Chapter Forty-One
Valentina
F or the third time today, my call to Aurora’s phone goes straight to voicemail. It’s unlike her not to immediately call back or text to let me know if she’s busy.
Anxiety gnaws at my insides. I don’t want to think that we were only friends because of our connection to Firenze , and that we won’t see each other anymore now that I no longer work there. It’s only been three days since my last shift and yet that’s the last time I heard from her.
Picking up my phone once more, I dial the number for the main VIP lounge and settle into the couch as it rings.
“ Prego ?” Stefano answers.
“Stefano, it’s V– it’s Melody.” I smack my palm to my forehead. Apparently three days away from the club is enough time for me to almost immediately blow my cover.
“Ah, just the person I was about to call,” he says, surprising me.
“Why’s that?” I ask, twirling my ponytail around my finger.
“Capri missed her last three shifts. I can’t be a man down at the bar for a third night in a row. I know you quit, but is there any chance you can come in and cover for her?”
I jerk upright. “She just didn’t show? She didn’t call in to say she was sick?”
“Who? Capri? No, but dancers can be flaky. No offense,” he adds, almost as an afterthought.
“Has she ever done this before?”
“Well, no…” he answers slowly, seemingly picking up on the clear worry in my tone. “But when she didn’t show after you left, I assumed she didn’t want to work here without you.”
“So you haven’t heard from her or seen her in the last three days?”
“No.”
“And you weren’t worried?” I ask, my tone rising steadily in octaves. “You didn’t think to sound the alarm?”
“Over a missing stripper? Hardly.”
I hang up on him and immediately call Matteo. There’s a ringing in my ears so loud, I barely hear him pick up.
“ Cara— ” he answers with a smile in his voice.
“Aurora’s missing,” I nearly shout into the phone.
Silence. “Who’s Aurora?”
“ Aurora . Capri. Aurora is-–” I choke on a sob. “Aurora is Capri. She’s–she’s–”
My heart races so badly, I can feel all the blood rush to my head. My vision tunnels, my hands growing clammy. This is all too familiar, it’s like reliving a different version of two years ago.
“Breathe,” Matteo instructs through the phone. Even through the haze of my panic attack, I can hear the alarm in his voice. “ Breathe , Leni. In through your nose, out through your mouth.”
“She—”
“Don’t try to talk yet. Just breathe for me, cara . Please.”
I do as he instructs, holding on to the soothing notes of his voice, clinging to them to pull me back to the surface.
In and out. In and out. In and out .
It’s not the voice in my head—it’s him, instructing me inhale after exhale to breathe. Slowly, my heart starts to settle and the black throttling my vision begins to recede.
“Good girl,” Matteo praises softly, sending an entirely different kind of physical reaction through my body. “I hate being away from you when you have one of those.”
He’s been with me for the two other panic attacks I’ve had since I came to Firenze , but I’ve barely seen him the last few days. Being Don is keeping him busy.
“Tell me about Aurora.”
“You know her as Capri. Her real name is Aurora. She’s missing, Matteo. No one at work has seen her and she hasn’t answered my calls since before my last shift at the club. I know you probably think I’m overreacting—”
“I don’t think that at all,” he replies. “Hold one moment, Len.” I hear him pick up the phone on his desk and dial. “Enzo. Check the security cameras from seventy two hours ago. We’re looking for any sightings of Capri. Yes, the dancer. Grazie, cugino .” He hangs up and comes back on our call. “The tapes erase after three days so we’re right at the cutoff, but let’s see what we can find.”
“I know something happened to her, Matteo. I know it.” I choke back another sob. “This is exactly like last time.”
“We have more information now. We’ll find her,” he assures me. “If Aurora was taken, then it had to be by someone on the inside. Whoever Rocco’s accomplice was.”
“Guido,” I gasp.
I can feel him pause on the other end of the line. “What about him?”
“He hit her,” I say.
“He, what?” Matteo asks, voice dangerously soft.
