Salvatore
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
The image of my Valentina in that damn warehouse haunts me.
It’s burned into the back of my eyes. Every time I blink, I see her there, seconds away from something I would have burned the world down to avenge.
I barely slept.
Not that I deserved to. I should’ve told her about her father; she’s not the kind of woman to sit and wait. I know that; I knew that going in. It’s one of the things I love so fucking much about her.
I took the sofa instead of the bed because if she moved, if she flinched, if she so much as whimpered in her sleep, I would have torn the house apart looking for something to kill.
The doctor already came by this morning.
Checked her ribs. The bruising. The swelling along her cheek.
“She’s going to be fine,” he said.
Fine.
She’s resting now. Healing. And I’m here. Trying to make sure no one ever gets that close to taking her from me again.
By eight A.M., Raffaele has confirmed what I already suspected.
The warehouse was a Volkov operation. The Russians were sent to get Marco Marino, but it was an order.
Vladimir took his place. Said he knew he was going to die anyway and had all his affairs in order, so he decided to die a hero.
Valentina gave him that choice, so he used it to save her father.
He died a respectable death. Volcov knew I released him from the compound, so his days were numbered.
Valentina did not stumble into one of my operations. She walked into a Russian execution.
Someone knew Lindsay was watching, knew she was searching for Marco, and knew that if the intel looked convincing enough, she would pass it along. Someone who wanted Valentina in that building.
That name is already in my pocket. That account will be settled. But not today. Today, I have to pay a visit to my father-in-law.
* * *
The safe house is a brownstone tucked into a neighborhood where nobody looks too carefully at who comes and goes, the kind of place designed to disappear in plain sight.
Raffaele arranged it, which means it’s bulletproof—quiet street, multiple exits, clean sight lines, and men rotating without pattern so no one can predict a weakness.
No one gets in or out without me knowing.
I step inside without announcing myself, closing the door behind me with quiet finality, the soft click echoing just enough to mark my arrival.
Marco Marino is already standing when I enter, his chair pushed back a few inches behind him.
He doesn’t startle, doesn’t reach for anything, doesn’t even glance toward the windows or doors.
He just watches me, hands loose at his sides, like he decided long ago that if this moment came, he wouldn’t meet it running.
For a moment, we simply look at each other.
Forty years of history sit between us, my father’s war, his disappearance, the quiet life he built out of something that should have ended in blood.
I take my time crossing the room, my steps steady against the hardwood.
Marco doesn’t move. His shoulders stay square, his chin level. He doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t look away.
“If you’re here to finish what your father started,” he says finally, his voice calm and even, “no need to drag it out.”
I study him for a second longer, letting the weight of that sit between us. Then, instead of answering, I pull out the chair at the table and sit.
The scrape of wood against the floor cuts through the quiet, controlled and intentional, the kind of sound that shifts the direction of a room without raising a voice.
Marco’s eyes flick briefly to the chair, then back to my face. A second passes. Then he exhales through his nose and sits across from me, his movements slower now, more measured, as if recalibrating the terms of this encounter.
We settle on opposite ends of the table. Opposite ends of a story that should have buried him years ago.
I spent years hating this man, inheriting my father’s hatred and sharpening it into something that felt like my own.
Marco Marino was an abstraction before he was anything else.
A debt, a betrayal, a wound passed down through blood.
Then he became a name. Then a face in surveillance files.
Then something far more inconvenient, my fiancée’s father.
“You lived a quiet life,” I say, breaking the silence, my fingers resting loosely against the arm of the chair.
Marco’s mouth shifts slightly, not quite a smile. “And yet, you found me.”
His eyes don’t leave mine.
I tilt my head just slightly. “But let’s not pretend you’re a civilian.”
His gaze sharpens, a subtle tightening at the corners of his eyes, but he doesn’t interrupt. He leans back a fraction of an inch instead, folding one arm loosely across his stomach, the other resting against the table.
“You never really left La Cosa Nostra,” I continue, my tone even. “You just got better at hiding it. You kept your hands in the books. The Russos didn’t move money without you. How do you think Matteo came across your name?”
“I—” he starts, his hand lifting slightly from the table.
I raise mine just enough to stop him.
Not forceful.
Final.
“You ran for love,” I add, quieter now, my gaze steady on his. “I can respect that. But you never got out.”
