Chapter Forty
Matteo
W hen I storm back into Firenze that evening, my father’s body has been moved inside. He was discovered last night, but I gave Enzo the order to act like he’d hadn’t and to leave him outside until the morning. If it were up to me, we’d hang his corpse from the outer walls and let it rot there until the end of time, but I have to show some measure of respect to the previous Don.
I look down at his hacked up body.
Da Silva really did a number on him. His face bears Joker-like cuts out of both sides of his mouth, his features mangled by days of beatings. That’s nothing compared to the way his carotid artery has been absolutely butchered. It was hacked at with a couple of dozen deep knife wounds, speaking to a level of rage I’m very familiar with for having felt it less than two hours ago.
Whatever my father said under torture, Thiago clearly didn’t like it.
“We’re going to need to retaliate,” Enzo says coolly, shoving dispassionately at my father’s corpse with the toe of his dress shoe.
“I know.”
“Regardless of the fact that da Silva unwittingly did you a favor, if we don’t send a strong message, the rest of the Underworld will think it’s open season on the Famiglia .”
“I know,” I repeat.
The two of us leave the basement where we’re keeping the body and head up to the bar. Every person we meet stops and inclines their head, whispering a respectful “ Don ” as I pass. The title is mine now. It sounds and feels as good as I always imagined.
“It doesn’t matter that he’s her brother, Matteo. You can’t let that affect your decision here.”
As soon as I walked into the club, I told Enzo everything that went down this morning, including Valentina’s true identity. I’d already trusted him with the little I knew about her up to this point—withholding only her name since she’d told me it wasn’t her real one. He’d raised a brow and only harrumphed when I told him Thiago was her brother, wisely choosing to keep his opinions to himself.
Sounds like he’s in the mood to share now.
“I’m well aware of that, stronzo . I don’t give a fuck that Thiago is Valentina’s brother, but I do care that he’s the current king of the Underworld and in a much stronger position than we are. I’m not risking the Famiglia ’s future on an ill thought out quest to fake avenge my father’s death when what I should really be doing is shaking da Silva’s hand. I need to think about how to play this, that’s all.”
Goosebumps raise on the back of my neck, sending a delicious little shiver down my spine. I look up to see Valentina walk into the VIP area. My eyes track her as she strides confidently to the bar, hair swinging in a ponytail and hips swaying appetizingly from side to side.
“Maybe we should go after his wife,” Enzo suggests.
“No.” My eyes remained glued to Valentina as she sets her things behind the bar.
“Why not? We wouldn’t hurt her, just scare her a bit.”
“Because men don’t react particularly well to their wives being targeted, Enzo.” Valentina looks up and gives me the secret little smile she reserves only for me, the one that pumps air straight into my lungs. “I know I wouldn’t,” I muse as she comes towards me.
“Marina isn’t your wife yet.”
I slice a black glare his way, but my words are cut off by Valentina’s approach. He never misses an opportunity to remind me where my focus should be.
“Hi, Enzo,” she says, glancing uncertainly at him.
He nods at her. “Valentina.”
She looks quickly between him and I, her cheeks reddening. “I’m sorry for lying to you.”
Bending, Enzo takes her hand and brings it to his mouth, looking up into her eyes as he says, “I’m happy I’m finally going to get to know the real you.”
I shove him away before his lips make contact with her skin. “Fuck off, Enzo.”
He laughs and straightens, winking at Valentina and pulling a growl out of me. “As your best friend and cousin, I thought I’d at least be allowed to kiss her hand.”
I curl an arm around her waist and pull her into me.
“Not if you want to keep your lips.”
“They’re very nice lips. Women everywhere would mourn their loss if they were to suddenly become unavailable.” Another teasing wink in Valentina’s direction.
“And stop with the winking.”
Enzo tsks. “One official day as Don and you’re already too comfortable in the role of dictator, cugino . Careful there, we know it runs in the family.”
Valentina watches with a bemused smile as Enzo and I go back and forth, jabbing and jeering at each other like we’re still teenagers.
“Alright, enough,” I finally order, putting a hand up. “Leni, tell Enzo about your Adriana theory. He’s got some updates of his own to share.”
Valentina takes a deep breath and turns towards Enzo. “I think Adriana might be alive. I know,” she adds quickly when he lifts a brow in surprise. “I don’t know if she’s alive now, but I’m almost certain she wasn’t immediately murdered. The finger they sent my father wasn’t hers. I can’t think of any reason they’d do that other than to make him think she was dead so he wouldn’t look for her in the right places.”
“The right places being?”
