Chapter 23 Giovanni
GIOVANNI
Valentina is still asleep when I meet with the head physician of my father’s medical team.
I know this because the surveillance feed tells me so.
A wireless system I had installed days ago streams every angle of the Caruso compound straight to my phone.
Some people would call my desire to protect her obsessive.
I call it a necessity. In my world, control isn’t optional. It’s the only way to survive.
After signaling to the doctor that I need a minute, I zoom in on the image of Valentina in my bed.
Her hair spills across the pillow like ink, and her breathing is slow and even.
Just like she did seven nights ago when I brought her back here—willingly that time—she looks like she belongs here.
She suits my space, and God help me, I like seeing her in it.
My obsession over the past week hasn’t waned even a fraction.
If anything, it’s gotten worse. Every hour I spend with Valentina feeds something I can’t control.
I’m at her side constantly. We enjoy breakfast in the sunlit atrium, have lunch on the terrace, and eat dinner under the soft glow of the chandeliers in the dining room.
When I’m not with her, I’m watching her. Stalking her. The surveillance system streams her every move twenty-four-seven. I tell myself it’s for her safety—and it is—but it’s also for me. I need to see her and know what she’s doing as much as I need to know she’s still here.
That she’s still mine.
Waking up and finding her gone will be worse than a blade to the throat.
I drink in Valentina’s perfect profile for a few more seconds, then lock the screen and slide my phone into my pocket.
“How is he?” I ask the doctor without a greeting.
As always, his reply is clinically detached. “Still stable. Vitals are on par, and he’s alert.”
A sense of relief transcends over me. “So he’s improving?”
His long pause offers no comfort. “I need to be honest with you. Sometimes in cases like this, what looks like improvement can be misleading.”
I ball my hands so fast my knuckles pop. “Misleading how?”
“It can be what we call a terminal surge,” the doctor explains. “A final burst of energy before the body begins to shut down. It’s common in patients with advanced cardiac failure.”
His words slam into me better than any fist has, but denial is a game I’ve been playing for decades. “No,” I say flatly, shaking my head. “That isn’t what this is.”
“I hope you’re right.” The doctor’s voice is surprisingly firm for how hard his thighs are shaking. “But you should prepare yourself. His heart is fragile. The stress of losing your mother and the heart attack that followed her loss accelerated its decline.”
Prepare myself? As if that’s possible. It’s not his time yet. It can’t be. Everything he planned is finally aligning, so he needs to stick around to see it occur.
When I stare at the door of my father’s room, my chest tightens enough to ache. “He’s strong. He’s always been strong.”
“I know,” the doctor agrees, squeezing my shoulder. “But even the strongest hearts have limits.”
When he enters my father’s room to take his vitals, the scent of recently cleaned hospital equipment and old books wafts out. My father insisted on keeping the shelves even though they’re lined with leather-bound books he rarely reads.
After checking the security feed and noticing Valentina is still asleep, I balance my shoulder on the doorjamb and monitor the doctor’s checks. My father looks smaller than the giant I remember from my childhood, and the sight stirs the anarchy living inside me.
It doesn’t swirl for long. The doctor’s stethoscope doesn’t get within an inch of my father’s chest before my father snatches the doctor’s wrist firmly enough to break it.
“Signor Caruso, it is Dr. Marino. I just want to—”
“Interrupt a man while he’s sleeping.”
When my father’s grip firms, causing Dr. Marino’s hand to go white, I enter the sterile-scented space. The floor creaks under my weight, and my father’s eyes dart to me.
“He’s doing his job, Papa.”
He huffs as if miffed before he drops Dr. Marino’s wrist. “I told you I don’t need a doctor.”
I gesture for the doctor to leave before he loses the ability to breathe, and join my father at his bedside.
Treating my father as an invalid is a quick way to the grave.
Doesn’t mean I won’t tease him, though. I’m his eldest son.
That automatically makes me his favorite.
