Chapter 8
The security guards didn’t escort me out. They threw me out. The glass door of Ferraro Uomo closed behind me with a final, muffled click, sealing me out.
I stood there for a second, dazed, on my knees on the sidewalk of Via Cantù. The smell of wet asphalt and diesel from a passing bus filled my lungs. The ringing in my head was so loud it drowned out the traffic of Milan.
Humiliated…
I, Marco Valenti, who had entered that building like a raging lion, was thrown out like a bum.
Enzo’s punch was still throbbing in my jaw. I tasted the metallic flavor of blood in my mouth.
I got up slowly; it felt as if my legs were no longer mine. The fight, the screams, the shattering glass, the sight of her belly… it all receded, leaving a hollow void.
She’s pregnant.
I needed to regain my dignity. With unsteady hands, I brushed the dust off my crumpled, whiskey-soaked suit. I wiped the blood from my mouth with the back of my hand. My once-white shirt was wrinkled and stained. I was the very picture of defeat.
A few people on the sidewalk stopped to stare. The billionaire Valenti looked like a drunk who’d just come out of a bar fight. Maybe they didn’t even recognize me.
I ignored them. I started walking.
I had nowhere to go. My car was somewhere, my driver probably waiting for a call that would never come. I just walked.
Seven months…
I turned the corner, entering a narrower street, listening to the sound of my expensive shoes clacking on the cobblestones. The cold afternoon air hit my face, but I didn’t feel it. I was burning inside.
Pregnant…
I already knew, but seeing her… real, undeniable, the curve of her body beneath her blazer…
The baby kicked.
I stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, resting my hand on a cold lamppost. I had to hold on or I would have fallen.
The baby kicked right into my hand!
The horror of what I had done came crashing down on me.
I left her at the altar. I dragged her through the media. I left her alone and humiliated to deal with a pregnancy while the whole world judged her, and I sat in Dubai counting my money.
I was so devastated, so shaken in a way I didn’t even know was possible. More than any business loss, more than Silvio’s betrayal or Enzo’s punch. I had seen the face of my greatest failure.
And I kissed her…
My God, in the midst of that fury, that pain… I kissed her. I pinned her against the table with savage desperation.
I kept walking, aimlessly, circling the block around Ferraro Uomo like a ghost trapped at the scene of his death.
What do I do now?
I was Marco Valenti. I fixed things, bought whatever was broken, destroyed whatever got in my way, and had contingency plans for my contingency plans.
But for this?
How do you “fix” six months of neglect? How do you “fix” public humiliation? How do you ask for forgiveness for believing she was a calculating traitor, when in fact she was the victim?
The answer was simple, and it was terrifying: You can’t fix it.
I couldn’t erase the Duomo, nor the ring I threw into the wind, nor the pain in her eyes when she saw me touching her belly—the panic, the sheer terror that I, the man who destroyed her, wanted to claim the one thing she had left.
GET OUT OF MY OFFICE!
Her scream echoed in my mind. The scream of a lioness.
I, the lone wolf, realized the terrible truth. I didn’t have the tools for this. I didn’t know what to do.
Money wouldn’t buy her forgiveness. Threats wouldn’t bring her back. My empire was useless.
I was more shaken than at any other moment in my life. Because, for the first time, I wanted something I couldn’t take, couldn’t buy, and didn’t deserve.
I had no idea how to even begin to fight for it.
I kept walking. The block… again… the same marble-and-glass palazzo mocking me. “Get out!” “I’m not going anywhere.” Her words and mine were waging war in my head.
I had no tools. I didn’t know what to do.
That’s a lie!
The thought struck me, bringing me to a halt in the middle of the sidewalk. Fury at Silvio’s deception mingled with panic at having abandoned Bianca and my son and created something new: a desperate clarity.
I knew what I was doing. I was Marco Valenti. I don’t negotiate when I’m losing. I smash the table; I change the rules of the game.
I couldn’t let her go. If I let her go home tonight, if I let her lock herself behind those walls, I’d lose her forever. She’d regroup and wipe me off the map.
Purpose surged back, hot and addictive. I wasn’t lost anymore. I was on the hunt.
I ran to the corner, toward the ramp to the underground garage. The only place she’d come out. Where the security guards couldn’t stop me before I saw her.
I waited. The cold afternoon air cut through my wrinkled suit. The smell of diesel and exhaust hung at the mouth of the concrete tunnel. Milan’s traffic roared behind me. Five minutes… Ten… Every second was torture in anticipation.
Then, the sound. The metallic creak of a heavy iron gate beginning to open.
