Chapter 30
CHAPTER THIRTY
Vittoria
Two days pass like water.
I speak to Dmitri twice. Both times at night, his voice rough with exhaustion, the conversations lasting barely three minutes before he apologizes and promises to call tomorrow.
Goodnight, solnyshko.
Goodnight, Dmitri.
The words become ritual. A thread stretched thin across the distance between us.
I understand. His father just died. He has an empire to secure, alliances to confirm, vultures to fend off.
I understand all of this.
But understanding doesn't stop the hollow ache that settles beneath my ribs when I reach for my phone and find no messages.
When did this happen?
I trace the question back through the weeks, searching for the moment when Dmitri Baganov stopped being a problem to solve and became someone I miss. Someone whose absence creates a shape I can feel.
The theater. His mouth on me, his hands gentle despite their strength.
The car ride after. His fingers wrapped around mine as he told me about his father.
The funeral. His eulogy stripping him raw while I watched, helpless to do anything but hold his hand.
Or maybe it started before all of that.
A knock pulls me from my thoughts.
I look up from my laptop to find Valentino standing in my doorway. He wears dark jeans and a gray sweater, his black hair slightly disheveled. The distinguished gray at his temples catches the afternoon light.
"Cousin." He inclines his head. "Do you want to come with me? I'm going to walk in the garden."
I close my laptop without saving my work. "Of course."
We walk through the compound in comfortable silence.
The garden stretches before us, winter-bare but still beautiful. Stone paths wind between dormant rose bushes and skeletal trees. A fountain stands silent at the center, drained for the season.
Valentino breathes deep, his broad shoulders dropping slightly.
"You needed air," I observe.
"The walls close in." He shrugs, a gesture that looks almost apologetic. "I forget how... contained this place feels. Sicily has more space. More sky."
"More sun."
"That too." A ghost of a smile crosses his weathered features. "Though I'm told Chicago summers can be brutal."
"Different kind of brutal. Humid. Sticky. You'll hate it."
We follow the path toward the old oak tree at the garden's edge. Its branches stretch overhead like grasping fingers, bare against the gray sky.
"How are you doing?" I ask. "Really."
Valentino considers the question with the same gravity he brings to everything. His dark eyes scan the garden before settling on me.
"Adjusting." He crosses himself absently, a habit I've noticed he repeats when stressed. "The family here operates differently than I expected. More... modern."
"Is that a criticism?"
"An observation." He pauses beside a dormant rose bush, studying the thorny stems. "In Sicily, we maintain certain traditions.
Certain formalities. Here, your brothers hold meetings in kitchens.
Lorenzo's wife walks freely through business discussions.
Pietro's wife knows things that would get someone killed in the old country. "
"Nora earned that trust."
"I don't doubt it." Valentino resumes walking. "I'm not criticizing, Vittoria. I'm learning. Adapting."
The wind picks up, carrying the bite of approaching winter. I pull my cardigan tighter around my shoulders.
"How is Sicily? How is aunt?"
"Strong as ever. She sends her love." Valentino's expression softens at the mention of our aunt. "She wanted to come for the Baganov funeral. To support you. I convinced her the travel would be too difficult."
"She would have tried to arrange my wedding herself."
"She would have succeeded." He laughs, a low sound that transforms his stern features. "That woman could negotiate peace between warring nations if she put her mind to it."
"Or start a war if someone served her bad espresso."
"Also true."
We reach the oak tree. Valentino leans against its trunk, his gaze drifting across the garden toward the compound's high walls.
"Your mother worries about you," he says quietly.
"Mamma worries about everyone."
"She worries about you specifically. About this engagement to the Russian."
I stiffen. "Did she ask you to talk to me?"
"No." Valentino holds up his hands. "I'm not here as her messenger. I'm here as your cousin who hasn't seen you in two years and wants to know if you're happy."
The question catches me off guard.
Happy.
Such a simple word for such a complicated feeling.
"I don't know," I admit. "I think I might be. Or I could be. If I let myself."
Valentino looks at me with those dark, perceptive eyes.
"What about you?" I turn the question back on him. "Have you found love hiding somewhere in Sicily?"
Valentino laughs.
I stare at him. In all my memories of Valentino, I've never seen him laugh like this.
"What?" I demand. "What's so funny?"
He wipes his eyes, still chuckling. "Love. Me. The concept is..." He shakes his head, another laugh escaping. "Dio mio, Vittoria. You have no idea."
