Chapter 9 Salvatore
Salvatore
High Water / Blood Sport – Sleep Token
Iknow where the safe is because Ruslan trusts me enough to forget I’m still a Vieri.
That thought has been rotting inside me since he left, and sticks with me as I pace.
I didn’t go looking for the safe—at least that’s the lie I tell myself anyway.
I tell myself I’m only restless because Ruslan isn’t back from his summons yet.
Because he’s left me alone in a villa I know he bought just for us, no matter how much he denies it.
Because I’m left alone too long with my own head.
But I know better.
I go into his study because some part of me has already decided that if I’m going to condemn a man, I should at least have the fucking courage to know exactly what I’m condemning him for.
The room is dim as I step inside, and I don’t flick on the light because he’ll see it if he’s coming back.
His books line the wall in no particular order because Ruslan doesn’t care enough for display.
There are ledgers on the shelf, a pistol in the desk drawer, cigarettes in a brass box near the window, and behind a painting next to the shelf is the safe.
He’s never shown it to me. That somehow makes it worse.
I stand in front of the painting for a long moment before I move it aside. My pulse is steady; I hate that. I should be shaking. Shaking would mean there’s still some honest part of me screaming at the rest to stop before this becomes irreversible.
Instead, all I feel is cold. I am my father’s son, after all.
The dial is old but well-kept. I don’t know the combination, but I know Ruslan. I know the dates that matter to him, the numbers he circles back to without realizing. I know enough to try the one that should feel like an omen, but instead, it turns out to be correct.
The lock gives with a heavy click that sounds indecently loud in the room, and for one stupid second, I almost laugh.
The combination is my birthday.
Trust. That’s what this is. Not laziness, or even arrogance. Trust so deep it becomes carelessness. He doesn’t think I’ll do this; he doesn’t suspect that I would ever betray him.
I open the door.
Inside, there’s a gun, cash, a ledger, and a sealed folio tied with a black ribbon. I should shut it, but some rotten, panicked part of me has been looking for a reason since my father mentioned details slipping out of Vieri orbit—details only I should know.
I take the folio, knowing this will either confirm my suspicions or justify my actions.
I find route manifests, notes in Mikhail’s hand, and references to council discussions that should have stayed on the Italian side of the table. I read enough to understand the shape of it and not enough to make myself sick with the full detail.
That’s another lie—I understand more than enough. The leak, the timing, the way certain things only ever start moving after it lands in my hands, and I spend a night in his bed.
My first instinct is still denial. Not because the evidence is weak. Because I love him still, and that’s the humiliation of it.
Even with his family’s work in my hands, even with the shape of his treachery starting to sharpen under my fingers, my mind jumps to explanations that let him stay innocent.
Then I read one line too many, and the denial cracks.
I remember picking up the phone and calling my father to meet me, knowing he was in the small town below, waiting for me.
I remember driving into the town with my hands locked so tight around the steering wheel that my knuckles hurt.
I remember the look of pride on his face when I handed over the folio, and he took pictures of each page.
He doesn’t smile—that would cheapen his victory.
“You understand now,” he says.
No. I understand that I’m a bigger fool than he’s always believed. I understand that Ruslan has been playing me since we met, and even though I know he truly loves me, he never stopped betraying me.
Before I leave, my father informs me that my sister’s marriage to Moretti is dead because I have proven myself useful.
Useful. I hate that word so much, I almost choke on it.
And still, because my sister’s bruises are yellowing beneath the powder, because she looked at me with wide, terrified eyes when she kissed me goodbye, because I am too much my father’s son in all the ways I wish I weren’t, I say nothing that matters.
Now I wait in Ruslan’s villa, knowing I’ve condemned him. All I can think is that the house remembers.
It remembers me opening the safe. It remembers me leaving. It remembers me coming back, placing the folio where it belonged, and standing in the kitchen with my hands braced on the wooden table where he claimed me this morning.
When I finally hear his car on the drive, my whole body goes rigid. Headlights sweep once across the shutters, the engine cuts out, footsteps on gravel, and the front door opening and closing.
The familiar quiet violence of him moving through the house, shrugging off his coat, setting down his keys, and noticing at once that something’s wrong.