“I think they trafficked her.” It costs her to say the words out loud. “She is–was–beautiful. Young. Healthy. Based on the other photos in his drawer, she’s exactly the type of girl Rocco was looking to sell. That also explains why they wouldn’t cut off her finger—it would have impacted her value.”
He hums in acknowledgment of her theory. “Well, the good news is I’m pretty sure we’ve tracked down the trafficking ring in question.”
Valentina gives an excited little squeak.
“How?” I ask, although I’m hardly surprised. There’s a reason I chose him to lead the search efforts and it’s not just because he’s my closest friend.
“We started with good old fashioned Google. Two years ago, these three women were rescued from a drug den as part of a separate bust. They’d been held captive there by the drug runners. We tracked them down and interviewed them. It took a couple of days to get them to talk, but eventually they told us they’d each been put up for auction and bought. They were stripped naked, forced to wear a number on their chests, then were paraded in front of dozens of men until they were sold. Two of the women were foreigners here illegally so they couldn’t tell me anything about the house, but the third was English. She told me it was in Chelsea.”
“Chelsea?” Valentina asks, her tone shocked.
It’s surprising to hear of a potential human trafficking ring existing in one of the wealthier neighborhoods of London, but the seedy underbelly is often much closer to us than we think.
“She was positive that’s where it was. So I went back through Rocco’s bank statements and found routine deposits into his account from an L.L.C. in Chelsea called Femina Fortis . It’s Latin for ‘strong woman’,” he explains, anger simmering beneath his words. “Fucking animals.”
“Do they have a registered address?” Valentina questions, not letting herself get distracted by the grotesque nature of the L.L.C.’s chosen name.
“They do.”
Valentina inhales a breath so sharp, she seemingly forgets to exhale. For a moment, she’s perfectly still.
Then, she turns to me.
“Let’s go,” she says breathlessly. There’s an imploring note running just beneath the surface of her voice.
“No.” The look she gives me turns wounded. “Don’t look at me like that, cara . I’m not letting you walk into what may very well be a sex trafficking den without knowing what we’re getting ourselves into first.” She opens her mouth but I cut her off. “Give us a few days to figure out the best approach and then we’ll go, you have my word.”
Valentina nods slowly. Her reticence is clearly written on her face, but so is the fact that she knows I’m right. “Okay.” She nods again, as if having come to a decision. “Okay. I’ve waited two years, I can wait a few more days.” She turns to Enzo and hugs him. “Thank you,” she tells him, the words heavy with gratitude.
When she releases him, she turns to me. I cup her cheek gently, completely enamored by the new twinkle I find in her eye. She’s so abuzz with fresh energy, I can feel a spark running through her skin.
“One step closer,” I murmur.
“Thank you.” She covers my hand with hers and squeezes it tightly, speaking straight from the heart, “ Gracias .”
“Don’t thank me until we’ve found her, cara .”
She looks furtively around to make sure no one is looking, then presses her lips to mine in what has to be one of the most chaste kisses I’ve received in my life. Still, I feel the entire foundation of my being tremble. One kiss from her unleashes a series of earthquakes that roar and groan as they smash and destroy everything I’ve always thought mattered, revealing the true treasures beneath it instead.
I’m in deep, deep shit.
I watch her walk back to the bar for the start of her shift, completely captivated.
Enzo watches me watch her. We stand there silently for a couple of minutes. I could stay like this for hours, just watching her float from one end of the bar to the other, longing burning low and potent in my gut.
This is her last shift. Now that I know who she is, there’s no reason for her to continue the ruse that brought her through the doors of Firenze in the first place.
I’m going to miss being able to look across the room and knowing I’d find her there. I’m going to miss having her close, accessible whenever I need.
I’m going to miss her .
“What are you going to do, cugino ?” Enzo asks, correctly guessing my train of thought. “Marchesani is demanding we set up a meeting with Marina this week.”
His words close like a noose around my neck.
“I need a favor,” I rasp, my throat desperately dry.
He answers instantly. “Anything.”
The easy lift at the corner of his lips falters, his mouth settling into a serious line when he sees the look in my eye.
“Marry the Marchesani girl on my behalf.” My gaze goes back to Valentina, my eyes only capable of looking elsewhere for a few seconds at a time. I stare at the woman I really want. The one I’m afraid will start to slip through my fingers after her last shift. The one I can’t bring myself to give up even though I’ve always known I would have to. “Please.”
The only person who could ever understand the impossible impasse that lies before me is Enzo. Something sharp and heavy flashes through his gaze, something that reflects the same weight I carry in my eyes, in my very soul.