"Enlighten me."
Valentino leans back against the oak tree, crossing his arms over his broad chest. The laughter fades, but amusement still dances in his expression.
"I have a problem," he says. "A curse, really. I am only attracted to women who are..." He searches for the word. "Grumpy. All the time. Perpetually unhappy. The kind who scowl at sunshine and complain about everything."
I blink. "That's... specific."
"It's a nightmare." He runs a hand through his dark hair. "I see a beautiful woman smiling, laughing, enjoying life? Nothing. No interest. But a woman who looks like she wants to murder everyone in the room? My heart races."
"That can't be true."
"I wish it wasn't." Valentino's expression turns rueful. "My longest relationship lasted two months. And that was only because I was traveling to Chicago constantly during that period. The distance kept us from killing each other."
"Two months?" I can't hide my disbelief. "Valentino, you're thirty-seven years old."
"Thirty-eight."
"Even worse." I shake my head. "Italian women are... they're something else. Passionate, beautiful, devoted. You're telling me not one of them has captured your attention for longer than eight weeks?"
Valentino's jaw tightens slightly. "The problem isn't finding women who want me. It's finding women I want who don't make me want to throw myself off a cliff after a week of their company."
"The grumpy ones."
"The grumpy ones." He nods. "They're attracted to me because I'm serious.
Formal. I don't laugh at their complaints or try to cheer them up.
I just... exist beside their misery. And for a while, that works.
Then they realize I'm not going to fix them, and they leave.
Or I realize I can't stand another dinner of listening to everything wrong with the world, and I leave. "
"That sounds exhausting."
"It is." He pushes off from the tree, pacing a few steps before turning back to face me. "So I stopped trying. I have my work. My duty to the family. I don't need a woman complicating things."
"You like being alone."
The words come out flat. A statement, not a question.
Valentino meets my gaze. "Yes."
"No, you don't."
His expression flickers. Just for a moment. A crack in the stoic facade.
"Hey—"
"Loneliness is a drug." I step closer to him, my voice soft but firm. "I know because I've been taking it for two years. It gives you this instant relief. No one to disappoint. No one to lose. No one to hurt you. Just you and your walls and your work and your carefully controlled existence."
Valentino goes very still.
"It feels safe," I continue. "It feels like protection. Like armor. But it's poison, Valentino. Slow-acting poison that kills you from the inside while you're too numb to notice."
"Okay, this was a mistake." He says, pushing me to walk toward the house again.
"Oh, you don’t like hearing the truth, cousin?"
"Not at all. Thanks, but no. Ciao Vittoria!" He smirks and moves away from me.
"You owe me 50 bucks for therapy." I yell at him and he laughs.
Dmitri
Three days.
Seventy-two hours since I've touched her. Held her. Breathed in the scent of her hair.
I check my watch for the fourth time in ten minutes. 7:52 PM.
The restaurant sits empty around me. Every table cleared of other reservations. Every chair pushed in with military precision. The staff hovers near the kitchen, waiting for my signal.
Tsuki to Umi.
I owed her this dinner. The night my father's condition worsened, I'd promised to bring her here. To her favorite restaurant.
Tonight, I fix that.
My phone buzzes. Yuri.
Arriving in two minutes.
I stand, adjusting my jacket. Black suit. No tie. The way she looked at me at the theater when I loosened my collar. I want that look again.
The front door opens.
Vittoria steps inside, and my chest tightens the way it always does when I see her. She's wearing a deep green dress. She's so beautiful.
Her eyes sweep the empty restaurant.
She rolls them.
"Seriously?" She gestures at the vacant tables. "The entire place?"
I cross the room, my hand finding the curve of her waist like it belongs there. Like it's always belonged there.
"What bothers you, solnyshko?"
"We can exist in the same space as other people, Dmitri." She tilts her head back to meet my gaze. "Normal couples do it all the time. They sit in restaurants surrounded by strangers and somehow manage to have conversations without dying."
"What's the point?"
"The point is—"
"You're the only one who matters." I pull her closer. "Everyone else is noise. Distraction. I haven't seen you in three days. I need you just for my eyes right now."
She laughs.
I love this sound.
"You're ridiculous." She pushes against my chest, and I let her create distance between us. "And I'm starving. Feed me before I start gnawing on the furniture."
I guide her to the table I selected. Center of the room. Best view of the koi pond through the floor-to-ceiling windows. Two glasses of water already poured.