Chapter 25
VALENTINA
Imake it upstairs, shut myself in the guestroom, and immediately want to break something expensive.
Thankfully, Sebastian owns a lot of expensive things, so I have options.
I don’t actually break anything though, mostly because I’m not a child and because I refuse to give him the satisfaction.
Instead, I grab my bag from the closet and start packing with absolutely no plan.
Leaving Sebastian’s house right now is stupid. I know that. I also know staying here for one more second might make me say something so ugly we never come back from it.
I throw random things into my bag. I don’t know how long I’ll be gone, or even where I’m going. Mostly I just need to do something with my hands.
I’m tired of men stepping into rooms I’m not in and deciding what happens next.
Tired of hearing about plans for my own life.
Tired of being pregnant and scared and expected to be reasonable.
I change fast, yanking on jeans and a sweatshirt, stuffing my feet into sneakers without bothering to find socks.
I take the back stairs because I don’t want to pass his office. If I see him, I’ll either cave or start round two of the fight, and I have no faith in my ability to make either option dignified.
The garage is dim when I reach it. My car sits where I left it, boxed between two black SUVs that are probably armored. I get in, shut the door, and sit there with both hands on the wheel while the smarter, less dramatic part of my brain tells me to go back upstairs.
I start the car anyway. The gate guard steps out when I pull up, his face already serious.
“Ms. Moretti,” he says, leaning slightly toward my window. “Everything okay?”
For half a second, I consider telling him the truth. I’m furious, humiliated, terrified, and trying very hard not to think about the fact that my ex may be close enough to know my movements better than I do. Instead, I press a hand over my stomach and force my face to tighten.
“I’m having cramps,” I say. “I need to go to the hospital.”
His expression changes immediately, and I hate myself a little for how well it works.
“I’ll call Mr. DeLuca.”
“No,” I say, much too quickly. “Please don’t. I don’t want to wake him if it’s nothing. I’m already anxious enough.”
He hesitates, which is his job, and probably his last decent instinct of the night.
“I can have someone drive you.”
“I don’t need a driver to go to the doctor.”
It comes out too sharp. He notices. I soften my voice before he can think too hard about it.
“I promise I’ll call if something’s wrong.”
He looks miserable as he steps back toward the gatehouse. Then the gate opens, and I drive through before he changes his mind.
The second I’m on the other side, I almost turn around. I’m still furious. That hasn’t changed. I just suddenly understand that getting through the gate was the easy part, and everything after this is me alone with the consequences of my own bad judgment.
Los Angeles is strange late at night. Restaurants spill people onto sidewalks. Valets jog between cars like they’re training for a very stupid marathon. A group of women in tiny dresses laughs outside a club while one of them tries to keep her heels from catching in the pavement.
I keep checking my mirrors. There’s no one I recognize behind me, but that’s not much of a comfort these days.
When I pull into my driveway, the anger has cooled enough for common sense to make its case. My house looks normal. Porch light on. Front door closed. Windows dark. Nothing on the mat. No flowers, no note, no reminder that Adrian knows exactly how to make me feel insane.
I sit in the car for almost a full minute before I force myself to get out.
The alarm is armed when I open the door. The lock is fine. The entryway looks untouched. I move through the house anyway, flipping on lamps as I go, checking each room with the kind of focused paranoia Sebastian would probably compliment me on.
Everything is exactly where I left it, and somehow that feels worse.
I wanted proof I was being ridiculous. I wanted to walk in, see my familiar furniture and my stupid decorative lemons, and feel like myself again.
Instead I’m standing in the middle of my own kitchen remembering a locked door doesn’t mean safe.
Adrian took that too.
I sit at the island and pull out my phone. I am not calling Sebastian. Absolutely not. I’m not calling Nico either. He’d call Sebastian before I finished the sentence, then show up with that wounded older-brother face that makes me feel guilty and homicidal at the same time.
Gia is the only reasonable option. She answers on the fourth ring, voice thick with sleep.
“If this is about linens, I’m blocking you.”
“I did something stupid,” I say.
There’s a pause, then rustling on her end.
“Oh God. How stupid?”
“I left Sebastian’s.”
“Valentina.”
“I know.”
“Please tell me you’re sitting in a Starbucks parking lot or someplace public with lots of witnesses.”
I wince. “I’m at my house.”
For a second, there’s nothing but silence. Then I hear a drawer open and something hit the floor.
“Jesus Christ,” she says. “You are lucky I love you.”