He claps my shoulder and shakes his head slowly. “You know I’d do anything for you, Matteo, including this. But Emiliano will never accept it. It doesn’t matter how much power I hold as your second in command. You’re the Don . He won’t settle for anything less than that title for his daughter.”
“But you would do it if he accepted the change?”
“Of course,” he replies instantly. He sighs, running an exhausted hand over his face. “I knew we would be standing here having this exact conversation one day. I really hoped that I’d be able to help you find a way out when we did, but I have nothing. You have to marry Marina.”
I turn to face him, my chest squeezing at the top of my ribcage. “What do you mean, you knew?”
Enzo gives me a look that can only be described as being profoundly unimpressed. “I listened to you talk about your pavona for a year and a half, cugino . Every fucking day for well over five hundred days. I don’t think you realize how often you talked about her—at one point, I literally got down on my knees, knit my hands together, and sent an actual prayer straight up to God himself asking that he send her back to you so I could finally get some peace and quiet. Must have prayed a little too hard, because I got exactly what I asked for.”
Enzo runs a hand over his jaw to hide his smile.
“I can fuck who I want, marry who I want, but you ?” He emphasizes the word intentionally, as if telling me I need a reminder of exactly who I am. “We always knew you’d need to marry strategically. I never doubted your commitment to that, never thought that anything could make you waver or blink, even when you were talking about her like you had a daily word quota you needed to hit, simply because I knew no other emotion could ever come close to the hate that drove you.”
“Then you found each other again and I saw the way you looked at her.” He pauses, inhaling a long, slow breath as he rakes his hand through his hair. “That’s when I knew we were in trouble. You stare at her with a restless, unyielding sort of hunger, as if just the sight of her replenishes your soul.” He blows out an aggrieved breath now. “You know you’re not supposed to look directly at the sun, right? They taught us that in kindergarten, but you must have been out sick that day because you stand there looking right into the equivalent of your sun with the dopiest, most lovesick grin on your face, uncaring that you’re getting your metaphorical corneas absolutely scorched to a crisp in the process. Look at you, you’re doing it right fucking now,” he says, waving at my face exaggeratingly. “You can’t look away. It would be adorable if you were staring at the right woman.” A conflicted expression crosses his features. He hesitates for a moment, then adds, “I’ve never seen you look at anyone like that, romantically or otherwise, mostly because I thought if Rocco succeeded at one thing in his miserable life, it was killing that part of you.”
“So when you ask how I knew this conversation would happen, my answer is because this was never going to be just fun, no matter your assurances to the contrary,” he continues. “Why do you think I’ve been so against this from the beginning? I had a front row seat to watching you fall deeper and deeper, knowing your journey together would be short, the destination inevitable and painful. I warned Valentina too. I told her this would end terribly for her, but she was as willfully blind to reality as you were, even when she knew her own family would be another barrier. And now we’re here, with you asking me for a favor you know is impossible and me having to tell you the world’s most long winded ‘I told you so’ instead.”
Anger surges through me in defense of Valentina, catching me completely unawares.
One second we’re standing facing each other, the next I’m gripping him by the collar and ramming him into a nearby wall.
“You warned her away from me?” I snarl.
Enzo glares up at me.
“No, I tried to protect her, Matteo. To protect you , as I have always done,” he grits through a clenched jaw. “If you weren’t completely devoid of all subjectivity on the topic, you’d be able to see that I was right to do so.” He shoves me violently off him with both hands. I stumble back two steps, my chest rising and falling with every angry breath. “Starting a relationship in your situation was selfish, and you fucking know it. This is going to end the only way it was ever going to end—with you breaking her heart.” Enzo straightens his collar and tugs at his sleeves until both are perfect once more. Then he looks at me. “And yet, even knowing how you’re going to hurt her, it’s somehow your position I envy the least.”
I scowl, glaring at him. “Why?”
Enzo gives me a pitying look, one that reaches far inside my chest and twists at my insides.
“You’re going to sacrifice the woman you love for the future you’ve spent your entire adult life working towards, and it’s going to shatter your own heart in the process. That’s not something I look forward to having to witness you go through.”
I freeze. For a moment, it’s as if his words have physically struck me. “Who said I love her?”
“You did, Matteo. With every decision you’ve made since the day you met her.”
I stare across the bar at Valentina, as greedy for a glance at her as Enzo described. After one last look, I turn away.
He’s right.
I’m holding onto something we clearly knew had no future from the beginning. It can’t continue this way. Time to make a change.
“Set up a meeting with Marchesani for next week,” I order.