Salvatore
CHAPTER FOUR
How to disappear without a trace.
The search query glows on her laptop screen, naive, desperate, futile.
Valentina. Valentina. Valentina.
There isn’t a place in this world you could hide that I wouldn’t find you.
Not a city big enough. Not a border far enough.
I already know the name you’d use. The passport you’d buy. The first place you’d run.
You’re mine, Valentina, and you already know it.
* * *
I made a decision that will either secure my empire or burn it to the ground.
I’m betting on the former.
“You’re out of your fucking mind,” Matteo says, not bothering to look up from the financial reports spread across my desk.
I lean back in my chair, unbothered, listening to my brother dismantle my plan line by line.
Matteo sees angles and consequences the way other people see colors, instantly, instinctively.
It’s what makes him brilliant at turning dirty money clean, at spotting loopholes and leverage before anyone else does.
It’s also what makes him exhausting.
“Noted,” is all I say after he’s done going off about all the reasons I shouldn’t marry Valentina.
“Noted?” He finally looks up, and there’s actual concern beneath the irritation. “Sal, you’re talking about marrying a woman you’ve known for thirty minutes to solve a problem that has a dozen other solutions.”
“None as satisfying as this one.”
“Satisfying.” Matteo sets down the report. “This is about satisfaction now? What about revenge?”
“That, too. Revenge, justice, and getting debts paid. About taking what should have been ours years ago.”
“She’s not her father or her mother; she doesn’t owe us shit.
What happened to doing things differently?
These marriage alliances are so old school, but if we use that as leverage, it has to make sense.
We don’t need her. You want that debt paid, kill Marco, and get it over with. Quick, easy, final.”
He says “we” don’t need her like I was taking her for all of us, she’s mine, and mine alone.
I need her. “Who says I want easy?” I open my desk drawer, pull out a file.
Inside is a surveillance photo, Valentina leaving the library, arms full of books, completely unaware she’s being watched. Before I decided to pay her a visit.
When Matteo slid the photograph across the desk, I expected another leverage asset.
Another weakness to exploit.
Instead, I saw her.
And everything inside me went very still. It was perfect. She… was perfect.
The same bloodline that once humiliated my father.
Forty years of unfinished business.
Wrapped in the body of a woman who had no idea she already belonged to me.
Her dark hair was pulled back. No makeup but damn, one of the most beautiful women I’d ever seen. She was wearing jeans that showed every curve and a sweater that tried and failed to hide them.
Her eyes, even in a grainy surveillance photo, I can see the fire and intelligence there. The focus. The way she carries herself with unconscious grace.
I’ve been staring at this photo for weeks.
And every time I look at it, that same primal certainty floods through me.
“Tell me about her,” I’d said to Matteo when he first showed me this photo three weeks ago.
He’d rattled off facts. “Twenty-six. Master’s Degree from Columbia. No boyfriend. No debts. Completely clean.”
I’d studied that photo for a long time, memorizing every detail.
“I want her.”
“For what? Leverage against Marco?”
“I’m going to marry her.”
Matteo had laughed. “You’re joking.”
“Marco Marino stole something from this family forty years ago. Now I’m taking his daughter. The debt gets paid, I get a wife with enough at stake to ensure loyalty, and Marco dies knowing exactly what his betrayal cost.”
“So you’re going to take the girl, and kill her father?”
“This is insane.”
“This is perfect.”
Now, three weeks later, Matteo is still trying to talk me out of it.
But I can’t explain to him what I don’t fully understand myself.
There was something about that photograph. Something that called to me. Not only her beauty, though she is beautiful. Something deeper. Something primal and possessive and completely irrational.
I saw her picture and every instinct I have screamed: Take her. Own her. Keep her. So I did.
“So you said her background check came back clean right?” I ask, changing the subject.
Matteo sighs, recognizing I’m done discussing my motivations. “Completely. She’s exactly what she appears to be, an innocent bystander caught in her family’s mess. No criminal record. Few close friends. Spends most of her time working.”
“Good.”
“Is it?” Matteo gathers his reports. “Sal, an innocent in this world is a liability. She doesn’t know the rules. Doesn’t understand what we do or why we do it. You’re going to have to either break her or corrupt her, and neither of those options ends well.”
“She’ll learn.”
Matteo’s expression sharpens.
“You sound like you’re planning to keep her past the three years.”
I don’t answer, because I’m not sure I have an answer.
