Chapter 32
VALENTINA
There is a strange sense of comfort in being trapped in a familiar place.
I grew up in this house. The living room is almost exactly as it was when I left it, with its heavy, high-end furniture and earth-colored textiles.
My stepfather’s ridiculously expensive oil paintings adorn the walls, and a plethora of framed photographs rest on the mantelpiece.
I can hear Michael upstairs. Sometimes, he cries for me. Sometimes, he’s awfully quiet. My stepfather has a babysitter looking after him, and I hate the man with the fire of a thousand suns for everything he’s done to me. To us.
“I’m home!” Caroline announces as she walks through the door.
I’m tied to a chair, close enough to the window that I spotted the beam from her headlights when she pulled up. I wonder how many of Luca’s people are watching this place, and if any of them know that I’m inside.
My stomach churns when my stepsister comes in with a half smile.
“Oh, don’t look so glum. It’s almost over,” she says, eerily calm.
She used to seem so beautiful to me, so composed, occasionally abrasive. Had I known the truth, I never would’ve trusted her. I feel like the world’s biggest idiot.
“I don’t understand how you could do any of this,” I tell her. “Your father, I get. He lacks scruples and principles. But you—”
She cuts me off and with an icy glare in her eyes says, “Don’t you dare say another word about Papa. You’re the reason we’re in this situation to begin with. Where is he, by the way?”
“Fuck if I know, Caroline. This isn’t my home anymore. I’m literally just a prisoner here,” I snap, feeling both angry and fearless at this point.
Caroline takes a deep breath and sits on the armrest for a bit.
Her composure is beyond infuriating. The zip ties have already cut deeply into my wrists, and it hurts to even struggle in anger or desperation.
All I can do is sit here and either wait for the inevitable bloody conclusion or figure a way out of this mess.
“It doesn’t matter. It will all be over soon anyway,” she says.
“What’s the plan exactly? If you wanted to grab me and Michael at the same time, why didn’t you just do it when you came to pick us up last night? Why’d you send Luca after us? I don’t understand.”
She laughs lightly. “Oh, you picked up on that.”
“On the fact that every other kidnapping attempt was a failure by design because I was on my own and not with my son? Yes, I’ve had some time to think while I’ve been sitting here.”
“The thing is, Valentina, there’s a bigger plan in motion. It’s not just you or Michael I’m after. It’s Luca, too. He’s a central piece of my strategy. And when you came back and he decided to marry you instead of me, I had to adjust.” She sighs deeply.
“That’s what this is about? Marrying Luca?”
“No, having a family of my own,” she replies. “You popped a kid out almost by mistake. I mean, one night with Stefano Petrucci and, boom, pregnant. Meanwhile, I’m praying for someone, especially a Petrucci, to want to marry me, infertile that I am, and well, I’m sure you understand.”
“I don’t. We were supposed to be sisters, Caroline.”
“We were until you decided your freedom mattered more,” she snaps.
“What? Don’t you think I wanted my freedom at some point in this fucking life?
I would’ve loved to become an architect, for starters.
I wanted my own practice, buildings with my name on them.
But no, I was born a Mancuso. I had a role to fill, even after I lost my chance at having children. ”
I glare at her, disgusted. “I have a hard time feeling sorry for you right now.”
“And I don’t really give a shit about what you feel,” she shoots back.
“The point is, all you had to do was have the baby. I would’ve raised him as my own.
Papa would’ve negotiated something with the Petruccis.
You would’ve gone somewhere off grid, away from us.
I mean, that was the ideal plan. But Papa—”
“Papa had the clear mind of a man in charge,” my stepfather cuts in as he walks into the living room with a glass of whiskey in his hand. “And rightfully so.”
Caroline rolls her eyes. “So, I came up with a different strategy, and Luca was almost hooked. All I had to do was marry him. A peace treaty would’ve been signed, a new document overpowering the others before it.
The Petruccis and the Mancusos would be united.
Papa wasn’t too happy about it, but he understood the business necessities. ”
“We won’t survive on our own for much longer, but I’ll be damned if I’ll ever give the Petruccis the satisfaction of buying us out,” Mauro mutters, lingering by the fireplace.
His face is paler in this light, and I can see the signs of sickness a lot clearer. I’m not sure what’s ailing him, but it’s slowly eating away at him from the inside. Good. For what he did to us, to my mother… it feels like the universe is finally getting him back.
“Luca found me and ruined your plan,” I reply.
Caroline nods. “He most certainly did.”
“Had you not killed Stefano, I doubt Luca would’ve ever learned about Michael and me,” I say. “I was fine in Calumet City, away from all of you.”
I still can’t believe how Caroline has been playing me the whole time. Either I was willfully blind, or she really is that good an actress. My heart hurts with another layer of grief as I wonder how much of our bond was ever real.
“Blame Papa for that. He had a bone to pick with Stefano,” Caroline says.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, make it make sense,” I groan with frustration.
“I needed inside knowledge from the Petruccis,” my stepfather says.