“You also said you weren’t having a heart attack when you were. ”
“Vanni…” His brows lower down his face as he scolds me in a dialect that’s hardly used anymore. The Old Castilian language is only known by the greats.
“Such a grump.” I pull a chair close to his bed. “Is this what happens when you wake early? You become a grouch?”
“This is what happens when your eldest son keeps everyone awake at all hours of the night, entertaining a female guest.” He sits up, his movements stable for a man on his deathbed. “Who knew Valeria had it in her? She—”
“Isn’t the woman sharing my bed.”
He watches me with astute eyes. Shockingly, his gaze holds no judgment.
For several long seconds, we sit in silence, with only the hum of the machines once responsible for keeping him alive filling the space.
Then he tilts his head and studies me with those shrewd eyes that miss nothing. “You look… different.”
“Different?”
“Like a man with something on his mind.”
I hesitate, then exhale slowly. “I met someone.”
“And?”
I wait a beat before murmuring, “She’s… different.”
His eye roll is as immature as my laughter that bounces around his room.
“She reminds me a lot of Mamma.”
That secures his attention. “Do we know who this girl is, Giovanni? Her roots? I won’t try to dissuade you from her, but please make sure her intentions are good.
The family looks up to you. Your brothers mirror your actions.
We can’t have an outsider coming in and cracking the foundations we fought so hard to build. ”
I nod in understanding. I might not like it, but I understand his worry.
“They’re good people, Papa. You know her mother.
” He waits with bated breath for me to fill in the gaps.
“Concetta Gambino. She recognized our name when I introduced myself. The fact she didn’t seem wary announces you’ve met previously. ”
I twist my lips, still unsettled by how calm Valentina’s mother was when I pulled off the cloak I’d been wearing all morning the day of our official introduction. I couldn’t exactly walk into her home, tell her I’d participated in the kidnap of her only child, and expect her to trust me.
Only Matteo is cocky enough to pull off something like that.
“She smiled with fondness when the familiarity of our name fell around her.” I bark out a husky laugh. “Most people run in fear.”
My father grins faintly, amused. “Concetta Gambino…” He draws in a prolonged breath through his nose like I do every time Valentina’s arousal slicks my palm. “She can smile.” The amusement in his eyes deepens. “She’s the only woman to have ever turned down a Caruso.”
I stare at him, my pulse spiking. “What?”
“She turned me down,” he says simply, as if discussing the weather. “I asked her to marry me, and she said thanks but no thanks. That this life wasn’t for her.” He waves his hand around his elegant yet manly room.
Panic grips my throat. The math isn’t mathing, but my knowledge about the tricks some women will do to attach themselves to a Caruso isn’t solely from personal experience.
It’s also from the many stories my mother shared over the years.
Our father was a catch, and she often said her sheets wouldn’t even be cold before there’d be a line of women at our door, ready to seduce our father.
Her assumptions weren’t far from the truth.
Women came in droves, but our father turned them away.
“You were only with Mom, right? No one else in your thirty-six-year marriage?”
His expression hardens until it showcases the man who built an empire from nothing. “Don’t insult me, boy,” he says coldly. “I loved your mother. I’d never step out on her like that. Why do you think my heart is failing now that she’s gone?”
I swallow hard as shame replaces the worry burning through me. “I didn’t mean—”
“Yes, you did,” he interrupts, his reply sharp enough to cut. “I never strayed, Giovanni. Not once.”
I nod quickly, the certainty in his reply too honest to discount.
Another stretch of silence falls between us before my father eventually breaks it. “Tell me about her.”
“Concetta?”
He smacks me up the back of the head, rattling my brain against my skull. “The woman who has you walking around with love hearts bouncing from your eyes.”
“Valentina. She’s… ah…” A sigh finalizes my reply. I’m a fucking soft cock admitting this after only a week, but I’m snowed under. Gone. I won’t ever move past this, so if Valentina takes after her mother and turns down a Caruso, I’ll have to get inventive.
None of my plans will involve her leaving the country while carrying another man’s baby.
