Chapter 17
17
Layne
S itting up my head spins but fragments of how I got back to my room settle into place pretty fast. I freaking fainted, which is embarrassing in itself. Dante’s cherry scent is on my skin like a perfume.
His scent though is the missing piece of the puzzle, and as I start to remember how he carried me to my room, I also recall what Valentine said. It’s more shocking the second time around too. Rubbing my eyes to control the threat of tears, I breathe through another wave of emotion. Of course, I compare what happened today with what happened with Rocco. With him it’s easier to understand, Rocco was a reminder of Alpha brutality and nothing more. But in the space of a week, Pack De Luca have slipped under my defenses and all but shredded the last of my reserves.
And that is a more precarious place to be for an Omega. For anyone, really, because if I can’t trust myself, how can I look to someone else? How can I read if their intentions align with mine?
For a few moments with the De Luca Pack, I honestly thought we were on the same page. We mostly agreed on an end date. I played the part, and in the process, started to let my guard down. I missed the plot twist, even though I was a key player.
The bitterest pill to swallow is how easily and quickly my defenses dropped. And now I feel a fool. I honestly thought I meant something to Pack De Luca, but how could I mean anything to them after they discovered I was not just a Rothchild, but the missing Rothchild. I’m their enemy. A valuable one at that, considering the reward for information on my whereabouts is still being offered.
Valentine wasn’t wrong about the Rothchild family mission being the eradication of organized crime. It’s a family vision passed down from generation to generation, much like the natural affinity of understanding the machination of law. Something each member of my family shares, including me.
I swear, there is something in our DNA that gives us the ability to take complicated and overly verbose documents and be able to interpret, analyze, and defend with frightening accuracy and barely any effort. Some people are athletic, others have a connection with the earth, but the Rothchild’s live and breathe law, in all its glory.
None of the other students at Yale would study with me because of it. The professors and tutors didn’t have anywhere near the same level of knowledge as me, so instead of just passing the Yale curriculum, I had to pass and receive high distinctions in every task, paper, and project set by a Rothchild. But I did.
Days before graduating from law school, I was forced to turn my back on my academic success and all those years of study. Walking away from a family who doesn’t love me was terrifying but also easy when the truth of how fucked up my immediate and extended family are came to light. But being forced to give up law was hard.
Valentine wasn’t wrong about someone lining my father’s pockets, but it wasn’t with money. God knows the Rothchilds have enough wealth to last until the end of the earth. Instead, my father desires power.
The moment I heard him speaking to a visiting Alpha, agreeing that the stranger could have the honor of taking his virginal daughter off his hands—either keeping or killing me afterward—I ran. The second thing I did was make the mistake of asking my brother for help and discovering that, like my father, he wouldn’t just let me disappear. For someone so smart in law, I was pretty stupid in life.
How I escaped, I will never know, but I did. That same night, I also found the strength to use a random man in a Greyhound terminal. In my mind, if I wasn’t a virgin, there was less of a risk to my safety.
But that was history, and I was no longer naive to the desperation of some people. Well, I didn’t think I was until meeting Pack De Luca and finding myself trapped in a sham marriage. Maybe I’m still too trusting or plain dumb.
Eventually, I stop pretending I’m sleeping and give in to the urge to run my hands over Bella’s fur. She’s lying so close, I can smell coconut oil from her last shampoo. I wish I could bury my face and fill my lungs with it, but Matteo’s subtle vanilla ice-cream scent is also impossible to ignore. No matter how much I wish otherwise.
“Did you want something?” I ask him. “Do I need to be a good wife and go somewhere with you?”
It sucks to hear myself talk out loud because my voice is as quiet and broken as the way I feel inside. Shattered isn’t a broad enough description for the million cuts I’m bleeding from.
“Ari…”
“Don’t call me that. Never. Jesus, if you can do one thing for me, let it be that,” I whisper, my voice getting caught in my throat.
Edward gives a low rumble of warning, but it’s almost after the fact, because I felt Matteo rising out of the chair he was sitting on and coming closer.
