29. Valeria
VALERIA
“Having second thoughts?” Annetta asks as her husband drives us down the long road to Don Salvatore’s house. She reaches over and grabs my hand. “We can turn back, if you want.”
The black silk of my dress glides over my belly as I turn to her, my stomach wringing itself into knots.
Her husband, Dom, hums along to the pop music playing on the radio, an odd contrast to his wild exterior.
“No.” I squeeze her hand back. “Thank you for taking me.”
“I’m here for you,” she says. In a hesitant tone, she adds, “And Nico. If you’re really sure.”
“Sometimes love surprises you.” I glance pointedly at her massive, scary husband, her complete opposite in every way.
She follows my gaze and smiles gently. “Point taken.”
Dom pulls up to Don Salvatore’s house. “Here we are.”
Annetta gives me one last reassuring smile before we all step out and weave through the other cars parked in the gravel lot.
Shadows stretch for me as we walk up Don Salvatore’s entryway, the sun staining the surrounding trees in dark red. The house—a mansion, really—looms over us. Piano music and overlapping conversations seep from the front door and then crash over us as we step inside.
The aunts and uncles, grandmas, cousins, and friendly faces I’ve grown up with look at me like I’m a stranger as I walk through the house, silence trailing me like the low tide.
I hold my head up high.
Next to me, Annetta fumes and mutters about “being rude” under her breath. Dom spreads his arms wide and shouts a greeting toward Cousin Red, breaking the spell. Noise surges against me as the crowd resumes conversation at once. I hear my name whispered in several directions.
“Let’s check upstairs,” Annetta says and guides me to the stairs, down a long hallway, and out onto a stone balcony.
Nico.
My breath catches in my throat.
He hasn’t changed.
It’s a stupid thing to think. It’s only been a few weeks since I’ve seen him. His black suit flows down his back in the same sleek line. Same venomous snake rearing along the side of his neck. But—a little change after all—his thick dark hair a touch longer.
He stands as rigid and silent as a statue, Giorgia’s arm wrapped around him while his family talks. His mom and sister laugh at a joke that’s been told. Giovanni’s there, slightly behind a man with golden eyes who I assume to be Nico’s father.
Alessia is the first to spot me, her mouth curving in delight. “Valeria, I didn’t expect to see you today.”
Nico turns, twisting, so that Giorgia’s arm falls from his. His eyes briefly widen in shock before lighting with such a fierce intensity, searing along my face, that the rest of the world burns away.
My stomach twists violently, and I have to choke back the urge to throw up. I want to come to him, to press my face against his chest for a moment of comfort, but my feet are frozen to the ground.
Annetta nudges my back. I move forward.
“Valeria, how are you?” Claudia asks in a honeyed tone as I stand between Alessia and Nico. She looks genuinely happy to see me, but I don’t know her well enough to tell if it’s an act.
I glance at her husband next to her.
All the air sucks out of my lungs.
Ottavio is handsome with dark features and striking amber eyes, but his face carries the same quiet promise of ruthless cruelty that his sons possess. He watches me with the sharpening focus of a jaguar spotting a small deer.
I turn back to Claudia. “I’m doing very well, thank you for asking.” It’s easy enough to slip back into the polite, well-behaved mask I’ve worn most of my life, even with Nico and his dad both staring at me like they want to devour me.
“We thought you’d left already,” Giorgia volunteers sourly from Nico’s other side.
Nico reaches out and seizes my arm. His jaw is clenched—shaved down to the skin instead of the stubble he normally keeps—and his neck is flexed, the serpent undulating.
“Could I have a moment to speak with Valeria, privately?” Nico asks his dad. He sounds strange. Careful, like he’s timing his words to a metronome.
Ottavio watches me for a beat too long, his eyes flickering down to my belly. “Yes.”
Nico practically drags me off the balcony, down the hall, and shoves me into the nearest guest room, lit by a solitary lamp.
The second the door is shut, I turn to him. “Nico, I’m sorry, but—”
He seizes my face between his hands and crushes a kiss to my mouth.
My senses flare with him—his smell, his long fingers curled against my scalp, his mouth locked against mine like he’s making up for a month of separation with this single moment of connection. I tear at his suit, dragging him into me, needing him closer than is physically possible.
My back hits the door with a thud, and Nico comes up for air like a man on the brink of drowning. Only the tiniest sliver of amber is left in his eyes as he gazes down at me, heaving for air.
I huff a laugh. “I guess you did miss me.”
