Chapter 14 #2
Valentina’s eyes roll to the back of her head. Her hands slip to the mattress.
I peel my hands off her throat and shake her shoulders.
She rouses with violent coughing and unfocused eyes.
I pull her into my lap, pushing her fingers away from her throat to check the damage, but she swats my hand every time I reach for her, so I tug her tighter against me and focus on calming myself.
Her slight weight in my lap and the rise and fall of her chest—no matter how ragged—assures me she’s still alive.
Guilt infects every inch of me.
She fell asleep naked in my bed, displaying a level of trust I took for granted. I woke her from a nightmare in the most abrupt, cruel way and then overreacted.
“You’re crushing me. Let go,” she croaks.
The warmth between our flesh soothes me. I don’t want to let her go, but I need to know what her father said to her to make her look so broken. I need to know why she called his name in her dream.
The moment I lift my hands from her, she rolls out of my lap, snatches the top blanket off the bed, stumbles to her feet, and wraps the blanket around herself before turning to face me.
“What happened?”
The deep, guttural quality of her voice sounds painful, but is proof I didn’t damage her vocal cords.
When her question registers, I scowl.
“Exactly my question,” I snarl.
She closes her eyes and rubs her temple.
“Was I hitting you?” she asks.
I grit my teeth and give her the benefit of the doubt even though anger spears through me.
“Yes,” I growl.
She drops her hand and gives me a hard look.
“Unprovoked or because you touched me?” she asks.
“I touched you,” I admit.
A myriad of emotions parade across her features before she sighs and slumps in defeat.
“I’m sorry.”
I wait for her words to make sense. She shouldn’t be the one apologizing. I should.
“I should’ve warned you, but usually his footsteps wake me, so I don’t lash out.”
My gut tightens.
“Who? Your father?”
I know the answer, but my mouth demands an answer.
She shrugs.
“There’s no one else in my life, so…”
Half of me wants to pull her into my arms and gently coax the story from her. A quarter wants to drop on my knees and apologize. An eighth demands I kiss her worries away. The remaining sliver wars with too many emotions to name.
But the anger is the loudest section and the easiest to use with her nonchalant answer, so I scoff and cross my arms over my chest. My cock pulses in my sweatpants, and I use the sexual frustration as fuel.
“I watched the footage from your hotel room, and you know what I saw? A spoiled little princess not getting her way,” I snarl.
Deep down, I don’t mean any of the words, but I can’t stop myself from saying them.
She opens her mouth. Closes it. Opens it again. With each failed attempt to speak, her fury visibly grows. The freckles on her cheeks disappear under her angry flush, and if she were in a cartoon, she’d have steam coming out of her ears.
“You. Are. An. Asshole.” She punctuates each word as though speaking to an imbecile. “I’m done talking to you.”
She turns on her heel and stomps toward the hallway.
I lunge off the bed and yank her off her feet.
She screams and flails, but the blanket slips down her torso, baring her breasts, and tangles around her legs.
I spin her around and pin her against the wall.
Her hard nipples create tempting points against my stomach as I capture her wrists and hold them above her head.
In this position, I tower over her like a giant. Our size difference strikes me anew. I could break her so easily. In fact, I almost did mere moments ago.
“You don’t get to make that call, little one,” I growl.
She tugs and writhes, but when my cock hardens against her, she stops and hides her face against her arm.
“Tell me what he said. What did daddy dearest threaten you with?” I demand.
When she remains mutinously silent, I lean down and lick her ear. Her breath hitches. She stiffens and speaks into her elbow.
“You promised.”
“It still isn’t midnight yet,” I quip.
Goosebumps pepper her arms and chest. She grinds her teeth and shakes her head.
“What did he say to you?” I ask.
Silence.
I hum in anticipation and grind my cock against her stomach as I nip her earlobe and lick her jugular. The bruising on her throat wakes my guilt, but I don’t relent.
She shudders and breaks.
