Chapter 10 #2
My sister is already out of her car by the time I get to the front entrance, and she looks ready for war.
Valentina’s dark hair falls in glossy waves past her shoulders.
She has the same dark eyes as me and our mother, and sharp cheekbones and full lips set in an expression that promises violence.
She’s wearing tailored black pants and a deep burgundy silk blouse, her heels clicking against the stone as she stalks toward me.
“You’re an idiot,” she announces before I can say a word.
“Good to see you too, Val,” I reply dryly, bracing myself. “Come in, make yourself at home and insult me some more.”
“Oh, I plan to.” Valentina brushes past me into the house with the kind of aggressive energy that makes me nervous. “Where is she?”
I groan. “Val—”
“Don’t ‘Val’ me,” my sister snaps, spinning to face me with fire in her eyes. “I want to meet the girl who’s apparently made my brother forget everything—his responsibilities, his family, the fact that her father murdered Gabriel. Where. Is. She.”
I debate lying, but Valentina will just tear through the house until she finds Emma anyway. “Library.”
Valentina’s already walking before I finish the word, and I follow behind feeling like I’m escorting a bomb toward an open flame.
Emma looks up when we enter, and I watch her expression shift from relaxed to wary in an instant. She stands up slowly, setting her book aside, and the way she holds herself—shoulders back, chin lifted—that tells me she’s ready for a fight.
Good. She’s going to need it.
The two women size each other up, and the air in the library goes tense enough to snap.
“So you’re the girl causing all this chaos,” Valentina says, her voice cold and assessing in a way I recognize from our father. She’s using the tone that’s made grown men apologize and back down.
But Emma doesn’t back down.
“I didn’t ask to be kidnapped,” Emma replies evenly, her green eyes meeting Valentina’s dark ones without flinching. “If there’s chaos, that’s on your brother, not me.”
“No, but you’re here anyway.” Valentina moves further into the library like a predator circling prey. “Making yourself comfortable. Having cozy dinners with Leo. Reading his books.” She gestures to the book on the armchair. “Acting like this is a vacation instead of a kidnapping.”
“What exactly would you prefer I do?” Emma says sharply, matching Valentina’s energy.
“Starve myself in protest? Spend all day crying in a corner?” She snorts.
“Sorry to disappoint, but I’m not going to make myself miserable just to satisfy your expectations of how a kidnapping victim should behave. ”
“Aren’t you such a good person.” The sarcasm could cut glass. “The brave captive, enduring her suffering with such grace and dignity.”
“Better than being the bitter sister taking her anger out on someone who had nothing to do with what happened,” Emma shoots back, and I see Valentina’s eyes flash with real anger.
Oh fuck. This is about to get bad.
“Nothing to do with it?” Valentina’s voice rises, her hands curling into fists. “Your father killed my brother. You’re a Brennan. You have everything to do with it.”
“I’m a Brennan by birth, not by choice,” Emma says icily. “I was at college when your brother died. I didn’t pull the trigger. I didn’t give the order. So don’t you dare blame me for something I had no control over.”
“You benefit from it though, don’t you?” Valentina takes another step closer, aggressive and challenging.
“Everything your father built, everything he took from other families—from my family—you benefit from all of it. The clothes you wear, the school you went to, the life you’ve lived.
” She tosses her head and glares at Emma. “All paid for with blood money.”
Fucking fuck.
“And what about you?” Emma doesn’t retreat an inch, meeting Valentina’s challenge head-on, her eyes cool as she levels a scathing look at my sister.
“You’re a Santoro. You think your family’s money is clean?
You think your father, your grandfather, your brother”—she glances at me—“got where they are without spilling blood? We’re both mob daughters, Valentina.
We both have blood on our hands whether we asked for it or not.
So get off your high horse and stop acting like you’re somehow morally superior to me. ”
The silence that follows is deadly. I tense, ready to step between them if either one makes a move, because this feels seconds away from turning physical.
Valentina’s jaw is clenched so tight I can see the muscle jumping. “You don’t get to talk about my family,” she hisses.
“You don’t get to blame me for yours,” Emma counters. “I’m sorry about Gabriel, I really am. What my father did was wrong and horrible and unforgivable. But I’m not my father, and I’m not going to apologize for existing just because you need someone to be angry at.”