“Layne, I am giving you a hug,” he warns.
“Whatever.”
Even after his warning and bracing my body, I still whimper when his hand circles over my hip. My own body continues to betray me as the tears I’ve been holding fall onto the pillow.
“Turn around, let me hold you,” he says.
I shake my head. “I don’t know you.”
“True. But you do know we’re scent matches. When all else doesn’t make sense, lean in to that. We smell perfect for a reason.”
I drop my head onto Bella’s rump and curl into a tighter ball. Matteo doesn’t lie down; he sits on the edge of the bed, leaving his hand on my waist.
“It seems like a ridiculous question, but what caused this reaction? Or what part of today left you like this?”
I bite back a scoff. Not gonna happen, buddy . It’s my turn to ask questions, though I take a while to figure out what I want to know first. “When did you guys decide to turn our fake engagement into a marriage?”
Matteo squeezes my waist. “Before you got back here from your last shift at Styke, we knew you were using an alias. But then that whole thing with Claudia was a solid reminder of how fucking desperate some people are in our world. Between knowing you’re our scent match and seeing how easily you fit in, became one of us, our hindbrains took over. You’re ours to protect; it’s instinctual and almost overwhelming.
“When we found out who you actually are, we all nearly went into cardiac arrest. If Vitale found out, he’d be collecting the reward on offer before slitting your throat as a message to your family. Val pulled a favor to make you our wife, making you untouchable. In our family, but also in case your family finds you. The thought of anything happening to you is frightening, to say the least. And, yeah, things are happening fast between us. We barely know each other. But that doesn’t change how we feel.”
“So many pretty words, Matteo, but none of them make sense. If you found out that quickly, how can you guarantee someone else won’t?”
He moves the hair off my face. “They won’t be able to pretty soon. Some of the favors we pulled made sure of that, but there are consequences to it, and we need your okay to give the go ahead.”
“Just tell me,” I grumble.
“You did an amazing job hiding. Switching identities as often as you did was very smart, but it must have been expensive.”
I don’t confirm or deny his assumption, although he is right—it was expensive. I spent almost all the money I had when I first started running on getting fake IDs. They were rudimentary, but I never got into the situation where someone asked if they were forged, either. Living under the radar was hard work, and there were times when I went without food or shelter. My only priority was not being found by my family, or any of their friends.
Matteo starts to explain the implications of what they’re proposing. “Yale would be erased, and that’s only one piece of it. Basically, Ariana Rothchild would cease to exist.”
I sit up slowly, blowing out a breath full of angst. Pushing Bella out of the way, I take her spot, but she lies back down, making Matteo keep his distance.
“Nothing will remain on the internet? No whispers of who I was?”
“It will take a little while, but in time, you will disappear online. It will take longer to replace any documents that are downloadable that mention you, but where you were a ghost before, now it’ll be like you never existed.”
“Why would you do that? It must have cost you a fortune.”
Matteo rests his hand on Bella, and I know it’s because he’s struggling not to soothe me with his physical touch. I lean back against the wall, putting even more distance between us. He bites his lip, a wave of regret hitting his scent, and he doesn’t try to hide the disappointment in his eyes when he looks at me.
“I’m not punishing you. I just don’t really trust me right now, Matteo.”
“You must feel played,” he says quietly, compassion infusing his voice. “But we’ll do whatever we can to prove that wasn’t our intention. We don’t want you to feel like this.”
“How long do I have to decide if I want that part of my life erased?”
“In truth, probably a long time. When I said he pulled favors, I meant it, but that was driven not by necessity, but by his Alpha getting overly possessive and wanting to save you from ever feeling blindsided again.”
My eyes fall back to Bella, and the sight of her resting fills me with my own need to sleep. I have to give my brain a rest, to switch off the noise.
“Let me think.” I shut my eyes before Matteo can say another word.
He shuffles around, then the weight of a blanket falls over me. He bunches it between me and Bella, leaning down to brush my hair off my face again. “Call out if you need anything.”
I hear him close the door.