“Val, what the fuck—” he snaps, before lunging forward to kiss me again with a desperate hunger. He moans into my mouth, grinding the back of my head against the door.
When he finally drags himself away, he blinks heavily like he’s coming out of a trance. “What the fuck?” He glances down at my belly—at our baby. “Tell me it’s okay.”
My heart leaps into my throat. “They’re okay. I think. I haven’t seen a doctor yet, but your sister brought me a pregnancy test. It was positive, Nico.”
He walks us to the center of the room, away from the door, and drops his forehead to mine. “I should’ve been there for that.”
“You’ll be there for the next thing.”
He stiffens, squeezing his arms around me like the muscles of a boa constrictor. “You know I can’t.”
“Alessia said your dad would change his mind. I have the pregnancy test in my coat. We can show him that I’m carrying his grandchild. He’ll have to let us get married. Alessia said—”
“Alessia’s wrong,” Nico says bitterly. “She believes in a version of our family that doesn’t exist. You know what that’s like, right? Not realizing how low your family can go? Val, there is no one I know who can go lower than my father.”
Nausea rolls in my belly. “What if you’re wrong?”
“What if I’m right? What if he makes you get an abortion? Makes you leave the country? Kills you?”
I swallow hard. “Nico—”
“Tortures you, Val. Makes me torture you. Makes you torture someone else. You think he’d stop at your dad? Years ago, he celebrated the death of his own son for being a traitor to him. A grandchild is nothing. You are nothing.”
I try to jerk back from his hands, my heart shredding to pieces, but Nico holds me steady in his palms.
“Not to me,” he murmurs. “Val, you are everything to me.”
Breath by breath, I melt back into his hands. My defenses gone, always crumbling for him, exposing all of me for him to want, to need, to love.
“I can’t leave you,” I say.
“You have to.”
“And after your dad dies?”
“Then someone else will take his place.”
“But then you’ll be the don.” I slip my hand inside his suit jacket, slide my palm against his chest to measure his heartbeat. “You’ll have everything you could need then. You’ll have the entire Family at your back. You could protect us.”
“And if it takes years? Decades?” His amber eyes burn in the lamplight. “How long will you wait?”
A lifetime, I think. But I rub my thumb over his heart while my own pounds and tell him instead, “A year.”
His eyes widen. “What’re you…” I see the moment it clicks. Once he understands what I’m asking.
That he becomes don within the year—his dad would need to be removed in that time.
Would it be a tragedy? An evil man replaced by Nico, a man with a hard exterior but a soft heart?
The world could be a better place for it.
He folds me into his arms, wrapping them around my back. His exhale ruffles against my hair. My heart races.
“You need to leave Chicago tonight,” he whispers against my neck.
I hold myself very, very still, scared that I’ve misjudged him, miscalculated our bond.
He draws back slowly to place a gentle kiss on my mouth. “Go wherever you want.” Another kiss. “In a year, I’m coming for you, and I’ll bring you back. Both of you.”
My chest swells, filling with a lightness that spreads through my body. “I love you.”
“I love you. Always.”
We split up in the hallway, Nico heading back to the balcony to let Annetta know to take me home, and me hurrying down the stairs so I can slip out through the back doors.
At the edges of Don Salvatore’s lawn, the forest swallows the sun. I shut the back door behind me, cold air filling my lungs.
For the first time in weeks, my stomach is settled.
I look out at the dark, grasping trees, my back stiffening and my hands curling into fists.
None of this is going to be easy or safe, but for the first time in a long time, I picture my future, and I can see the faces of my family—of Nico smirking at some joke as he teases me, of him soft and vulnerable as he looks down at the baby that will share our features.
I can’t keep lying around while I wait for Nico to come back. I have to push myself to do better. This baby will grow up in a home with parents who love her or him, and who love each other. I’m going to make that happen.
But first comes the hard part. I take a deep breath, the frozen air sawing in and out of my lungs.
Tonight, I’ll say goodbye to Lacey and Mei, finish packing my things, and leave.
And then, while Nico is gone, securing our future, I will build a home full of love, for our baby, to give them the family I never had.
Noise pours out of the house as the back door opens.
My heart tightens at the thought it could be Nico, back for one last kiss, or Annetta, come to ferry me home.
But as I turn, all the hope and fight drain out of me, replaced by sharp, raw fear.
Giovanni stands over me, wearing his wool coat and a somber expression—the sort of begrudging acceptance of a man sent to put down the family dog.
Cold air from the open, exposed lawn curls at my back. The residual warmth from my time inside the house is gone.
I cross my coat over my chest and shiver.