51. Valentin
51
VALENTIN
Angelo didn’t know shit about BDSM or being a dom, or anything outside of his need for control. It had never been a problem before. Even in clubs, I’d managed our experience in a way that gave him what he needed. But with Ana? I wanted to keep her, and that meant we’d have to figure out how to meet everyone’s needs, including hers.
Merde. I’d dropped an eggshell into the bowl because I’d been so fucking distracted by my own thoughts. A shower ran somewhere in the apartment, and a moment later, Luca strolled into the kitchen, looking well rested and satisfied.
He fucking should be. He’d hogged the blankets and Ana all night, dragging her across his chest and leaving Angelo and I to cuddle up to her like we were begging for scraps.
Luca looked around the kitchen and pursed his lips.
“Can I help you?” I asked, unable to disguise my irritation.
He grinned, the expression lightening his serious features into boyishness. “Ana likes pain au chocolat and an oat milk latte with hazelnut syrup for breakfast. I was hoping to surprise her with breakfast in bed.”
Jealousy, hot and insidious, twisted through my lungs, cutting off my air. I knew everything about Ana’s kinks, what turned her on, what made her whimper and scream and made her pussy clench with desperate need. She’d given me her coffee order, once, and I’d failed to deliver on that request since. If I gave her the choice to walk out of my apartment with him right now, she’d take it without a backward glance.
“There’s a café downstairs,” I admitted quietly.
“What are yours and Angelo’s coffee orders?” he asked casually, but his stiff shoulders gave him away. Perhaps this arrogant puppy was as worried about us as we were about him.
“Espresso for Angelo, latte for me.” I could have made them, but I was beginning to suspect that Luca would be the key to holding onto Ana. Giving him something now would pay off in spades later.
I busied myself with omelets, my insides twisting as I imagined a future for us.
By the time Ana and Angelo made it out of what sounded like a very intense shower, Luca had returned. Her face lit up when he handed over her coffee order.
“You remembered.”
“I remember everything, baby.”
Dégueulasse. Disgusting, sentimental puppy.
Ana dropped Angelo’s hand to give me a good morning kiss.
“You haven’t done your hair yet?” I asked her, noting the pin-straight strands she’d blow-dried, but hadn’t yet styled.
“The better for you to play with,” she said, her lush pink lips curving up with amusement.
Growling, I cupped the back of her head and dragged her to me for a kiss, plundering her mouth with all my pent-up envy and rage and frustration and fucking need .
With her coffee cup in one hand and a pastry in the other, there was nothing she could do but let me yank on her hair until her back arched. I bent over her, scraping my teeth against her lips until she bled.
When I finally let her up, her eyes were glazed with lust, and her lips were bruised and swollen. As they fucking should be.
“ Bonjour, chérie ,” I murmured into her hair, before releasing her.
“Good morning, ma?tre ,” she said, looking deliciously rumpled and soft.
I bent down again to swipe the drop of blood that welled on her lip with my tongue.
“Eat your pastry but get some protein in you too. It’s going to be a long day.”
Ana slipped into the pew beside Maria Ferrari, clasping the widow’s hand in her own. Angelo followed, and I sat at the end.
We’d debated my presence, but Ana put her foot down. “Ginevra Russo and Sofia Oscuro have three husbands each. Pretty sure the head of the Costa clan can show up with a man. Or two, as the case may be.” I didn’t comment on the number of lovers Ana had entertained last night.
Mrs. Ferrari clutched at Ana like a lifeline as the mass went on, each eulogy more poignant than the last, tears dripping beneath her dark sunglasses.
When the moment came to bear the body out of the church, Angelo and I joined the pallbearers. Our contribution had been hastily prepared in a flurry of text messages the night before, but Ana insisted that the symbolism would unite the community in addition to the comfort it would provide the widow.
Ana had a lot of opinions lately.
I didn’t like leaving her behind to walk with Ferrari as we carried the casket to the hearse, but my worries proved unfounded when she slid into the black limo beside me a few moments later.
Angelo faced us and slid up the partition separating us from the driver. Ana lifted her hat off her head and set it beside him on the seat. She ran a hand over her brow, tension evident in the stiff set of her shoulders. Her lips twisted in frustration, but before she could open her mouth, I snapped, “Toy, on your knees.” My instincts screamed that she needed an outlet for her stress.
Her gaze snapped to mine before she gracefully sunk to the floor of the car between Angelo and me. I drew her cheek to my knee, careful not to disturb her elegant chignon, and stroked her cheek.
“Are you okay, princess?”
She shook her head, her skin brushing against the inside of my thigh.
“Use your words, sweetheart.”
“No, ma?tre .” She looked up at me and wrapped her arms around my calf, leaning into my leg as the car started rolling. “But we’re not done yet, are we?”
“Put your seatbelt on,” Angelo said.
“Can I—” Ana looked up at me, her cheeks flushing a delicate rose. “May I stay here, please? I need—” She cut herself off and shook her head, as if she didn’t know how to articulate her need. “I need to turn everything off for a moment.”
Angelo shifted so she was caged between our legs, an elegant pile of fabric and blonde hair, beautiful and supplicating before us.
“Slut,” I murmured, “hands behind your back. Sit quietly until we get to the cemetery.”
