifted, particularly after the death of my father, and it was no fault of her own. I had been the one who couldn’t look her way. I carried the guilt of what my father did to her family. I didn’t know how to ask forgiveness for a pain that I didn’t cause but felt responsible for.
“Tell him.” Her eyes were hard set on me. She didn’t shift her gaze even for a second. True to her name, Ice Queen, she kept herself cool and composed. “Tell your brother who you are in love with.”
I kept my mouth shut, which only annoyed her more. Her nostrils flared, and she stood from her seat and stared me down. The tension in the room was so thick that you could cut it with a knife.
I should stand down. I was in here to ask for a favor, but here I was, aggravating her more.
“ Tell. Him .”
My brother looked between his wife and me. The confusion was etched deeply into his features. The tenseness that riddled his wife’s body caused the veins on the side of her head to pop out.
“Your brother is in love with Anastasia.”
It took Andres a moment to seep that information into his brain. When it all finally clicked, I watched his face go from shocked to confused and then angry.
“Are you crazy?”
I simply looked at my brother.
He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Tell me you didn’t fuck her.”
His eyes flared. His wife stood behind him, seething in her own anger. I knew that they would be mad, considering they were her wards. They had promised her brother he would find her back as pure as he had left her.
“I can’t tell you that, Andres.”
“You bloody, selfish asshole!” Savina stormed toward me, but her husband held his arm out and pushed her back. “Do you have any idea what you’ve just done?”
“She is engaged to a psycho killer man who gets mad if you step on one blade of his grass. Are you out of your mind, Valerio? You’ve done a lot of stupid things over the years, but this has to take the cake. Could you not find any other pussy lying around?”
My anger flashed and heated my skin. “She’s not some little fuck thing. I actually want her.”
“You barely know her!” Savina lashes out in red hot anger. “You just put the entire family in jeopardy because you can’t keep it in your fucking pants? Really?”
“This isn’t just about sex for me. I want her more than I have wanted anyone or anything in my life before. You of all people should know what loving someone feels like.”
She pointed her sharp finger my way. “Don’t you dare compare my marriage to your lustful prospects.”
“She’s not some lustful conquest for me! She is everything! She saved my life!”
The room fell silent. Neither one of us spoke. They allowed my words to hang in the air as they started putting the pieces together.
“It’s her, isn’t it?” Andres looked at me in bewilderment. “The woman that you said saved you in the accident. That was her.”
Savina’s face remained passive. She already knew as I had expected. She would have never spoken to me about her in the gym had she not done her own digging.
Andres looked at his wife for confirmation, and she simply gave a curt nod.
“Sav, you knew?” The hurt in his eyes was evident. “What the fuck, amore ?”
“I wasn’t sure until I saw him look at her at the gala. He kept staring at her like she was the sun, and he revolved around her.”
He stared at his beloved wife for a minute or two. He was hurt that she didn’t confide in him. “We will speak about this later, but you, brother, you can’t be with her. She is a promised woman. You know our customs and laws. She does not belong to you.”
“Yes, she does. Just as I belong to her.”
“Are you out of your mind?” He stepped toward me with a vicious determination. “Must you always be so reckless and careless? Must you only ever think of yourself? You will ignite a war that I will be forced to clean. I have children now, Valerio. You have a nephew and a niece whom you swore to protect. I cannot keep cleaning up your mess and protecting you.”
This is for your brother…
You must honor the code…
You must take your position…
My father’s voice rang loud in my head. It bounced off the walls of my skull and penetrated deep into my psyche. For years, I had taken the burden so that he didn’t have to bear the brunt of the hit. I was his shield and sword. He used me, and I shielded him.
“Protect me? You didn’t protect me, brother.” The anger that shot from my tongue came with sharp and hard precision. “I braved the storms alone so that you could sit on the damn mountain top. Do you want to know why you get to sit on your throne? It’s because of me.”
“Are we forgetting the years you nearly drew us to war time and time again? I kept us safe. I led us correctly and cleaned up the mess you made. You fucking slept with Vincenzo’s daughter! I have always protected you.”
That’s what caused the final snap in me.
“I’ve spent my entire life protecting you !” My voice roared. “I took the brunt of it all with dad because he wanted you to never worry of the true darkness of the business. You think that you saw evil? I’ve dined with it for breakfast, lunch and dinner for years. You get to sit here on your throne while the rest of us work hard so your Empire doesn’t crumble.”
He balled his fists at his side. “Watch your tongue.”
“I’ve been watching it for years, brother.” The acid in my voice burned my tongue. The anger that moved through my blood scorched my cells and left me raw and infuriated.
“So then speak, Valerio. Tell this truth that I can’t hear! Speak!”
Years of the bitterness I had felt bubbled it the surface. All I could feel was the seething anger; all I could taste was the sour and bitter taste of the abuse my father had inflicted upon me. The scars had healed, but the fragments of the steel he had used to mar me remained. I would never forget it. The fear, the torture, the abuse it took to make me what I am. And at the time, I had believed that it was necessary to live up to the Code, and to protect the sovereignty of our Family. I thought I had been doing it to protect my people. Only to find that it was all for nothing. The Code meant nothing, there was no honor in beating the crest that rested on our rings. It was all a huge show. None of it was real.
It had broken me, far more than I cared to admit.
“Well?” My brother stared at me.
I had all these things that I wanted to say, but I knew that telling him would not serve me in any way. It would only add to the pain, and I knew my brother well. He would take on my scars as his own and no one else needed to bear the pain with me. It was my darkness to carry.
My eyes moved between my sister-in-law and my brother. They were two of the most important people in my life apart from Ana. Having her would be selfish, but letting her go would kill me.
I let out a low sigh and stepped away from my brother. “I think I need to go.”
“I think so, too.” Savina stepped forward. “Listen, Rio, we want you to be happy. Especially after what you went through. But I can’t allow you to begin a war for a woman you simply attached yourself to because she saved your life.”
“I love her, Savina.” I had trapped those words in my chest when I was with her. Only now, with the prospect of losing her inching closer, did I realize what she truly meant to me. “I love her the way that you love my brother.”
For the first time since I walked into this room, her eyes softened. “I don’t think you do, Rio.”
No matter what I said, they wouldn’t believe me.
I knew what I needed to do. It was likely going to cost me everything, but her safety meant more to me than anything else in this world.
“Tell her I’m sorry.”
They both look at each other perplexed before I turned on my heels and left the study. I didn’t have time. I needed to get on the jet and leave the city. If my plan was to work, I needed all the help that I could get.