57. Valentin
57
VALENTIN
Tchérnov agreed to meet me for lunch. I stared at him over a meal I couldn’t stomach while Ana was in danger and suffering at the hands of this man who’d thought his rapist son would be an appropriate match for her.
When he’d finished, he pushed his plate away and leaned back in his chair, his cruel eyes missing nothing as he took me in.
“It’s a small world, Rochefort,” he said.
“Too small.”
“Why am I here?”
My fingers clenched in the fabric of my pants, my legendary self-control deserting me for a moment. His men, and Angelo’s, filled the restaurant. Leaping over the table and strangling him with my bare hands would only result in a bloodbath.
“Give me my family back,” I snarled.
“Or what?” he asked. “If you do anything to hurt me, I’m going to hurt Ana so badly she won’t ever walk again.”
My heart stopped.
“She’s a pain slut,” he murmured. “She has a high threshold before she starts begging me to stop. I haven’t broken her yet, but I will.”
No. No! Fuck.
Boris leaned over the table, his ice-blue eyes boring into me. “I’m going to marry that slut. And Angelo’s going to help me import girls and boys from Europe to the States. And if he doesn’t, Ana will pay the price.”
Ana, why didn’t you give us time to solve this together? Why didn’t you trust us? Of course she hadn’t trusted us. Why would she?
“What do you want?” I repeated, unable to stop my fingers from fisting in the tablecloth.
“What do I want?” Boris asked. “I want you to suffer.”
“I’ll give you anything.”
“You can’t give me what I want,” Boris said. “My son is dead.”
“So you’re going to kill my mother? Torture Ana?”
Boris laughed. “No, I’m a man of my word. When Ana’s married to me, I’ll release your mother.”
I blinked, relief sliding through me. If he intended to release my mother, he didn’t intend to kill her.
“And Angelo’s father?”
Boris smiled. “The same. But if you mount a rescue operation, I’ll take it out on Ana. And if you try to rescue Ana, the odds of your parents surviving the week until we’re married diminish considerably.”
“How much?” I asked. “How much do you want to free her?”
Boris’s eyes widened for a second, revealing his surprise. “You think you can buy her freedom?”
“I’ll give you anything. Everything,” I repeated.
Boris looked at me thoughtfully. “Everything?”
“I own a billion-euro company. It’s yours. My property. My investments. Everything.”
Boris’s lips tilted up. “This is so fucking delicious. If I asked you to get on your knees right here and beg, would you do it?”
Yes. “Would you let her go if I did?”
He laughed. “Unbelievable. The great Valentin Rochefort, titan of industry, brought low by a slut who doesn’t have a penny to her fucking name.”
I shoved back from the table, unable to take the insult to the woman I—Fuck. To the woman I’d fallen in love with.
“Don’t bother,” Boris said, misinterpreting my movement. “She’s mine now, Valentin. I’ve taken her away from you like you took my son away from me. And I don’t intend to give her back.”