Chapter 5 #2
“When you saw me upstairs, I noticed you opening your bag,” I explained.
“I guessed you were trying to retrieve a weapon of some kind. You don’t seem the lipstick fix kind of woman.
” She looked thoughtful for a moment, as if she were contemplating exactly how much to tell me.
I could practically see the gears turning in her pretty head.
But her pensive expression became resolve, defiance flashing in her eyes.
“It’s not right for a man to know what’s in a woman’s purse,” she replied. “I certainly won’t tell you what I was reaching for.”
I almost laughed at her audacity, but that would be forgetting myself.
And I was not going to fucking forget myself around this woman.
While she might play coy, giving me a non-answer, I was willing to bet that I was right.
There was a weapon in that bag, just like there was a holstered gun on me.
A woman of her intelligence would take her safety into her own hands.
Which also explained why she was confident enough to dismiss her security guards earlier. She had a plan B.
“Ah, so you’re traditional,” I observed.
“No, I’m a modern woman,” she countered. “And don’t think I’m going to be the good little wife who will submit to you. If you’re expecting an obedient woman, you won’t find that here.”
“I doubt you can be brought to heel,” I said. “You’re liable to drive your husband crazy. The unfortunate bastard.”
“Is that the sort of husband you will be?” she asked, her hands balled up at her sides again. “Cold and unfeeling? Angry that you can’t control me as if I’m your property?”
That rankled. Because even though I didn’t care how much she hated my family, for some reason, the specific way she hated me pissed me off.
Valentina had been throwing out insults ever since we met, and more than one of them had hit home.
She hadn’t been remotely jealous when bringing up the topic of the women I’d previously bedded.
Which wasn’t the usual reaction. The women I was with were jealous of the others.
But Valentina, my wife-to-be, hadn’t cared.
It shouldn’t have bothered me. I had no idea why it fucking did. Perhaps I wanted my future wife to give a damn. Somehow it didn’t seem right that a one-night stand could burn with jealousy while my fiancée had remained totally unmoved.
Then there had been Valentina’s assumption that I was some sort of uncivilized, mindless brute.
Maybe I fucking was, but that didn’t mean I wanted my future wife to view me as some caveman.
Though I wanted my enemies to fear and hate me, tonight, I hadn’t wanted that from her.
Hadn’t wanted that from my greatest enemy for some reason.
Yet her hatred was palpable. While she didn’t fear me, which was what I wanted, she hated me with a passion that knocked the air out of me.
It was a hatred that I wasn’t going to be able to change.
Worse, it was the sort of loathing that could lead to nothing good.
From the way she looked at me with rage and suspicion, I could easily see her doing everything in her power to make my life miserable.
Or maybe she wouldn’t bother with keeping me alive.
A viper like Valentina could very well try to have me killed instead of allowing me to live a long life.
If anything, this marriage wasn’t going to automatically assure peace.
Based on how much Valentina resented me, it could end up escalating the war between our families.
A chance I would have to take. The path we were on meant that war was guaranteed without serious intervention.
Marriage was the only chance to make lasting peace, and if my future wife thought she could thwart that, she was wrong.
I wasn’t going to die easily, and if she did ever try to kill me, I’d make sure that we were on a collision course of mutually assured destruction.
If I died prematurely, so would Valentina.
I’d fucking make sure of it. The best gangsters could fight from beyond the grave.
“What type of husband I will be to you depends,” I finally answered.
“Depends on what?” she demanded.
“Are you going to need controlling?” I asked, derision in my words. “Are you going to misbehave? Make a spectacle of yourself simply because you won’t always get your way?”
“I don’t have to make a spectacle of myself to resist you,” she retorted.
“We don’t have to love or even like each other, Valentina.” I stopped, noting the way her eyes flashed when I said the word love. Obviously, even the thought of something as absurd as love between us reignited her burning hatred.
She laughed bitterly then, shaking her head in disgust. “You of all people trying to make the case for civility.”
“You can make this an easy marriage or a hard one,” I warned darkly. “It is your choice.”
“Who ordered the hit against Anthony Sullivan?” she asked suddenly. “Was it you or your father?”
That question felt like a punch in the gut because it was so unexpected. Fucking hell, we had gone from talking about marriage to talking about murder.
I looked at her in surprise, jarred by how quickly she had changed the subject. “What?”
“You heard me,” she flung out, taking several steps forward.
The click of her heels on stone sounded like the cocking and subsequent firing of a gun.
A loud, relentless ricochet. When she stopped her advance, Valentina was so close to me that I could feel the warmth of her.
Smell the intoxicating scent of her expensive perfume.
A feminine, floral scent that filled my lungs and made me want to reach out and touch her fragrant skin.
That scent was probably gardenias if I had to guess.
I’d been with enough women to be able to speculate.
Her entire body was shaking with anger as she tilted her head back to glare directly at me. The rage radiating from her made her previous displays of anger pale in comparison. There was murder in her eyes, as if she was thinking of all the ways she could end me in that moment.
I stood my ground, refusing to move an inch.
I’d faced enemies far more physically intimidating than fragile, delicate Valentina Romano.
But she didn’t need physical stature to get her point across.
That fierce, unyielding look in her eyes was enough.
In that moment, I saw that she truly was capable of murder.
Still, as troubling as that was, I wasn’t going to show how much it fucking unnerved me to see that my future wife hated me enough to commit murder.
Tony Sullivan. Yes, I remembered him. Use of his full name had thrown me off and it had taken me a second, but I recalled him now.
Tony had been Don Romano’s right hand for years.
The exact person that needed to be eliminated if we were to stop the Romano push into our territory.
Without our base of operations in New Jersey, we’d have nothing.
Our territory kept us strong, and if we lost it to the Romanos, we were finished—leaving us open to attack from all sides.
We’d gotten rid of Tony because someone had to show the Romanos that they weren’t invincible.
Whatever protection they relied on was meaningless to us.
No matter how good their security, we would bide our time until we found a way to get past it.
Unfortunately for us, the Romanos had sent a similar message to us several times.
None of us were safe when we had enemies who were just as ruthless and effective as we were.
“Have you forgotten?” she snapped. “My father’s best friend? A man so close to him that many assumed that they were brothers?”
While it had been easy to forget some of the people we had eliminated, nobody could forget killing a man like Tony Sullivan.
But it was clear that Valentina knew my family had ordered so many kills over the years that sometimes it was hard for us to always keep track.
Granted, we only went after other criminals, but we could be so ruthless that even I was shocked at times.
Yet it was the only way for us to stay alive.
We lived in a world where it was literally kill or be killed.
Valentina inhabited that world too, no matter how much she was currently trying to act like she was above it.
“I haven’t forgotten,” I countered, my jaw clenching as I found myself on the defensive. “Sullivan’s death was a damn tragedy.”
“Spare me your fake sympathy,” she said sharply. “Everyone knows your family was responsible. Don’t try to pretend otherwise.”