Chapter 13
Enzo
I stepped out of the guestroom to find Valentina retrieving some empty duffle bags out of a storage room on the other side of the hall.
“I spoke to my parents,” she informed me, her tone clipped. No doubt she was still pissed about having to leave spur of the moment.
Whether she forgave me was of no consequence. What mattered was that she was safe.
Still, having her hate my guts over this wasn’t ideal.
This was a huge test of our trust at a time when trust was in short supply.
Add to the fact that not only did I feel like an asshole, I was also stunned to discover that I really, really didn’t like making my fiancée unhappy.
In fact, I fucking hated it. Refusing to give in and just make Valentina happy was getting harder and harder by the day.
What kind of man wanted to make his future wife unhappy?
Much as I told myself that dragging her from her home was for the greater good, I was going to feel like a prick for the foreseeable future.
I approached her and took the duffle bags from her. “How did they take the news?”
She paused, leveling her shoulders as she looked me dead in the eye. “They agreed with you.”
I must have fucking killed her to admit that.
But she shouldn’t have been surprised. No matter how much a parent missed their child, a halfway decent parent would want that kid as far away as possible if it meant their safety.
And no matter how much history there was between our families, I knew what sort of parent Don Romano was.
He was a damn good father. He’d send Valentina to the ends of the earth to protect her—the same as me.
Valentina was the one thing that we saw eye to eye on.
She was to be protected at all costs. It had been her safety that had compelled him to visit my apartment that fateful night.
He’d been trying to get the measure of the man he was marrying his daughter off to.
I couldn’t let him down no matter how much it made Valentina despise me.
Let her hate me. As long as she was alive, I’d accept that hatred without regret.
“I took out two bags in case you needed one,” she told me as I walked with her down the hall.
“Appreciate it. I’m going to get some stuff from my apartment,” I said. “Though I don’t want to leave you here on your own.”
“I can go with you to your apartment,” she offered. “I can help you pack your things and—”
“I’m not letting you anywhere near McClain,” I said, firmly cutting her off. My valet could have been at the apartment and since he was still a suspect, I didn’t want him to have any chance to get to her. That meant I wasn’t about to leave her anywhere on her own—not at her place, not at mine.
Still, I was surprised that Princess Valentina wanted to lift a finger to help me pack. Though there was an increasing domestic intimacy between us that I couldn’t deny. Living under the same roof these past few days was bringing us closer.
Which was exactly what I fucking wanted and planned for.
I should have felt triumphant at making her give a damn about me.
But that didn’t stop the bout of guilt that was currently kicking my ass.
Playing house with a woman I never intended to love added one hundred fucking points in the asshole column, no doubt.
“You’ll stay in your car on the other side of the street while I get my stuff,” I continued. “I pack light so it shouldn’t take long. There are just a couple things at my place that I have to get.”
I didn’t explain to her that most of what I was getting were weapons. That would just add to her anxiety after the hellish past few days. Besides, knowing her, she was going to be packing her own weapons as well. A woman like Valentina would leave nothing to chance.
With that plan settled, I took off in my sports car, letting Valentina trail behind me in her chauffeured ride.
When I got to my place, I quickly packed the most important items, made some extra arrangements, and then went down to the underground parking lot to change cars.
Something that would blend in with the other cars on the road.
I chose a battered old pickup truck and I led us back to Valentina’s townhouse.
Back inside the townhouse, we got to work packing our bags.
I warned Valentina not to take anything drinkable or edible so she decided she’d just toss everything out.
While I was pretty sure nothing in the house was poisoned, we’d be stupid to take any chances.
If our nemesis could get to us at a cake tasting, they could get to us at the townhouse.
When we finally finished packing, we assembled in the living room sometime in the early evening for last-minute plans.
“I’ve packed everything I’ll need, including cash.
No bank cards obviously,” she said, pulling a pair of wheeled carryon bags into the living room.
She had dressed down—gone were the designer clothes and impossibly high heels.
