4. Valentina
Chapter 4
Valentina
“D idn’t you used to have blonde hair?” are the first words my fiancé ever says to me. He doesn’t say them in front of our fathers or Curse. No, he didn’t really speak at all in front of the others. Didn’t even say a proper hello to his fiancée at our first official meeting. He let Rocco and my papà do all of the talking. And most of that talking was them telling me that Dario was going to take me up to a private dinner on the roof now.
Dario and I are in the condo’s sleek elevator. Curse and three of papà’s men are stationed at the elevator’s doors down in the lobby. No one will get past them.
No one’s coming up with us.
It’s the first time I’ve been alone in such a small enclosed space with a man who isn’t a member of my family.
“Yes,” I tell Dario, tossing the dark locks behind my shoulders. “I just dyed it. I’m having my hot vampire summer.”
God, this already isn’t going well. I know this isn’t how I’m meant to speak to my fiancé. I’m supposed to be refined and quiet and only open my mouth when he wants to stick his dick in it. Mamma would probably pass away on the spot if she heard me talking to Dario that way.
Dario gives me a what the fuck? sort of look then mutters, “At least there’s time to dye it back before the wedding.”
If it weren’t for that one single word – time – my fake smile might crack right off my face. But I latch onto it like a lifeline. There’s time before I marry this absolute limp noodle of a man. Maybe even a whole year before we tie the knot. If I’m lucky.
Dario turns away from me to stare at the numbers ticking up as the elevator ascends with us inside it. I use the moment to let my gaze really take him in. The oily nose, the thinning hair, the odd hunch to his skinny shoulders, the overly flashy watch on his hairy wrist that practically screams that it’s compensating for something. And the thing is, I don’t think that I’m too shallow. I wouldn’t care all that much about what he looked like if he had some personality, some pizzazz, or even the bare minimum of politeness, for Christ’s sake.
But he’s giving me nothing. Less than nothing. A single grain of two-day old rice stuck to the side of a takeout container has more charisma than this man. When politics is so often a popularity contest based more on image than anything else, I find myself wondering, how the hell did he ever get elected?
Maybe his papà had something to do with that particular election result.
Maybe mine did.
The elevator dings, then the doors open to reveal the building’s rooftop. The sun isn’t setting yet, but it’s dipping closer to its eventual horizon, leaving the light tinged with a soft golden bronze. The heat is hazy, humid. Luxurious cream-upholstered furniture and lush potted plants are scattered artfully across the rooftop’s surface.
Across from us, at the other end, is a sprawling, fully stocked bar, and there appear to be platters of food on the shining bar top. Much like the wall between the lobby and the pool downstairs, the glass chest-high barrier around the edge of the roof is so clean and clear it’s nearly invisible. This condo building is twenty-eight storeys tall, and for a stomach-sloshing moment I imagine myself accidentally stumbling right off the edge into the summer cityscape below.
Dario walks ahead of me, not waiting for me or even bothering to look over his shoulder to see if I’m coming. I frown at his back as he heads for the food at the bar, then sigh and take a step after him. I’m still hungry, and if I want to eat more tonight, it looks like it’s going to be with him.
The first meal together of many. I should try to make the most of it. Try to find some common ground with him, or maybe unearth a redeeming quality that will keep me sane through the next decades of our marriage.
Decades. Dio mio.
Pushing that alarming thought back down my throat with a hard swallow, I straighten my shoulders and follow Dario across the roof.
It really is a beautiful place. I have to hand it to the Fabbris. They know how to construct one hell of a nice building.
I expect Dario to grab a plate and pile it with the frankly amazing array of food spread out on the reflective surface of the bar, but he doesn’t. He flops down on one of the plush chaises longues and jerks his chin at the spread.
“Bring me some of that.”
Ah. So he doesn’t want a wife. He wants a docile little servant that he can fuck. Not so different from many of the men in our world, but knowing that I’m the one meant to fill that role for him makes it all the more nauseating. I ignore his command for now, knowing I won’t be able to pretend I didn’t hear him for long.
“Just going to make myself a drink,” I say lightly, somehow keeping the irritation out of my voice. I never got my champagne downstairs, and if there were ever a time for the desperate inhalation of alcohol, it’s now.
I head behind the bar and scan the array of bottles, shakers, and glassware. As I do so, I notice a set of sliding metal doors beyond the bar near the far edge of the rooftop. It looks like another elevator, probably one meant for staff that descends down into a kitchen.
I turn my eyes from the doors and grab a shaker and a chilled glass from inside a small fridge beneath the bar. After I’ve got those, I snatch up a big bottle of vodka and a jar of olives. It’s vodka martini time. Extra dry and extra dirty.
Vodka, olive brine, and a splash of vermouth go into the shaker, which I slosh around vigorously. A stir with some ice, and then I pour the drink. I choose a nice plump olive from the jar, drop it in the glass, and take a gulp.
The smooth slide of the cold, briny alcohol down my throat tastes like… Not heaven, exactly. Something a little, well, dirtier. Something closer to what a girl like me from a family like mine deserves.
The chill of the drink is so satisfying. Especially with the air so hot and thick it practically feels like it’s painting itself on me.