Three years seemed like a reasonable timeline when I drafted the contract. Long enough to produce an heir, establish her as part of the family, make the alliance permanent. Short enough that if things don’t work out, we can part ways with minimal complications.
But already, after one meeting, one signature, one moment of her looking at me with those dark, defiant eyes, three years feels both too long and not nearly long enough.
“What about Maria?” Matteo asks. “Are you planning to tell her? That her daughter is marrying into the family?”
“Eventually.”
“I’m not sure about this, Sal.”
“This is justice.” I meet his gaze. “Maria Castellano made her choice. She chose a normal life over duty. She chose love over loyalty. She chose to run instead of honoring her family’s commitment.”
I pause.
“Now she gets to watch her daughter make a different choice.”
“Does this really sound like a good idea to you?”
“I’m giving her options. Marry me, or watch her family suffer. That’s more of a choice than my father gave Vincent Castellano when he executed him.”
Matteo shakes his head slowly. “You’re missing the point.
Father eliminated Vincent. That was payment for his daughter’s betrayal.
” His gaze sharpens. “Marco is next. When he’s gone, the slate is clean.
” He gestures dismissively. “Marrying her strengthens nothing. She brings no power, no money, no protection. Only exposure. This arrangement weakens us. It should end, now.”
“No, I’m writing a wrong that should have never happened.” I’m certain of this, at least. “I’m going to give Valentina everything her mother was too weak to claim. Power. Protection. A legacy. She’ll thank me eventually.”
“Or she’ll hate you forever.”
“Hate is better than indifference.” I stand and move to the windows overlooking the estate grounds. “At least hate is a feeling. Don’t you miss those days, brother, when we felt shit?”
“It’s all part of the family business,” he says simply before draining the whisky from his glass.
“Call this what you want, brother, obviously, you like this woman because you’re not thinking clearly. The plan was to assassinate Marco. You saw his daughter’s photo, and everything fucking changed. It’s a picture; you know nothing about the real woman.”
I know everything I need to know.
Matteo leaves, still disapproving, and I’m alone with my thoughts and the memory of Valentina’s face when she signed that contract.
The fear in her eyes. The defiance underneath. The way she trembled when I touched her jaw but didn’t pull away.
The way her pupils dilated when I got close.
Terror and desire both written across her face.
That combination is intoxicating. I pull up the security feed on my computer.
She's in her suite, on the floor with her knees pulled to her chest. Crying.
Silent sobs shake her shoulders. Her face is buried in her arms. She's broken down completely in the privacy of that locked room.
I should feel satisfaction. Confirmation that she understands the gravity of her situation, that she won't try anything stupid.
Instead, that same uncomfortable twist in my chest returns.
Guilt? No. I don’t do guilt.
Regret? Closer, but not quite.
Possessiveness. That’s what it is.
She’s mine now. Signed and sealed. And seeing her in pain, even pain I caused, triggers something protective in me.
I don’t want her broken. I want her bent. Shaped to fit perfectly at my side.
She walks into her bathroom, and I can no longer see her. That’s the one room where I allow her to have complete privacy.
The guard at the gate calls, and I shut off the feed.
“Sir, there’s a woman here demanding to see you. Says she’s Valentina Marino’s mother.”
“How man?”
“She came alone.”
Hm, she’s brave for coming here alone.
“Bring her to the east sitting room.”
“Yes, sir.”
I adjust my cufflinks and check my reflection in the window.
Curious to see if Valentina gets her spine from her mother.
Or if this is going to be a problem.
When I walk in, I find her sitting in one of the chairs. Smaller than I expected, but I realize her daughter bears a strong resemblance to her.
She has the same dark hair as Valentina, though graying now. The same bone structure. The same eyes.
Actually, she bears a strong resemblance to my late mother.
She’s dressed simply but neatly, a modest dress, comfortable shoes, minimal jewelry. Her hands clutch her purse like a lifeline.
“Mrs. Marino.” I gesture to the chair across from me. “Thank you for coming.”
“I didn’t have a choice; you kidnapped my daughter.” Her voice trembles but doesn’t break.
“And yet you came.” I settle into my chair. “That takes courage.”
Elio takes his position by the door, silent and watchful. Maria’s eyes flick to him nervously, then back to me.
“Where is she? Where’s Valentina?”
“Upstairs. In her room. Safe.” I pause, let the weight of that word sink in. “Would you like something to drink? Water? Tea?”
She blinks, clearly not expecting courtesy. “I… water, please.”