“Yes, ma?tre ,” she murmured and closed her eyes, relaxing into my hold. Angelo stroked her back, and she leaned into my leg, the tightness easing from her frame.
Angelo met my eyes, full of wonder and vulnerability. My heart beat slowly and powerfully in my chest as I realized that it no longer beat for Angelo alone, but Ana too.
But pain was all I could give this brilliant woman. And that wasn’t enough.
Angelo leaned forward until our thighs touched, shrinking the cage that Ana knelt in, as though he could feel my need for reassurance. He moved Ana’s hands from behind her to my thigh, so she draped herself over my leg.
We rode in silence until we reached the cemetery. Ana rose without comment, blushing when she looked at us from under her long lashes, then took her place beside me, squeezed between my thighs and the door.
She set her hat on her head and quickly repaired her makeup before taking a deep breath and squaring her shoulders. When her hand found mine and squeezed, my heart stopped. A powerful pressure built in my chest. I twined my fingers in hers, unwilling to examine my need to comfort the beautiful creature who’d upended my life so completely over the last few months.
The funeral service itself was exactly as expected—the widow weeping on Ana’s shoulder, stoic uncles and brothers hiding their grief behind expressionless faces, and a trio of children doing their best to understand that their father was never coming home.
A heavily tattooed man who carried himself like he owned the ground he walked on stood across from us, glaring at my Ana, his eyes occasionally shifting to Angelo and me. His eyes caught mine. Enzo fucking Accardi. His brother had kidnapped the younger Russo girl, then her daughter, setting off the chain of events that resulted in Gio Costa’s death. And we’d been looking for him ever since Tchérnov’s men showed up instead of him at the bar that night.
“Enzo, it’s a pleasure to see you again.” Angelo moved to embrace Accardi, holding onto his biceps and kissing each of his cheeks. “Something must have happened to the checks you wrote the widows of the men killed when the bratva blew up the Costa compound. They never received them.”
Ana stepped up when her uncle released Accardi. Every muscle in my body tensed, ready to protect our gorgeous little toy.
“Uncle, you wrong him,” she said as she exchanged air kisses with Accardi. “Enzo’s just hired muscle. He doesn’t know where the books are.”
“The fuck I don’t!” he exploded, drawing the attention of the mourners quietly making their way back to their vehicles. He stepped back from Ana, his posture tense and furious. “Don’t you fucking come over here and think you have the right to fucking anything! We built Gio’s empire, and we’re not going to let it fall into the hands of some foreign interlopers who’ve never worked a day in their lives.”
Ana cocked her head, still uncomfortably close to the asshole. “Foreign interlopers? Pretty sure you babysat me when I was a kid, Enzo.”
He sneered at her. “You’re a woman. A pretty face. A useless slut who’s already spreading her legs for these assholes in hopes of gaining a little bit of security. You’re nothing, Ana.”
Ana hummed softly. “It’s true. I’m just a woman, but?—”
Gunshots echoed over the cemetery. Angelo grabbed Ana, throwing her to the ground and covering her with his body. “Get the fuck down!”
The world slowed as my entire existence narrowed to the two bodies in the grass, exposed, unprotected. I drew my gun as I dropped into a crouch behind a gravestone and fired—once, twice—in the direction of the shooters’ vehicle, ignoring the screams of mourners as they panicked, keeping my eyes trained on Ana and Angelo. He rolled off her, and they stumbled to their feet, staying low as they sought cover behind the solid stone of the grave markers.
Our men—Costa men, including Enzo—spread out, guns drawn, firing at the SUV and protecting the two principles, but the shooters peeled off, the tires squealing against the pavement as they escaped.
Merde.
I dashed toward my lovers, only for Ana to angrily elbow Angelo in the ribs. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing? Get off of me!”
He rolled off of her, and she sat up before gasping. “You’re bleeding.”
“It’s a scratch, angel.”
I offered her a hand, and she took it, graceful and composed, despite the grass on her black dress. She brushed herself off as Angelo stood with a wince.
“This is what comes of leaving the fate of the family in the hands of a woman,” Enzo spat. “It makes our enemies think we’re weak.”
“We are weak!” Ana roared. “Our enemies burned down my family home! They attacked me in a bar the night you were supposed to meet us! We are weak because you have made us weak.”
As the funeralgoers picked themselves off the ground to the sound of women quietly weeping, Ana sneered. “You’re no better than your brother.”
Gio Costa may have funded the kidnapping of the Russos, but Sergio Accardi, Enzo’s brother, was the weapon in his hands—scum of the earth.
“Maybe not,” Enzo said, his back stiff with pride. “But you can’t rebuild this empire without me.”
Angelo held out his hand to shake, but Ana stepped in front of him, looking up at Enzo with fire in her eyes.
“I may be a useless slut and nothing but a pretty face, but if I say no, then you’ll be left with nothing. Boris Tchérnov is going to die. You’ll deal with me, or there won’t be a deal.”
Enzo looked her up and down, and I was pleased to see reluctant respect dawn in his eyes.
I loved this brave, confident version of Ana that I’d only seen glimpses of over the last few weeks.
He lifted his chin and nodded.
Ana waited.
He swore softly in muted Italian, then pounded his fist against his chest and bowed slightly. “First, we protect our own. And then, we take back what’s ours.”
Angelo stuck out his hand again, and this time, Enzo shook it. “ Bene. ”