Dario must be getting impatient waiting for his dinner delivery. With a huffy sigh through his nose, he gets up and starts loading up a plate before returning with it to his seat. He takes a big bite of a shrimp, and suddenly my appetite is entirely snuffed out. I come around the bar and sit across from him, holding nothing but my martini, having left my clutch and all the rest of the food on the bar.
Dario swallows his bite and wipes the back of his hand across his mouth before his gaze snags on my left hand where it rests in my lap.
“I need the ring back.”
I swirl my drink, trying not to get too hopeful that this might mean he’s breaking off the engagement. I can’t imagine either of our papàs would be happy about that. They’re the ones who decided on this marriage for us, after all.
“Oh?” I ask, sounding far away and disinterested to my own ears, like my voice is floating somewhere high above my body. “Why?”
“For the cameras down there. Do the whole getting down on one knee thing. But you obviously can’t be wearing the fucking ring already.” He says it like I’m an absolute imbecile, then puts his plate down and holds his hand out expectantly.
“So you’re going to propose – or pretend to, I guess – at the unveiling of your papà’s new condo building? How very romantic,” I say dryly.
He must not pick up on my sarcasm, because he merely gives an impatient shrug and says, “Yeah, that’s the point. Media loves all that romantic shit. Good photo op. Good press.”
“Fine.” I set my drink down on the low table beside my chair and yank off the ring. My hand immediately feels lighter. So light I know it has nothing to do with the actual weight of the piece of jewellery. I drop the giant rose gold and pink diamond monstrosity into his palm and foolishly wish that I didn’t have to take it back at the end of the night.
Dario unceremoniously dumps the ring into one of the pockets on his navy suit as I pick up my drink and take another large sip. I can feel the lazy pulse of the alcohol working its way through my blood now, and I sigh gently before sucking the olive into my mouth.
At the same moment, the elevator doors behind the bar go ding!
“What the fuck?” Dario says, scowling and standing up. “The service elevator is locked down tonight. I put in the code myself. No one’s supposed to be coming up here.”
He’s right. No one is supposed to be coming up here. It’s why the guest elevator doors downstairs are being guarded by Curse and three of my papà’s biggest guys.
But no one’s guarding this one.
Figuring that Dario probably screwed up the code and it’s likely just a wayward server, I relax back against my chair and roll the olive between my tongue and teeth.
Dario takes a step in the direction of the elevator. The doors open.
And he freezes to the spot. The anger, along with all colour, drain from his face.
I hold the olive against my upper teeth and tip my head up to see who’s come.
It isn’t some pretty, lost server, like Persephone from downstairs.
It’s a man.
Maybe Dario and I have something in common after all. Because just like my pale fiancé, I go suddenly and entirely still at the sight of him. Like he’s paralysed me simply by opening those elevator doors.
And stepping out of them.
I’ve been around powerful men all my life. Murderers and millionaires make up the characters populating every page of my story. I’m used to them. At this point, I’m not even afraid of them.
But I’ve never felt a man cut himself into the world, into me , like this. My skin stings, my heart slams, and sweat beads between my breasts at his approach. Two steps, and he’s drenched in that not-quite-sunset-sunshine, his hard, tall, tattooed body illuminated in its plain white T-shirt and faded jeans and boots. His hair is the colour of rust and bold blood.
Dario’s been spooked into movement. His chaise tips and then clatters, sprawling on its side as he stumbles backwards and away.
“Darragh,” he pants, raising his hands like a shield.
And all at once, I know this man. This man who’s sliced his way into the scene with the silent terror of a knife.
Darragh Gowan. Mad Darragh. The insane, sadistic leader of the Irish mob.
The man who turned Toronto upside down trying to find Deirdre and who nearly killed both her and Elio in the process. The last time he had any contact with our family was in the boxing ring, where he broke several of Elio’s ribs and put my cousin’s kidney out of commission for weeks.
The sweat turns to ice on my skin. Has he come for me?
That question dies as soon as it arises. Because he doesn’t even glance my way. Darragh’s eyes are fixed on my fiancé.
Darragh doesn’t seem to rush, yet somehow he closes the distance in no time at all. Dario keeps tripping and half-falling backwards, colliding with furniture until Darragh puts him out of his misery with a punch to the face so swift his fist reminds me of a striking snake.
Stunned, Dario’s knees buckle. Darragh seizes him by the lapels of his suit…
And drags him to the edge of the roof.
My fiancé’s back hits the glass barrier. Darragh bends him backwards over it until the tips of Dario’s shoes scrape and stab at the roof’s surface, trying to gain purchase so that he doesn’t fall.
I can’t hear what either of them are saying. Blood roars in my ears like a storm. And behind the storm, there’s the sound of punches and a door clicking closed as a man dies behind it.
Four years old in a darkened hallway.
Nineteen years old on a sunlit roof.
These are the moments that make me. The moments I can’t escape. The violence that acts like lethal landmarks, damning drops of blood on the map of my life.
Dario’s feet are off the ground. I know what’s going to happen before it does.
But it shocks me all the same. The way Darragh hoists my fiancé up like he weighs nothing at all…
And throws him off the roof.
My body jerks violently. It’s only then I remember the olive still in my mouth.
And just like a second ago, I already know what’s coming next. A spasm of breathless dread goes through me at the exact same moment that I gasp involuntarily.
The olive lodges in my windpipe.
I choke.