Now she was wearing a top, a pair of jeans, and sneakers.
Despite dressing like a regular person, her beauty was overwhelming.
It took my fucking breath away. “But we should probably be leaving our phones and other devices here. We don’t want to be tracked down.
I’m assuming there’s a landline at this safehouse? ”
Damn, she was bloody smart. Of course she’d figured all that out without needing to be told to get rid of her phone or to leave her credit cards.
I gave a nod and pulled out the burner phones I’d retrieved from my apartment.
“Yeah, there’s a landline. Also got a couple of burners since we have to ditch our devices. ”
“I should call my parents to let them know where we’re headed,” she said, biting her lower lip.
Seeing the concerned look on her beautiful face tore at my heart.
If I was even slightly weaker, I would have caved and let her have what she wanted.
Because it fucking hurt to make her unhappy.
For whatever reason, I actually gave a fuck about Valentina’s hopes and dreams. Her wants and wishes.
There were very few people in my life that I could say that about.
Valentina was the person I wanted to please the most. I would straight-up kill if it would put a smile on her face.
But I wasn’t a weak man. I was strong enough to withstand this inexplicable urge to make her happy.
Strong enough to accept her hatred, all while it fucking killed me inside to ever disappoint her.
“Call them when we get there, not before,” I instructed, keeping my tone firm.
Her face fell, and I swear, Valentina pouted. Full on pouted like a spoiled princess. Ordinarily, that should have irritated me, but it just made me want to reach out and comfort her. Which was nuts because I didn’t do that shit. For her, though, I was contemplating anything and everything.
All she could manage was a wordless nod. The pout vanished. The stricken look on her face tore me to fucking pieces then. She looked utterly heartbroken. So fragile and alone that she looked like she was on the verge of tears.
In that moment, I reached for her and silently placed one of the burner phones in her hand.
Valentina looked down at her hand for several moments, seeming to take in my small gesture.
While neither of us could do what we truly wanted in an emergency situation like this, I could try to be less of a fucking brute.
If I could manage a simple gesture of handing her a phone, a future lifeline to her parents, I would fucking do it.
She lifted her gaze to look at me, her eyes shining with something I didn’t remember ever seeing from her before. Gratitude. And a recognition that even though I’d be ruthless in my mission to see her safe, I could never again enjoy seeing her suffer for any reason.
“Thank you,” she whispered softly.
“No problem,” I said gruffly.
I thought she’d start crying or something, but somehow, Valentina powered through. She was looking me square in the eye when she demanded, “So are we going to get a move-on, or not?”
There she was. The strong woman who could face any danger.
Together, we dragged our bags out of the townhouse and into the pickup truck waiting on the sidewalk outside. It was getting dark. The ideal moment to slip out of town unnoticed.
I helped her into the passenger seat and then I got behind the wheel to start driving away from the townhouse.
“How long is the drive?” she asked.
“Three hours,” I told her, navigating down her street. “We’ll get supplies on the way.”
I drove for hours, only stopping for a couple of breaks and supplies at a general store. I got enough supplies last us for weeks, including a portable camping stove, a gas cylinder, goal, kerosene, and a brand-new grill.
Valentina slept for a lot of the way, leaving me with nothing but my thoughts. We finally arrived at the safe house in the dead of night. I parked in front of the house and gently roused Valentina with a couple pats on the shoulder.
She looked around, her face made golden by the interior light of the truck. Groggy as she appeared, Valentina was still an absolute vision. “We’re here.”
“Finally,” I said, nodding before I got out to grab our gear. Guided by the truck’s headlights, I set everything down on the front porch before heading back to help Valentina out of the passenger seat.
She took my hand, and damn it felt good to touch her after hours of silence on her part. The sensation of her warm hand in mine was enough to reinvigorate me after hours on the road. Holding hands with her made the whole ass-numbing trip worth it.
As we headed up the porch steps, Valentina leaned against me, her head on my shoulder.