My heart raced, pounding in my throat.
White LED lights cut through the darkness of the ramp. The black Mercedes S-Class, long and gleaming like a shark, crept up slowly, stopping just before it reached the curb.
I saw her. Bianca was in the back seat, turned toward the opposite window, probably looking at her cell phone. The driver, a man in a suit and cap, was looking to the left, waiting for a gap in traffic.
They didn’t see me.
The car began to move forward.
No. I won’t abandon you again.
I didn’t think—I just acted.
I threw myself in front of the car.
The sound was deafening. The driver screamed. The high-performance Michelin tires shrieked against the asphalt, filling the tunnel with the stench of burning rubber. The car stopped just inches from crushing my knees. The horn blared, a long, furious blast.
“Idiot!” the driver yelled out the window.
But I wasn’t looking at him. I was looking at the rear window.
Bianca turned around. Our eyes met through the tinted glass. The horror on her face—her mouth open in a soundless cry—was the last thing I saw before instinct took over.
Within two seconds, I was at the driver’s door.
“Get out!” I yanked the door so hard that the hinge groaned.
The driver, a burly man, tried to react.
“Signore, you can’t…”
I grabbed him by the collar and didn’t give him a chance. I yanked him out of the leather seat with a single burst of strength, throwing him onto the sidewalk like a bag of trash.
“MARCO!”
Bianca’s scream came from inside the car, shrill, full of fury and terror.
I plunged into the driver’s seat, gripping the still-warm steering wheel. The car was in “Drive.” I slammed my foot down on the gas pedal.
The Mercedes shot forward, tires screeching, plunging into the middle of traffic. A taxi honked and swerved, nearly hitting us.
“What do you think you’re doing? Stop this car!” Bianca pounded on the back of the driver’s seat.
I ignored her and kept driving. Liquid fire seemed to course through my veins. I turned sharply at the corner, cutting across three lanes.
“Marco, you psychopathic bastard! Open the door! Let me out!”
Her screams were muffled by the glass, but I could see her mouth moving and her face red with rage.
“You’re kidnapping me! I’m going to call the police!”
She grabbed her phone. I saw it in the rearview mirror.
I slammed on the brakes, bringing the car to a stop in the middle of the street, and threw myself over the seat.
“Give me that!” I growled.
“Go to hell!”
We fought over the phone. She was fierce, digging her nails into my hand. But I was stronger. I yanked the phone from her hand and threw it out my open window. It smashed against the side of a bus.
“YOU SON OF A BITCH!”
She started punching me in the back. I turned back to the steering wheel and stepped on the gas again.
“You’re going to listen to me, Bianca!” I shouted in a hoarse voice, competing with the roar of the engine. “You’re going to listen to me, even if I have to lock you in my apartment for the rest of your life!”
She stopped screaming and started crying. In the rearview mirror, I watched furious tears shake her without a sound.
The sight of her crying almost broke me. Almost…
But the image of my son kicking inside her was stronger.
I wasn’t being kind, much less rational.
I was being what I knew I was… the fucking storm, and I was dragging her along with me.
The Maserati’s tires shrieked across the underground garage while the engine’s roar battered the concrete walls. I slammed on the brakes before the car came to a complete stop, the smell of burnt rubber filling the air.
Bianca didn’t wait. The moment the car stopped, she threw herself against the door, trying to open it.
“Stay away from me!”
I was faster. I pressed the central locking button on my dashboard. The click of the doors locking was sharp, metallic, final.
She pounded on the glass with her clenched fist.
“OPEN THIS DOOR, MARCO!”
“We’re going to talk, Bianca.”
“Talk?” she screamed, her voice distorted by rage. “You call this a conversation? You kidnapped me! You dragged me out of my company!”
“We have six months to catch up,” I growled back, getting out of the car and slamming the door so hard it made the chassis shake.
I watched her through the tinted glass. She was cornered, her wild eyes searching for a way out and her breath fogging the glass. She was rage trapped behind glass.
I unlocked only her door.
I opened it. The cold air from the garage hit her. Before she could move, I dove into the back seat. Her scent—fear, expensive perfume, and the electricity of her anger—hit me full force.
“No!” she screamed, trying to crawl to the other side of the car, away from me.
I grabbed her arm. She turned around and scratched me, digging her sharp nails into the skin of my forearm. The pain was sharp, immediate, and only sharpened the reckless drive inside me.
“Are you crazy?” she hissed, struggling. “I’m pregnant! You’re going to hurt us!”
Us…
The word hit me like a punch to the stomach, harder than Enzo’s punch. Our child!