“He used to hit her. He hasn’t touched her since I joined because I kept her close.” I bring a hand up to my mouth. “Remember the bruising around my neck my first week?”
That memory seems so far away and from so long ago, it feels like it happened in another life altogether.
“Yes,” he growls menacingly.
“Arabella didn’t do that, Guido did.”
“ What ? Why the fuck didn’t yo—”
“He also threatened me,” I continue. “He told me there are worse things than death. He specifically said there were ‘worst places he could send me’, and I think he was pimping some of the dancers. I completely forgot about it until now. Do you think he was talking about Femina Fortis ?”
“You should have told me he touched you,” Matteo snarls. “If I’d known, I would have sent him on an express train to meet his fucking maker.”
I tense. “You’re right, it’s my fault.”
“No, it’s his fault. You, like Aurora, are a victim. Hold on,” he adds. “Go ahead, Enzo. Leni’s also on the phone.”
“There’s footage of Capri being dragged out the back alley three nights ago.”
“By Guido?” Matteo asks.
“And Amadeo. Two men to subdue a girl barely above five feet,” he spits, disgusted.
Matteo curses loudly, slandering both of the men.
“We need to go to Femina Fortis , now ,” I urge. “We can’t afford to wait anymore. She’s already been there three days, I– I can’t even imagine what she must be going through.”
“Enzo—” Matteo starts.
“The car will be ready in two,” he answers.
His line goes dead.
“We’ll be at your flat in twenty minutes to pick you up,” Matteo tells me. “But Valentina.” Anytime Matteo uses my full name, my stomach tightens in anticipation. I know it means he wants me to listen. “I need you to do exactly what I say when we get there. Before you interrupt me and tell me that you can handle yourself, I know you can, cara . That’s not why I’m asking—it’s because I’m going to be distracted with you there,” he confesses. “That has nothing to do with whether you’re capable or not, and everything to do with the fact that you’re mine and I need to protect what’s mine. So please, if I tell you to hide, do it, and if I tell you to run, run .”
The urgency in his tone convinces me.
“Okay, Phantom. I’ll do what you say.”
He groans. “Good, but don’t say those words to me again. The last thing I need is to roll up to a rescue op with a rock hard cock.”
???
The address the Femina Fortis L.L.C is registered to is right in the heart of the most affluent parts of London. You wouldn’t need to be familiar with the city to know that—the streets are lined with large, stucco-fronted homes, each with carefully manicured and maintained flower beds. Here, perfection is the price of entry.
Even though we’re mere blocks from the high street, there’s a quiet in the air that speaks to the wealth that resides behind each grand doorway.
Femina Fortis operates out of one such of these homes. The last house on the street, it abuts a narrow archway that leads into a small, cobbled side alley. From the outside, it looks like every other neighboring house. It’s only the number and type of cars that set it apart—three black vans line the alleyway, as if in wait. A scared shiver rushes down my spine thinking about what, or who, they’re being used to transport.
“Do we know how many bodies are inside?” Matteo asks, screwing a silencer on the muzzle of his gun.
We’re parked a couple houses down from our target, Enzo in the driver’s seat, Matteo in the passenger seat, and me in the back.
Enzo frowns down at the portable monitor in his hands. “The thermal camera isn’t picking up anything. They must have reinforced their walls with steel or concrete.” He looks up at the front door. “I don’t like this. We haven’t been able to get shit in the last three days—no video, no audio, no mapping. That house is a fortress, we need to call for more men.”
“I’m not having a full fledged gunfight in the middle of Chelsea and that’s exactly what’s going to happen if I call for reinforcements. No, we do this alone. I want to deal with Amadeo and Guido myself.”
“Then how do we do this?” he asks.
Matteo shoves the gun into the back of his waistband. “I’m going in.”
“That doesn’t exactly answer my question.”
“Alone,” he clarifies.
“No.” I shake my head categorically. “You’re not going in there by yourself.”