“I have plenty of people to be angry at,” Valentina says quietly but deadly. “Starting with your father. And then you, for coming here and making my brother forget why he took you in the first place.”
“I didn’t make your brother do anything,” Emma retorts flatly. “I’m a prisoner here, remember? I don’t have control over what Leo does or doesn’t do.”
“Don’t you?” Valentina’s eyes narrow. “Because from my perspective, it looks like you have more control than you think.”
I pull away from the wall. It’s time to intervene before someone actually throws a punch. “Val—”
“Shut up, Leo,” both women say in unison, not looking away from each other.
I fall back against the wall. Great. They’re unified in telling me to stay out of it. That’s just fantastic.
Valentina sits in the chair across from Emma without being invited, crossing her legs and staring Emma down with all the intensity our family is known for.
Emma stares right back, unflinching, and sits back down in her own chair like she’s claiming territory.
“I can tell you don’t like me,” Emma says finally, her face neutral. “So why don’t you just say it with your full chest instead of dancing around it with passive-aggressive comments?”
My eyes widen and it takes everything in me to keep my mouth from dropping.
“Fine.” Valentina tosses her head and leans forward, her gaze nasty.
“I don’t like you. I don’t like that you’re here.
I don’t like that my brother kidnapped you in the first place because it’s fucking stupid and puts our entire family at risk.
” She turns her head and gives me a venomous glare before returning her focus to Emma.
“I don’t like that my mother came home from visiting you talking about how ‘impressive’ you are like you’re someone to goddamn admire instead of Connor Brennan’s fucking daughter.
And I especially don’t like that my brother looks at you the way he’s looking at you right now. ”
My head snaps toward Emma before I can stop myself, and I catch her cheeks flushing before she looks away.
“I don’t like being here,” Emma says, recovering quickly, leaning forward in her chair.
“I don’t like being used as a weapon in your family’s vendetta.
I don’t like that I can’t see my mother or contact anyone I care about.
I don’t like that every choice I make is monitored and controlled.
” She glares at my sister. “And I especially don’t like being blamed for things I had no part in by someone who’s decided to hate me on principle. ”
“I haven’t decided anything on principle,” Valentina says coldly. “I’ve decided based on facts. Your father murdered my brother. That makes you the enemy.”
“No, that makes my father the enemy,” Emma corrects. “I’m just the convenient target because your brother needed someone to hurt and I was accessible.”
“You’re more than that,” Valentina says, and there’s something knowing in her voice that makes me suddenly uncomfortable.
“If you were just a target, Leo would have locked you in a room and left you there.” She smirks at Emma.
“But he didn’t, did he? He gave you access to the house.
He has dinner with you every night. He talks to you. He—”
“That’s enough,” I cut in, my voice harder than I intend.
Valentina ignores me completely. “Tell me, Emma,” she says lightly but the hairs on the back of my neck rise. I know that tone. “What do you talk about at these dinners? What does my brother say to you when he thinks no one else is listening?”
“We talk about books,” Emma says coolly. “And art and architecture and things that have nothing to do with kidnapping or revenge or your brother’s vendetta.”
“How nice,” Valentina says sarcastically.
“How very civilized.” She trails her fingers on the arm of her chair.
“And while you’re having these lovely intellectual conversations, does my brother tell you about Gabriel?
About how he found out our brother was dead?
About the nightmares he had for months afterward? ”
My heart stops and I stand straight up. Emma’s expression falters slightly. “He…he’s mentioned Gabriel.”
Valentina’s face tightens. “Has he mentioned that he was the one who found the body?” My sister presses, and I feel my chest tighten. “That he walked into that warehouse looking for our brother and found him already gone?”
“Val,” I say, my voice rough. This is too much information. “Stop.”
“Why?” Valentina turns to me, her eyes bright with unshed tears. “Why should I stop? She should know what her father did. She should know what you went through. What we all went through.”
“She knows,” I say quietly, fighting the emotion in my voice. “She knows enough.”
Valentina looks back at Emma, studying her face. “You really didn’t know, did you? About any of this.”
“No,” Emma says, and her voice is smaller now, less combative. Her face is pale. “I knew my father killed Leo’s brother. I didn’t know…the details.”
The fight seems to drain out of Valentina slightly, though she’s still tense and guarded. “Gabriel wanted to be a chef,” she says, almost conversationally. “Did Leo tell you that?”