6. Valentina
Chapter 6
Valentina
I squint through blurry eyes, struggling to rise into a seated position on the creamy cushions. My head somehow feels both heavier and lighter than it should, pounding and wobbly atop my neck. My throat aches like someone tried to shove a big rock right down the length of it.
But I can breathe.
I can breathe.
I feel like I’m coming up for air after drowning in some terrible dream. A dream that swirls with images of long strides, blue jeans, and rust-red hair. Tattoos. And the strangest set of eyes I’ve ever seen. One hazel-green, one dark brown. Both impossible to look away from.
Darragh Gowan.
Was he really here? The more I stabilize, the more my heart returns to its usual, not-dying rhythm, the less it, he , seems real. There’s no sign of him now. No sign of him or my fiancé.
Late fiancé.
I swallow and scrape damp hair away from my face. My mind is in ragged-edged pieces. I can’t seem to latch onto anything to make sense of this.
The only word left in my brain is that word from the dictionary, the one I stopped at years ago. Apparition.
The appearance of something shocking or unexpected…
Or a ghost.
A ghost who must have saved me. He had to have been real.
Every breath you breathe belongs to me now, pet.
I remember that much. And I remember the vicious drag of my body against his as my vision blinked away to black.
And then he was gone. And now I’m here.
Alone.
Not for long. A cheery-sounding ding, the same sound that heralded Darragh’s unexpected arrival – apparition – sounds from behind me. From the same elevator that I took up here with Dario, my papà and Curse come rushing out. Curse has a gun in his hand, his dark eyes sweeping the rooftop as Papà hurries straight to me.
If I expected some kind words from my dearest papà in the wake of me almost dying, I’m sorely mistaken. He grabs my shoulders and hauls me up into an unsteady standing position.
“What happened?” he hisses, giving me a small shake when I don’t answer immediately. “What the fuck did you do?”
“What… What did I do?” I repeat raggedly, sure I must have heard him wrong.
“Rocco’s already checked. The service elevator’s lock code is in place. Cheap-ass security system apparently hasn’t been saving any footage for the last two months which nobody discovered until fucking today . Nobody knows what the fuck just happened except for the fact that you were the only two up here.” His brown eyes harden. “And now, you’re the only one up here.”
I try to process everything he’s just said.
No security footage.
The elevator’s code is back in place.
Darragh’s been planning this. Down to the most minute of details.
He knew where to go and when to get here.
He knew where Dario was.
I’d almost want to admire it if my papà weren’t looking at me like I’d just set a hundred million of his dollars on fire.
Why did Darragh alter what had to be one tight escape timeline just to stop and save my life?
Especially after what I witnessed?
“ Rispondimi! Answer me, ragazza !” Papà gives me another shake, harder this time. “You’re the only one up here, meanwhile your fiancé’s fucking brains look like smashed gelo de melone on the pavement! I’m about to have so many poliziotti crawling up my ass that I’ll be shitting them out for days!”
I stare at him in stunned horror. What the hell does he think? That all five-foot-one of me somehow managed to push Dario over the glass barrier? Or that I was so shrill and terrible to him during our first meeting that the man dove headfirst over the edge just to escape the fate of taking me on as his bride?
Papà knows I didn’t want to marry Dario. Everyone with eyes and enough braincells to put two and two together knows it.
Testarda come un mulo.
Stubborn enough to kill a man just so that I don’t have to marry him?
Now, telling the truth feels out of the question. Ridiculous. Throwing Darragh’s name in my papà’s face when he’s somehow left not a single fucking trace of his presence behind would be absurd. I wouldn’t be surprised if Darragh even managed not to leave fingerprints in the elevator that he’s apparently managed to freeze back into its secure state. It would be like trying to blame some phantom from a fairytale.
Apparition.
Curse comes to a stop beside us after completing his check of the roof.
“No one here. And no signs of a struggle,” he says.
His eyes go to me, and papà’s grip tightens on my bare upper arms. There are no accusations in my cousin’s probing gaze.
But there are questions.
And suddenly, I’m so furious that I swear I’m choking all over again. So furious that my vision pulses black. While they were doing God knows what downstairs, I was watching a man die and then nearly dying myself.
It hits me like a blow to the stomach. Like Darragh’s fists below my sternum. I almost died. And my family didn’t do anything to stop it, because they were too busy giving me alone time with the son of the famiglia they sold me to.
The only one who deigned to help me was our enemy, even when it slowed him down. Even when it could have cost him everything.
For the first time in my life, I understand the saying “so angry I can’t see straight.”
And for the first time in my life, I lie to my papà.
I raise my chin and practically spit the words.
“He jumped.”