Matteo twists in his seat and looks at me. “Remember what you promised me, Leni. You’ll do what I say.” My jaw clenches angrily and the ghost of a smile wipes across his lips. “I’m not going in there guns first, I’m going as a customer,” he explains. “They’ll welcome the new Don of the Italian Mafia with open arms. My father and brother were customers and business associates, so why would they assume I’m anything other than exactly that?”
“And what if Amadeo or Guido see you?” Enzo questions. “What then?”
“Same reasoning. They’ll have no reason to think I’m there for any other reason but to…shop.” Matteo grimaces. “When I see Aurora, I’ll bid on her until I win. This is the safest way to do this. The only way,” he adds.
“No,” I repeat, still shaking my head. “What if something happens to you? How are we supposed to help you?”
“I’ll call Enzo’s phone. Let’s leave the line open, that way you can hear everything.” He glances from me over to his cousin. “But Enzo, if something does go wrong and you need to come in,” he says, “you leave Valentina in the car.”
“What?” I sit up abruptly, nearly flying over the center console in the process.
“You got it,” Enzo replies.
“Absolutely n—”
A shrill scream pierces the air, stopping my objection cold.
All three of our heads whip towards the direction where the sound came from. The alley.
I freeze. I recognize that voice even in a scream.
Enzo peers through the window. “What the fuck was tha—”
A second, louder scream tears through the quiet evening.
“Aurora!” I shout, reaching for the door handle.
“Valentina, no !” Matteo bellows after me, fumbling for the buttons that allow him to lock the backseat from the front.
He’s not fast enough.
I’m pushing the door open and scrambling out of the car before he’s even turned away. I stumble and my knee hits the asphalt, hard. Pain explodes up my femur, but I push to my feet and run.
Behind me, I hear two doors hurtle open as both men come flying after me. “ Fuck ,” Matteo curses.
“Aurora!” I scream again, rounding the street corner.
When I cross the flower adorned doorway into the side alley, I see her. She’s being dragged kicking and screaming towards one of the black vans we saw earlier. It takes two men to hold her arms, a third to shove her forward, each a full head taller than her.
I can hardly believe that it’s her, that we arrived just in time before she was moved to another location, but I don’t stop running. Aurora’s head whips around when she hears me shout her name a third time. Her eyes go from wide and terrified to relieved and full of hope.
My arrival surprises the men enough that they stop moving. There’s no sign of Guido. Of the three, the only one I recognize is Amadeo. He stands furthest away from me, so even though he’s the one I want to kill first, he’s not the one I go for.
With a practiced flick of my forearm, my blade slips out of my sleeve and into my palm. I grasp it in my rage-filled fist and hoist it above my head as I leap for the man closest to me. He stares up at me with a still shocked expression on his face as he watches me descend towards him. I’m not sure what surprises him more, my appearance or my knife.
Either way, he doesn’t react until I hit his chest and wrap my legs around his waist. Even then, all he does is look down in shock. By the time he looks back up at me, I’ve already stabbed him twice.
He releases Aurora and stumbles backwards, taking me with him. I roar in his face like a crazed woman as I keep stabbing him. Blood explodes from his veins towards me. Warm and sticky, it coats my face and my clothes.
It takes him a while to realize he should be screaming. I don’t think Mensa will find any of its members missing after I’m through with him.
Grasping the hilt of the knife with both hands, I lift it above my head, gather all the rage thrashing through my body and use it to plunge the blade into the middle of his throat. It pierces through his trachea and larynx and comes out the other side. The man falls backwards and hits the ground with me on top of him.
His eyes are wide, glassy, and frozen in fear.
Dead.
Dispatched back down to Hell where he came from. One down, two to go.
I’m ripped off the dead man and slammed so hard into the alley wall, my vision goes temporarily black. I blink until I can see again, finding the other man that was holding Aurora before me. He crushes my throat in his fist and uses it to slide me up the wall until my legs dangle off the ground. I’m immediately choking, the airway to my lungs entirely cut off.
“You’re a pretty little thing,” he coos. His other hand finds my waist and slides upwards towards my breasts. “I think we’ll take you too.”