It was the kind of domestic bliss I had never considered for myself.
Those were goals for other types of men, not the likes of me.
And yet, here we were, walking hand in hand into what was ostensibly our home. At least for the short term.
We were learning to live with each other and if didn’t know any better, I would have said that having her around left me feeling the opposite of suffocated or miserable.
But I did know better. Valentina had no idea that I was using her to further my family’s ends.
If she ever discovered that, she would never let me touch her again.
And that would be me getting off light because she could absolutely teach me a very violent and costly lesson for double crossing her.
I opened the front door, flicking on some inside and outside light switches as I stepped into the wooden farmhouse. The front room was barely lit by a single ancient bulb but there was enough light to see how rundown the place was.
“This wasn’t what I expected based on the outside,” she said.
“Upkeep of the place has been touch and go,” I admitted.
Every surface was covered with a layer of dust and there were cobwebs all over the place.
Nobody had visited the place in years. Made all the more obvious by the cheap, gaudy décor that couldn’t have been upgraded since the 1970s.
It was like stepping into a time warp of Graceland or something.
All of it over-the-top. Phony plastic windows in the divider separating the living room from the rest of the place.
The plastic made to look like stained-glass windows.
The room divider came complete with beaded curtains.
There were oversized velvet sofas to match the velvet curtains, hideous lampshades, mismatched rugs, shag carpeting, and demented wallpaper.
Valentina grabbed onto my arm. “Is that a dead mouse?”
Much as I gave her hell for being a spoiled princess, she was well within her rights to want to get the fuck out of here. The place was a mess. It smelled like mildew and I could already tell it was going to need repairs.
“I’ll take care of it,” I assured her. “Want to pick a room?”
She wrinkled her nose but gave a nod and together we headed deeper into the house.
Many of the rooms were uninhabitable without serious work, but we picked the best we found.
Valentina settled on a room with a normal bed, limited furniture, and a small balcony, while I got the room with a broken-down old bed that I had no intention of sleeping in.
I’d sleep on the pullout sofa in the living room before I pressed my luck with the bed.
At least my designated room came with a fireplace.
With the rooms chosen, Valentina settled in for the night while I got started on securing the safehouse.
First, I got to work on basic security. I replaced blown light bulbs with new ones we’d bought at the general store, I fixed a couple of door hinges, and I got to work trying to get the dust out of the living room.
Satisfied and too fucking wiped out to do any more, I stumbled into the pullout sofa bed and immediately fell asleep.
I got up early the next morning to work on more home improvements, which meant cleaning the place down and making repairs with the new tools I’d purchased. Sometime that morning, Valentina appeared in the living room while I was making repairs to a dilapidated bookshelf.
“There’s no hot water, so I had to make do with cold,” she announced.
“See, you don’t get to complain if I make fun of you for stuff like that,” I said.
Valentina rolled her eyes, but she started laughing. “Okay fine, I can take the hint. I’ll pitch in and make us breakfast. House looks better already by the way.”
I took the compliment and decided to give her grief about her overblown shower troubles later. I continued working on the shelf while Valentina cooked breakfast, and by midmorning we were eating bacon in the kitchen.
“You can call your parents to let them know where you are,” I said, getting up to wipe down the kitchen table while she cleared our plates away.
“Thanks, Enzo,” she said softly, giving me a faint smile as she set the plates in the sink. “I’ll call them right away.”
As she headed back to her room to make the call, it felt good to be able to get a smile out of her. All without compromising her safety.
I returned to finish repairing the shelf, satisfied with a job well done when I hammered in the final nail. With the shelf out of the way, I planned for the rest of the morning to be light work. That way I’d be able to do more of the heavy stuff in the afternoon.
I set the tools aside and sank down into the living room sofa, prepared to take a well-earned break in front of the old-fashioned TV.
But the moment I switched the TV on, thunder crashed overhead.
It started pouring rain without warning.
That was when the ceiling started to leak and the power went out.