“Merely killing Stefano for knocking you up was petty and unproductive, though it was terribly tempting. Caroline helped with the logistics and the planning, and that’s when I truly realized that she was more than fit to take over the syndicate when I’m gone. ”
Caroline giggles like a happy little girl.
“I told Papa that with the right pressure and the right incentive, he could get Stefano to tell us everything we needed to know in order to dismantle the Petruccis from the inside out. The goal was always to weaken them, for me to work my way in at the same time and to tear that beast wide open. No more wars in the streets, and eventually we’d make way for a new generation.
The old one would have to die out first.”
“You faked Stefano’s death so you could kidnap him,” I say. “You’ve been keeping him in that Mayfair house for months, yet you told Luca about that place.”
“That was devious, wasn’t it?” She chuckles lightly. “I mean, I understand if your simple little brain doesn’t understand complex revenge and planning, but what I put together was and still is fucking brilliant, even with the setback of your return.”
“I didn’t choose to come back!” I yell.
“But here you sit, almost fucking everything up!” Caroline yells back, smacking me across the face.
My cheek burns. My lower lip stings, and I taste a droplet of blood from where the soft skin broke. Mauro looks away—something tells me he doesn’t enjoy my suffering as much as Caroline does.
“I can’t believe this is the real you,” I say and sigh heavily.
“We didn’t think Luca would look into Stefano’s death. We kept your pregnancy a secret the whole time,” she says. “But Luca surprised us all. I had to make a few changes to the plan. And it worked out, as you can see.”
I look at her, then at her father, trying to understand the level of cruelty required to do all of this.
Mauro played his part well in public—the angry old man with a bone to pick; Caroline was the peacemaker, the negotiator, the diplomat.
This whole time, they were working together and doing horrible things to my family and me.
“I wanted Luca to suffer,” Caroline says, almost picking up on my train of thought. “At the motel, I wanted him to get you back, just so he could lose you again. It’s the least he owes me for dumping me over your fat ass.”
“You’re a monster,” I hiss.
She shrugs and gets up. “We’re almost to the finish line now. Our families will unite and Michael will be raised well. You won’t be anywhere in the picture, though.”
“All of this for money and power.”
“Money, power, and a true legacy. We’re reshaping the Camorra, Valentina.
That’s what you don’t understand. It took Papa years to accept, but I finally got him to come around!
That’s what it was always about with our families from the beginning.
Money. Power. Influence. And the value of our names.
Bringing the Petruccis and the Mancusos into the same house is the ultimate power play.
It’s like joining two royal bloodlines. The Petrucci wealth and the Mancuso grit.
The Petrucci resources and the Mancuso business savvy. ”
I laugh at her theatrics. She gazes at me, nonplussed.
“Laugh all you want, Valentina, but you never understood or even wanted this life,” she says. “When I was little, I didn’t want it either.”
“Yeah, I already heard your little sob story about your failed architecture dreams.”
Mauro scoffs. “What a ridiculous idea.”
“I know, right?” She giggles.
Their dynamic is strange and insanely toxic.
“What about Stefano? Is he leverage then?” I ask, trying to put as many of the puzzle pieces together.
“He was always leverage,” Mauro says. “We’ve been milking him for information for months. We’ll keep milking him until we exhaust him.”
“And when you don’t need him anymore?”
“He’ll be useful. A Petrucci is always useful,” Caroline says, pointing upwards. “Your boy? He’s fucking gold.”
“You’ll never touch my son!” I snarl.
“You won’t be around to stop me,” she says, mocking me.
The cold reality of what’s about to happen dawns on me.
I’m also leverage, but I am easily expendable once Caroline gets what she wants from Luca.
That’s what this is about: my son, and Luca as her husband.
The ultimate game plan is finally revealed.
Stefano is useful because of his inside knowledge.
I’m only useful until Luca agrees to Caroline and Mauro’s new terms and conditions.
I know the mansion is heavily guarded. Several syndicates are insanely loyal to the Mancusos. If a war does break out, it will be bloody and messy. And the Petruccis might lose in the end because of Caroline’s earlier machinations. My stomach tightens.
“You’re going to kill me,” I whisper.
“Well, yes. The plan doesn’t work otherwise.”
Mauro sighs. “Personally, I take no pleasure in any of this.”
“Neither do I. But it’s necessary,” Caroline declares, a practiced pained look on his face.
I wish I could believe it, though. But I can’t. Not when I can see through her with such startling clarity.
Footsteps echo from the main hallway. The door closes loudly.
“Ah, they’re here. Excellent!” Caroline almost squeals with excitement, then takes a small gun out of her bag.
I’m starting to believe that Mauro lost the reins to this entire affair a while ago.
Caroline took over and let her sick mind play out the most disturbing scenarios, determined to get her own way.
But her twisted imagination and reality don’t quite match, and I think, deep down, my stepfather knows it.
The thought subsides when Detective Ethan Reece walks in with Luca.
For a second, I dare hope I’m about to be rescued.
“Luca,” I whisper.
His sullen gaze destroys that hope.
I see the gun that Reece has trained on my husband.