“I’m aware.”
“No, I don’t think you are.” Her voice gets sharper as she wakes up. “Are you alone?”
“Yes.”
“Is the door locked?”
“Yes.”
“Check the cameras.”
“I was going to.”
“You absolutely were not.”
I pull up the doorbell app because she’s right, and because this is not the night to admit that out loud. The porch is empty. The driveway is empty. The street looks normal.
“Everything looks fine,” I say.
“Great. Fine is my favorite security protocol.”
“You’ve been spending too much time around Sebastian.”
“I’ve spent literally no time around Sebastian. I just have common sense. Anyway, I’m coming over.”
“You don’t have to.”
“Val, I say this with love, but shut up. Sit down, lock everything, and don’t open the door unless you see my face on the camera.”
“Yes, Mom.”
“I mean it,” she says, and her voice shifts enough that my smile disappears.
“I’m sorry,” I say, and for once, I don’t try to make it smaller with a joke.
“You can apologize when I get there. Preferably with snacks.”
Then she hangs up before I can argue.
The next half hour is miserable. I check the doorbell camera, then the back camera, then the side camera, then the doorbell again. I make myself sit at the kitchen island and last maybe ten seconds before getting back up to check the locks. Twice.
At some point, I start thinking about Sebastian.
I don’t want to. I’m still mad at him, and thinking about him softens the anger in ways I’m not prepared to allow.
But I can picture his face when he realizes I’m gone.
The fear first, probably. Then the fury.
Then that horrible calm he gets when he’s deciding exactly how many people are about to suffer for disappointing him.
I wish I didn’t know him well enough to picture it.
My phone buzzes in my hand, and I jump hard enough to almost drop it.
Here.
I pull up the doorbell camera. She’s on the porch, her hair is in a messy knot, and she looks pissed off enough to take on a full security team with one hand and a travel mug in the other.
I zoom in, checking behind her. The porch is clear. The driveway is clear. There’s nothing by the hedges and nothing near the side gate. I unlock the door.
Gia starts talking before I even get it fully open.
“Before you say anything, I’m leading with love, but you are out of your damn mind.”
Then she stops.
Her eyes shift past me, widening.
For half a second, I don’t understand what she sees. Something moves behind her.
“Gia!”
The word barely leaves my mouth before a man steps out from the side of the porch and hits her. The sound is ugly and dull, and she drops so fast my brain refuses to process it. One second she’s there, annoyed and alive and ready to yell at me. The next she’s on the ground.
I lunge for her.
A hand closes around my arm and yanks me outside hard enough to send pain shooting through my shoulder. I twist, trying to reach Gia, but the grip tightens, and the smell hits me before I see his face.
Expensive cologne that makes my stomach turn.
“No,” I gasp.
Adrian pulls me back against him, his mouth near my ear. “Hello, sweetheart.”
I don’t freeze. I will at least give myself that. I slam my heel down on his foot and scream as loud as I can. He curses, and his grip loosens just enough for me to rip one arm free. I swing back and catch his face with my nails, hard enough to feel skin give.
“You little bitch.”
“Get off me!”
I try to throw myself toward Gia, but he grabs me around the waist and hauls me back. She still isn’t moving. I can’t tell if she’s breathing, and the panic that tears through me is worse than anything he could do to my arm.
“Gia!” I scream again.
Adrian clamps a hand over my mouth. “Enough.”
I bite him.
He snarls and jerks his hand back. For one second I get a good look at him under the porch light.
He still has the same handsome face that fooled so many people, but the polish is cracked.
His collar sits wrong. There’s sweat near his hairline.
The scratches I left on his cheek are already turning red, and his eyes are too bright, like he hasn’t slept and doesn’t care.
This is not the controlled Adrian from New York. This is what’s left when all his charm stops working.
“Sebastian is going to kill you,” I say.
His face changes.
Then the cloth comes up.
I see it too late. White, folded, already wet with something sharp and chemical. I turn my head, but he presses it hard over my mouth and nose, one arm locked around me.
I fight like hell. I claw at his wrist, kick at his legs, and twist hard enough that pain shoots through my side. I try not to breathe, but my lungs burn and my body betrays me. The porch light blurs. The open doorway tilts. Gia’s hand is visible on the floor, still and pale against the dark wood.
I try to say her name, but nothing comes out right.
Adrian’s voice follows me down.
“Finally,” he says. “Let’s go home.”