The room I’m in is so dark, the shadows have shadows that reach out and latch on, making the walls creep closer with each breath I take. But I can’t move. It’s important that I’m here, I somehow know that. Matteo takes a breath near me, his vanilla scent more intense than usual, and I must stumble, because my hand brushes over the wall, but then the shadows grab a hold of it. I’m suddenly out of the void, dragged from the darkness to my father’s office.
Matteo leans back in my father’s chair and is talking, my father’s voice falling from his lips.
“Once I have confirmation from my bank your deposit has been received, you own her. And no refunds.” He laughs as he stands. His double-breasted suit is the same as he has always worn—blue and white pinstripes. He moves the same, too, exactly like my father did, but Matteo’s gentle voice is the only thing I hear, even though it’s my father’s mouth that is moving. “She doesn’t remember. Give her to your enemy when you’re done, and I’ll convict them so justice is served.”
My father’s mouth opens again, and this time, it’s his laughter that spills from it. Not Matteo’s, because Matteo is long gone. Not even his scent is around me anymore—he is completely absent, and so are all the memories I had.
A part of my chest snaps. The pain is incredible.
I stumble backward, landing on my ass in the darkened room. This time, it’s smaller. I start to suffocate from the ache in my chest, but the darkness is closing in. My hands dig out in front of me, desperate for an escape.
It feels like forever before a tiny pinprick appears from nowhere. Right as I realize it is way too late, sweet espresso rushes over my face, but I’ve been struggling for too long. The floor gives out, and I plummet.
“Layne! Come on, Layne, wake up.”
My eyes burst open, and I gasp frantically, clawing at my throat. “I can’t breathe!”
“Yes, you can, Layne. Yes, you can,” Valentine insists.
The room is nearly as dark as my nightmare, but I can see him like he’s been bathed in light. His eyes are dark, full of determination and worry. He holds my face in a way I can’t pull out of, but it doesn’t feel like I’m trapped. His sole focus is on me, and he completely ignores the dogs rumbling in warning next to him.
The more Valentine talks, the more espresso-tainted air I get in my lungs, and the hold the demons from my dreams had slowly releases. He keeps breathing in the same obvious way, making me follow without trying.
“You are safe with us. You are so fucking safe with us, Layne. If you don’t feel safe just yet, I will make that my mission in life until you do.” Valentine is half naked, his hair a mess, and he has unusually dark circles around his eyes.
He moves so fast, it makes my head spin. He mutters commands to the dogs in Italian while scooping me into his arms, pinning me to his chest.
Warmth radiates off him and it sinks in deep. Quickly too. Bella leans against my back, and Edward demands Valentine open his legs, so he can also sit close enough for me to feel his fur pushing against my side, all of them keeping me warmer than blankets ever could.
With my head pressed against Valentine’s chest, he doesn’t need to speak loudly, but I hear him very clearly. “You’ve bewitched these dogs as quickly as you have us, Layne.”
I hear what he says, but I keep my focus on the frantic beat of his heart as my guide. And despite everything that happened earlier, making me doubt myself and them, I have this deep-seated need, and desire, to tell Valentine more of what he has already discovered.
I draw my legs up, making myself as small as possible, before sharing with him the awful truth. “My father sold my virginity to someone important in your world.”
I read the heavy thud from Valentine’s chest as his empathy and it gives me the confidence to tell him my deepest, ugliest fear. He squeezes me so tight, it realigns something inside me.
“I don’t know if I’ve forgotten who it was or if I never actually knew. But what if they find me, Valentine, like you did?”
“You’re mine now, la mia moglie . Like you are Dante’s and Matteo’s. Nothing is getting past us,” Valentine insists.
I’m unsure if it’s intentional, but there’s a press of his Alpha that accompanies his words, along with the uplifting rush of his espresso scent. He rubs his face over my hair, scent marking me in the process.
A low rumble of warning comes from the space where Edward has buried his snout. But Valentine growls back at Edward, silencing the dog before he squeezes me gently again. “And nothing is getting past these bloody dogs, too, apparently.”