His height puts his body completely out of my reach. I try stabbing at him, but he slaps the knife clean out of my hand. My eyes bulge as my brain becomes deprived of oxygen, my vision turning spotty.
Pop .
Pop .
I hear what sounds like two quiet puffs of air and then half his face just…disappears.
One second he’s entirely there, the next the right side of his skull is missing. His lifeless body crumples to the ground and his hand loosens from around my throat in the process.
I collapse to my knees, retching and coughing and sucking air desperately back into my lungs.
Hands grip my upper arms and yank me roughly to my feet before I’m engulfed in a pair of strong, familiar arms. I don’t need to see his face to know it’s him. I couldn’t even if I wanted to. Matteo crushes me into his chest, his heart beating wildly against mine.
“I’m going to whip your ass black and blue for this when we get home,” he whispers harshly, squeezing me tighter.
My arms close around his waist and I burrow my face into his chest with a sigh. Blood smears across his pristinely white dress shirt as I snuggle closer.
I push against his torso, but he doesn’t release me. Looking up, I find his jaw set, his eyes closed, and a harrowed expression on his face.
“I’m okay,” I assure him, my tone steady.
“I’m not. So just give me a fucking minute and stay still.” His voice is naked with emotion.
A low, approving rumble rolls up Matteo’s chest when I relax into his arms. He holds me for another minute before he kisses the top of my head and steps back.
Green eyes meet mine with a hard stare.
“Are you mad at me?” I’m not a fan of how small my voice comes out when I ask the question.
Behind Matteo, Enzo has Amadeo pinned to the ground with a knee to his back. He’s alive but unconscious, with a massive gash on his forehead that’s leaking blood onto the cobblestones.
Aurora sits on the cobblestones in nothing but her bra and underwear, crying softly into her hands. Enzo shrugs his jacket off and wraps it around her bare shoulders.
“No,” Matteo answers, drawing my gaze back to him.
“Then why are you looking at me like that?”
His eyes never left me. I don’t think he’s even blinked since I stepped out of his arms.
“I’m scorching my corneas.”
I think I misheard him. “Huh?”
Matteo makes a noise of pure frustration. He grips my jaw in his fist and jerks me to him, pressing a forceful kiss to my lips that makes me moan. “You’re impulsive,” he snaps. Kiss . “Hotheaded.” Kiss . “And so.” Kiss . “Fucking.” Kiss. “ Reckless .”
“You are mad.”
Matteo squeezes my jaw. His eyes drop to my lips and linger. “How can I be mad when those are also all of my favorite things about you?”
I blink slowly, looking up at him as my cheeks redden. He kisses me again, longer this time, more unhurried.
“Every time I have to stop a man from killing you, it shaves a year off my life. Just remember that.” His thumb wipes a few drops of blood off my cheek and he smiles. “I like the feral woman look on you.”
I stare at him, memorizing his features so I can picture him better when we’re apart. My gaze strokes over his face and I take in every single detail of him. I realize that I never want the memories I have of him to grow fuzzy, even though they’re destined to, and that’s when I know for sure what I’ve suspected for a while.
Another command of his I didn’t obey.
I’ve fallen in love with him.
I love him.
It’s so complicated and yet it’s the most simple thing in the world.
“If you two are done making out, we might want to think about getting the fuck out of here,” Enzo drawls.
He has an arm around a shaking Aurora, his foot still on Amadeo’s unconscious back. I run to my friend and she falls into my arms.
“You’re okay,” I soothe, running a hand over her hair as she clings to me. “You’re okay.”
“Thank you,” she chokes out a sob. Her eyes lift to Matteo and she inclines her head deeply. “Thank you so much.”
He nods, then walks over to Amadeo and yanks his head back by his hair. I look back at Aurora, not needing to see what pain he decides to inflict on him.
Something in the air shifts. I can’t quite describe it, but it’s as if the particles converge and electrify, missing only a spark to explode. Danger, that’s what it is.