I’m standing with my back against the counter, a glass of water in my hand that I haven’t really been drinking from. When I got back, I scrubbed myself raw in the bath and changed into one of his shirts, because apparently there’s no end to the humiliation I’m willing to pile on this night.
The sleeves are rolled, the top buttons are undone, and the whole thing makes me look like I belong to him in a way that, under any other circumstances, would’ve sent heat straight through my blood.
Now, it just feels cruel.
Ruslan takes one look at my face and says, “What happened?”
Straight for the jugular. No game, no smirk. The private summons has stripped him, too, I think. He looks harder now than when he left.
“Nothing,” I lie.
His expression turns flat. “Bullshit.”
My laugh is cold and brief. “You really do only have one word when you don’t like an answer.”
“I have plenty of words.” He steps further into the room, cold blue eyes fixed on mine. “Most of them get ruder from there.”
That almost gets me. Normally, I would snap at that, then he’d smirk and say something filthy before we slip into familiar territory. Tonight, it just deepens the ache in my chest. “I’m tired.”
“You’re also lying.”
“I’m also tired.”
He stops in front of me, close enough that I can smell the cold air and the familiar scent of copper on him. “Salvatore.”
The way he says my name should not still do this to me. Not after everything I found out tonight. I look away first, because if I don’t, he’ll see too much.
He reaches for my hand, takes the glass, and sets it down on the counter next to me. “Talk to me.”
No.
I nearly say it out loud. The word rises all the way to my teeth before I swallow it down.
No. Don’t touch me. Don’t ask me anything. Let me go. We should end this.
But I simply shake my head. “I’m not in the mood for your interrogations tonight. You did it enough this morning with your talks of freedom.”
His jaw flexes once. “And I’m not in the mood to walk back into my house to find the man I love looking like he’s already halfway out the door.”
I cross my arms over my chest and force my voice to be flatter. “Then perhaps you should have chosen a less dramatic lover.”
I hate myself the second the words leave me, but not enough to take them back. Cruelty is easier. If I can make him angry enough, maybe I can survive the next few hours without breaking open. Maybe I can make him pull away first.
His gaze hardens. “That’s a fucking thing to say.”
I shrug one shoulder and immediately regret how cold the gesture looks.
“Salvatore,” he breathes, “don’t do this.”
I glare at him. “Do what?”
“This!” He gestures between us, angry now. “That fucking thing you do where you turn to ice and think if you act cold enough, I’ll stop pushing.”
“Maybe you should.”
“Maybe you should stop giving me reasons to!”
That almost undoes me. Almost. So I do the only thing I can—I get meaner.
“Not everything is about what you want, Dragovich.”
Ruslan stares at me because this is the cold tone I use when we argue at summits or dinners. The tone I use when I want to impress my father with my nonchalance.
“Is this because I left?” he asks, the heat dropping out of his tone. “If this is because of me leaving, you know I can’t—”
“This is not about your summons.”
“Then what the fuck is this about?”
You, I think. My father. Lucia. Your safe, and the way you trust me enough to leave your whole life hidden behind a combination I can guess because I know how your mind works.
I scoff and push him away, needing distance between us, but he catches my wrist before I get two steps. “Don’t walk away from me.”
“Let go,” I say. “I don’t owe you any answers right now, Ruslan.”
“No, you don’t,” he says, and the volume of his voice doesn’t rise, but the force of him does. “But you owe me enough honesty not to stand here looking at me like I’ve done something unforgivable, when I don’t even know what fucking crime I’m meant to be apologizing for.”
The word unforgivable slams through me, and for a second, I think I’m going to spill it all. The truth presses up against my teeth, desperate to become sound.
Ruslan must see something in my face, because he goes pale under the anger. “Salvatore, what is it?”
I pull once under his grip and shake my head again, but he doesn’t let go. If anything, he pulls me closer, and I can’t do anything but sink into him.
“I was in my head,” I lie, my words muffled by his shirt. “You left me alone in all this silence, with not even the nightlife making a sound, and I… my mind wouldn’t shut up—”
He calms me with his lips against mine. It isn’t gentle—God, I am glad it isn’t. It’s ugly, desperate, and a little punishing. His mouth is moving against mine as if he’s trying to force the truth out of me through pressure alone.
I answer him just as hard because I don’t know how to do this any other way now. Not tonight. Not with betrayal still sour on both our tongues.