Marco’s hand lowers slowly. He exhales, his shoulders easing just slightly, accepting the truth without arguing it.
“Does she know?” he asks.
“No.”
“I figured you had your reasons,” I say, my voice even, controlled. “You can explain them to her yourself.”
His jaw tightens, just for a second, the muscle shifting beneath his skin before he nods once.
The silence that follows shifts, settling into something heavier. I hold his gaze, and he holds mine, neither of us looking away, both of us understanding that this moment is no longer about what was.
It’s about what comes next.
“I’m going to marry your daughter.”
Marco’s head lifts slightly at that, his eyes narrowing just enough to sharpen his focus.
“She won’t marry me if I kill you,” I continue, my voice calm, my gaze steady. “So… you live.”
“Hallelujah,” he says, almost like a joke. A faint smirk tugs at the corner of my mouth.
I like this man.
A breath leaves him, almost a quiet huff, and the corner of his mouth lifts. “Not sure your brothers will agree with that, though.”
“They don’t decide,” I say, leaning forward just slightly, my forearms resting against my thighs. “I do.”
The words sit between us. Certain.
Marco studies me for a moment, his fingers curling loosely around the edge of the table, then releasing again.
“How is she?” he asks.
The change is immediate. His posture softens just slightly, the tension in his shoulders redirecting.
“I heard about what happened.”
“She’s safe,” I say, the words coming faster now. “I got there in time.”
His breath catches, barely, but I see it. His shoulders drop a fraction, and his hand presses flat against the table, grounding himself.
“She shouldn’t have been there,” he says, his voice quieter.
“No,” I agree. “She shouldn’t have.”
A pause stretches between us.
“She convinced me to let him live.”
Marco’s brows lift slightly.
“Vladimir,” I add. “He was supposed to die.”
“And she stopped you.”
I lean back, my gaze drifting for half a second before returning to him. “She didn’t ask… she decided.”
The memory lingers the way her eyes held mine, steady, unshaken.
Like I wasn’t inevitable. Like I could be challenged. And for the first time in a long time, I let her.
Marco lets out a slow breath, something softer breaking through his composure. “That’s my girl.”
His thumb brushes once against the edge of the table, almost unconsciously.
“She’s strong,” I say.
A faint smile pulls at his mouth. “She gets that from her mother.” We both sit there, smiling, I assuming he’s thinking about his woman, because I’m certainly thinking about mine.”
Marco exhales slowly, leaning back in his chair.
“I know you’re still young,” he says, his voice quieter now, less measured, more personal. “But you’re getting ready to settle down, so you’ll learn soon enough.”
His thumb brushes absently along the edge of the table.
“As parents, we do everything for our kids. For some reason, all your dreams, all your goals… they start circling around them.” A faint breath leaves him, almost a laugh, but not quite. “They give you a reason to hold onto things you might’ve let go of otherwise.”
He glances down for a second, then back up.
“My wife, she was always my rock. Held everything together. But my girls…” His jaw tightens just slightly before easing again. “Everything I’ve ever done. Everything … we’ve ever done has been for them.”
There’s no performance in it, just truth.
“Valentina was born while we were on the run,” he continues, a faint smile pulling at his mouth now. “We were moving constantly, place to place. I used to fill her head with stories just to keep things light for her.”
A quiet chuckle slips out of him.
“But she had more follow-up questions than most adults.” He shakes his head slightly. “Made it difficult.”
Of course she did.
“She’s not someone you can push around. If you want a truly submissive woman, you may want to consider your options.”
“There are no options,” I reply evenly. “There’s only Valentina. And she will be my wife.”
“The wedding is in three days,” I continue.
Marco’s gaze lifts again.
“I want you there.”
He smiles. “I always thought about the day I’d walk my girls down the aisle,” he says quietly. “Valentina used to talk about this blue wedding. Doves. Flowers everywhere. The kind of dream that doesn’t belong in a world like yours.” Then he rephrases, “a world like ours.”
A faint smile flickers, then fades.
“When she turned twenty-one, her mother found one of her scrapbooks. Nothing had changed.”
I watch him carefully. Because she never gave me that part of herself.
“She was dating some kid back then,” he continues, his jaw tightening briefly. “Deadbeat. I knew he’d never give her that life.” His eyes lift to mine. “So I did what I know best.”
A pause.
“Numbers.”