"Then we'll fix that." His lips quirked, almost a smile. "Starting now. Tell me something true, Valentina. Something that has nothing to do with your father or Caldwell or any of this."
I blinked, thrown by the request. "What?"
"Something true. About you."
My mind raced, stumbling over the simple question. What did I know about myself anymore? Everything I'd believed—about my father, my life, my future—had been lies.
"I'm terrified," I finally said. "All the time. Even before this. I was terrified I wasn't smart enough, pretty enough, perfect enough. Terrified of disappointing people. Of not being what they needed me to be."
"And now?"
"Now I'm terrified I'll never be free. That they'll find me. That you'll change your mind and hand me over. That—" My voice broke. "That I'll wake up, and this will have been a dream, and I'll still be in that motel room with nowhere left to run."
Alessio's hand tightened on my jaw, forcing me to meet his eyes. "This isn't a dream. I'm not changing my mind. And you're not going back."
"You can't promise that."
"Watch me."
The certainty in his voice should have comforted me. Instead, it terrified me more. Because believing him meant hoping. And hope was dangerous when you had nothing left to lose.
But as I sat there, his hand warm against my skin, his dark eyes holding mine with an intensity that made my breath catch—I realized I'd already lost everything that mattered.
Everything except my life.
And maybe that was enough to start from.
CHAPTER 5
Alessio
The encrypted message appeared on my secure phone at 4:47 a.m. I'd been awake for hours already, reviewing the intel my team had compiled on Marco's operations.
I opened it.
The words made my blood run cold.
Valestri. I gave you a simple task: find her and bring her back. It's been three days. You found her day one—my sources confirm it. So, why hasn't she been returned? Let me be clearer since you seem confused: I don't want her back to help her. I want her back to handle the problem permanently. She knows too much. Bring her to me within 24 hours, or handle it yourself and dispose of the body. I don't care which. But shedoesn't leave your custody alive. That's the blood debt. Confirm receipt.
I read it three times. Each pass made my hands tighten on the phone until my knuckles went white.
Marco DeLuca had just explicitly ordered me to murder his own daughter.
Not retrieve her. Not protect her. Kill her.
The blood debt—sacred, binding, absolute—had always been about making me an executioner. Find the target, eliminate the threat, dispose of evidence. Marco had wrapped murder in honor and tradition, counted on me being too bound by oath to refuse.
He'd miscalculated.
I forwarded the message to Domenico without confirming receipt. Let Marco wait. Let him wonder.
Twenty minutes later, Domenico knocked once and entered my office. His face was granite.
"Tell me that's not what I think it is."
"Read it yourself."
He took the phone. Scanned the message. His jaw worked, muscle jumping beneath tanned skin.