“Those are the exact words I spoke to your grandfather when he asked me about your mother.” My smile reaches only half its ability, but it’s still the biggest he’s given in months.
“Does she know about Valeria?” Before I can speak, a light bulb switches on in his head.
“Valentina was at the gathering last week. Valeria said she was your surrogate.”
My jaw clenches. I want to tell him Valeria is a liar, but until the baby is born, no one will know the truth. Although I hope the test comes back positive and we discover that the child is mine and Valentina’s, there’s a niggle that’s screaming this was too easy.
The game is meant to be harder than this.
The utmost certainty in my father’s tone could cut diamonds. “You’re worried.”
“Fucking terrified,” I admit. “If it’s not Valentina’s—”
“There’s a possibility the child is Valentina’s?” My father shouts his words loud enough to wake the house.
My nod sends him sprawling back, and in this very moment, I realize Valeria didn’t tell him everything. She told him only what would favor her.
That ends now.
I tell my father everything. The chase, the capture, the hiccup at the IVF clinic. I leave no stone unturned.
He processes the deluge with the shrewdness that comes from years of experience before asking, “The clinic?”
“Ashes.”
I burned it to the ground seconds after securing an unconscious Valentina in my SUV.
Papa hums in approval. “The staff?”
I look at him—really look at him. Dr. Di Petro was his friend, but I couldn’t let a mistake like this go unpunished. Our family would be a mockery if I had.
“Very well,” he says after a brief pause for contemplation. He places his hand over mine, frail but steady. “Invite Valentina and her mother to the compound.”
I balk, taken aback. “For what?”
“Dinner,” he replies, as if it’s obvious. “I’d like to officially meet the woman who’s brought out a side of you I never thought I’d see.” His lips curve teasingly. “And to be reintroduced to the woman who clearly raised her right.”
Since there isn’t an ounce of dishonesty in his words, I nod. Concetta influences Valentina’s life in a way most people will never understand. I respect it because I get it. I have a similar bond with my father. He imparted all his knowledge to me, and his guidance continues to empower me as I age.
“I’ll arrange it.”
He nods, pleased, and then settles back in his bed, his eyes briefly closing.
“I’ll let you rest.”
His reply is muffled by a yawn. “I’m not tired. I’m just resting my eyes.”
He feels my smug grin more than he sees it when I press my lips to his temple. His skin isn’t as clammy as it usually is, but it prompts me to remind the doctor that he didn’t finish his vitals.
I’m halfway to the door when he calls my name.
I pause at the threshold, then turn around.
“Don’t worry.” His tone carries more than reassurance.
It’s also factual. “Blood doesn’t make you family.
Being a biological parent isn’t any higher than stepping up to the plate and taking responsibility for someone who doesn’t share your blood.
If Valentina’s heart holds one ounce of the camaraderie her mother’s does, her beliefs will align with mine.
I truly believe that.” His words are both painful and soothing.
With my throat too dry to speak, I nod.
His eyes once again drift shut as he murmurs, “Love isn’t about blood. It’s about choice.”
Love?
I’ve spent my entire life scoffing at the idea of being tied down to one person forever. I also discredited my father’s claim that he knew my mother was “it” after seeing her only once. I called his notion that he “knew” foolish. A game, and a sign of weakness.
Now I understand because that’s what my obsession with Valentina is leading toward. That’s what she is to me. She’s my weakness. My biggest challenge. But if I’m willing to put in the hard years, she could also be my everything.
What I feel for her isn’t solely an obsession fueled by lust.
It’s the foundation of a love story that will rival my parents’.
Love is a risk. It means Valentina could walk away, and I’d have to let her even if it kills me. Loving her isn’t about owning her. It’s about ensuring her happiness is prioritized before anyone else’s—even my own. She must come first.
Although the thought should terrify me, no amount of caution tapers my smirk.
Valentina Raimondi is mine.
And I’ll kill anyone who tries to convince her otherwise.