“ This . He threatened this . He was going to have me and keep me at home just like this after Romeo took my virginity.”
Her entire body trembles as she hisses into her arm. The vehemence and disgust in her tone reverberate deep within me, matching my response to the idea of her biological father showing her any sexual interest.
I cup her chin, guide her face to mine, and wait to speak until she opens her eyes.
“I’m not him,” I snarl.
“I know!”
Her outburst rings in my ears. Every inch of her shakes from the force of her emotions.
“That’s why I’m here. You may have been my only choice, but you were still my choice. You’re my endgame. I’m never going back.”
She glares at me with clear blue eyes. Her breasts shift against me as she heaves.
“I’ll still hurt you,” I promise.
She grits her teeth and inhales before responding.
“What have I ever done to you? Why do you hate me so much?”
I squeeze her face as I recall Pietro’s words as he stabbed me in the back. He wanted me dead for touching his precious daughter. She’d confessed That we were intimate.
Me. Intimate with a twelve-year-old girl I saw only as my niece. I may be a ruthless killer, but I’d never do such a thing.
He took our friendship and shredded it to pieces, just like he did the flesh of my back with his knife.
As I lay dying with my face in the growing pool of blood, he squatted beside me and dropped several torn pages and a journal into my field of view.
I release Valentina’s face, afraid I’ll wring her neck again, and haul her behind me by her wrists.
The blanket trips her, so I tug her to her feet before marching into the hall.
With her hair an unkempt mess and her curves on full display, I lead her to the office and shove her onto the upholstered chair before unlocking the safe and dropping the blood-stained journal on the side table.
She freezes and stares at it as though it’s a snake.
I flip it open.
All color drains from her face. Her freckles stand out in stark relief on her pale cheeks. She stares at her own handwriting with shellshocked eyes.
I scoff and flip to a page with more inventive descriptions. She flinches, shakes her head, and covers her breasts with her arms.
“You misunderstood. It’s not—”
“I didn’t misunderstand and neither did your father. You told him—”
“I didn’t!”
“Then what is this? Why would you write such damning things? You can’t claim some preteen idiocy. This is too meticulous for that,” I snarl.
“I…” She lifts eyes shimmering with tears and regret and curls in on herself. “I never meant for anyone to see it. I wrote it because Sienna told me to. She said—”
I tsk and cross my arms over my chest.
“Don’t try and blame your cousin for this,” I warn.
Valentina and Sienna, my brother’s only child, were two peas in a pod. They were always together. Always giggling. Always sweet.
“I’m not, I swear. I totally forgot all about this until you showed it to me.
It was a preteen secret between Sienna and me.
” She takes a deep breath and pushes her hair back before returning her arm to her chest. “During our last sleepover at your brother’s house, I told her you were my first crush.
She freaked out and said we had to perform an exorcism, so I had to write all my thoughts about you in a journal so we could burn it at camp.
Only then would I be free of the curse and we could continue being friends. ”
I analyze every nuance of her delivery and find no traces of deceit.
“Your father told me you confessed,” I say.
She shakes her head.
“I never mentioned anything to him. Ever. I gave the journal to Sienna the day before camp, but then my dad said I couldn’t go.
That was the night you didn’t come back with him.
He said you were a traitor, and Sienna swore she burned the journal.
I was glad it was gone and erased it from my memory,” she says.
All the stray pieces fit into place with her explanation. She wasn’t feigning ignorance to sway my emotions; she honestly had no clue her father used the journal as an excuse to slice me and our decades-long friendship into pieces.
Relief flows through me before guilt, bitterness, and fresh hatred infect my veins.
Pietro Denaro used his daughter as a weapon. I did, too.
No more. Valentina deserves better.
Her father will never touch her again.
And if it takes me a lifetime to make up for the pain I’ve caused her, then I’ll devote every waking moment to her.
She’s mine. My wife. Mia paperotta . My future beyond revenge.
My redemption.