Danger is upon us, I can feel it.
I’m not the only one.
Matteo straightens slowly.
Goosebumps dance along the back of my neck like the pinpricks of a thousand small knives.
And then he appears.
Tall and imposing, the man materializes at the end of the alley. He’s too far away for me to make out anymore of him than that and yet fear crawls up my spine.
Matteo and Enzo’s guns immediately raise.
The man doesn’t acknowledge either of the weapons trained on him. He doesn’t walk away and he certainly doesn’t run.
No, he strides towards us.
There’s four of us and one of him. I shouldn’t be worried, my pulse should be even. Instead, I feel it thrash at the base of my throat.
He cuts a terrifying figure. His spine is straight as steel, his steps assured and confident. I swallow a gasp when a sliver of light illuminates his face and reveals his eyes.
The right one is entirely black. Cold, almost inhuman and without a flicker of feeling.
But it’s the left one that makes me bite back a scream. A large, jagged scar cuts from the top of his eyebrow, through his eye, and down to the middle of his cheek. The iris is bisected and entirely clouded, like trapped grey smoke swirling around a glass orb.
He’s brutally handsome and downright frightening in equal measure.
“Take another step and I’ll blow your brains out,” Enzo informs him.
The man’s mouth curls into a thin, twisted smile.
Behind him, shadows emerge like the walking dead. They peel away from the dark of night and step into the moonlight as individual men, each with a gun gripped in their hand and pointed at us.
There’s a dozen of them, at least.
I feel an instinctual urge to run, but my feet don’t move. It’s as if they’re glued to the floor.
Matteo shifts his body protectively in front of me, meeting all twelve guns squarely. My heart lurches violently into my throat at the sight. Nausea twists my stomach as a visceral need to protect him pounds through my veins.
I lift a foot, but Matteo proves once more that he knows me in a way no one else does.
“Don’t take another fucking step, Valentina,” he hisses at me under his breath without turning around.
I love you , I want to scream.
His arm is straight, his hand doesn’t waver. He looks unaffected by the firing squad he faces. Only I can see how tense his back is.
I can’t just stand here and do nothing.
“Are you trying to start a war?” Matteo asks.
The man does the strangest thing—he smiles.
Or at least, he attempts to.
Where Matteo’s is charming and charismatic, his is stiff and robot-like. Purely a lift of the muscles with no emotion whatsoever behind it.
I shift uncomfortably on my feet, careful not to move.
“You know who I am,” he notes, an Eastern European accent cutting through his words.
Not a question. An observation.
He crosses his arms over his chest. Tattoos emerge from beneath the cuffs of his shirt; a cobra wrapped around each arm, the heads on the back of his hands, the mouths open and hissing. They writhe grotesquely with his movements, looking for one tense moment very real and alive.
“I guessed. The accent and tattoos confirmed it.”
Whoever this man is, the soldiers who report to him are well trained. None of them shift in the slightest. They stand still as statues, waiting for orders from their boss.
“To answer your question, I didn’t come here for you,” the man announces. “In fact, I didn’t expect to find you here. You’re not the one I want.”
The words immediately chill the air.
Matteo stiffens, his entire body turning rigid. His raised arm starts to shake, and not out of exhaustion. The anger pouring off of him is palpable.
“If you think I’m going to let you lay a fucking finger on her—”
Sharp teeth anchor a sharper smile, cutting him short.
My stomach cramps painfully. Matteo thinks he’s talking about me, but it’s Aurora who was up for auction tonight.
Her face is pale and completely drained of color when I look at her. She’s shaking so terribly, I can hear her teeth clanking together. I grip her arms and shove her behind me.
“‘Her?’” the man questions. He doesn’t look at us. He hasn’t once since he stepped foot in the alley. “I have no interest in either of those girls.”
“Then what the fuck do you want?” Matteo growls.
The man’s gaze slices over to Enzo.
I inhale sharply.
Then his eyes lower to the unconscious man at his feet.
And his entire demeanor shifts.
Where there was only glacial detachment before, emotion suddenly swells venomously to life. Deep, smoldering hatred burns bright and ugly in his gaze. The change is so abrupt, so violent, it gives me whiplash.
His hands twitch like he’s about to wring Amadeo’s neck before he clenches them into brutal fists.
“ Him .”
If Matteo is shocked, he doesn’t show it. Sometimes I forget that he’s just as ruthless as my brother.
“What did he do?” Enzo asks.
There’s an angry spasm in the man’s jaw when he responds. “Nothing that concerns you.”
“It concerns me if a Made man pissed the Serbian Mafia off so badly that you decided to come out of hiding to get him yourself,” Matteo counters. “What slights of his will I need to answer for?”
“This isn’t business, therefore my reprisals will not extend to you,” the Serbian replies. The scar on his face jerks when his eyes narrow on Amadeo. “He crossed me personally .”
I swallow thickly. The clear menace in his tone lets everyone know just how big of a mistake that is.
“Based on the bodies scattered around you and the way your guard has his foot pressed into his neck, I’m assuming you’ve realized what a treacherous cunt your captive is. Trust that whatever you were planning to do to him, I intend to do a thousand times worse. So hand him over to me, Leone. I could kill you all if you’re not feeling cooperative.” Behind him, all twelve men pull the safeties off their guns. “But I’d rather not have to.”
This time, I do take a step forward. Enzo’s angry growl stops me. It shatters the tense silence when he sees Matteo lower his weapon.
The scarred man lifts his hand. The guards pop the safeties back on and put their guns away.
“Threatening me is a surprisingly poor play on your part, strategically,” Matteo answers.
The man’s gaze lifts past Matteo and moves for the first time over to Aurora. He looks her over, then goes back to scrutinize Matteo’s features.
Finding nothing, he slants his gaze to me next.
Matteo shifts, blocking me once more from his view.
“Something tells me there isn’t anyone you wouldn’t threaten for the girl you’re desperate to keep out of my eyesight.” The Serb’s voice takes on an unwavering, unyielding edge. “So you tell me, do you really think I’m foolish? Or are we more alike than you thought?”
I wish I could see Matteo’s face. There’s only so much I can glean of his emotions from his back.
Even without it though, I can tell there’s a certain détente slowly rolling through the air. The tension eases, driven by some silent exchange happening between the two men.
Finally, Matteo waves at Amadeo.
“Fall back,” he orders Enzo.
Enzo does as instructed. He removes his foot from Amadeo’s back and steps away.
Four men immediately detach themselves from the Serb's side and head over to the Italian. They drag him across the alley to their boss and hold him half upright, half slouched before him.
Without a spoken word or order, one of them punches him in the face. Amadeo comes to with a gasp. He takes one look at the Serbian and flinches.
“W-who are you?” he stammers.
The scarred man extends a palm and a guard hands him a gun. The man lifts, aims, and fires a single bullet into Amadeo’s lower back.
“Your worst fucking nightmare.”
Amadeo howls. Frantic, bulging eyes look down past his waist. “M-my legs… I can’t feel my legs!”
“Don’t worry, I’ll make sure you feel the rest of what I’m going to do,” the man seethes.
Amadeo screams, and he keeps screaming until one of the guards stuffs a ball of fabric down his throat.
I use the distraction to press into Matteo’s side and grab his hand. His fingers twine around mine and grip me tightly, but he doesn’t look at me.
“ Stavi ga u kola ,” the man says gutturally.
Even though I don’t understand it, I know it’s an order.
His guards obey, taking a still screaming Amadeo with them out the alley and leaving their boss behind. He turns back towards us, doesn’t look at me and stares at Matteo instead.
He brings two fingers to his forehead and flicks them off in a sarcastic salute. “Until we meet again, Matteo.”
I look over at the man I love. His expression isn’t what I expected. I thought I’d find annoyance, frustration, and wrath.
Instead, there’s intrigue and something even more surprising. A hint of a smile.
“Until then, Darko.”