Stupid. So stupid. I stopped for gas outside Worcester, used my credit card because I wasn't thinking. I wasn't trained for this, wasn't anything except a sheltered mafia princess playing at survival.
The Starlite Inn took cash. The clerk barely looked at me, just handed over a key to room seventeen.
I barricaded the door with furniture. Loaded the gun with shaking hands, praying I wouldn't have to use it, knowing I probably would.
I must have dozed off despite the fear, because dawn light was creeping through the curtains when the knock came.
Three sharp raps that shattered the gray dawn's quiet.
That was two days ago. Now Alessio Valestri had me pinned against a motel room wall, and I had to decide whether to trust the man my father sent to kill me.
"What did you hear, Valentina?"
Alessio Valestri's voice was low, dangerous, too close. He had me pinned against the wall, my wrists caught above my head in one of his large hands. His body caged mine—six-foot-three of lethal muscle and expensive suit, dark eyes that missed nothing.
I'd seen him before, of course. At charity events, gallery openings, and the kind of high-society functions where Boston's legitimate and illegitimate elite mingled. Don Alessio Valestri, head of the family that had been locked in a cold war with my father's organization for as long as I could remember.
And my father had sent him to bring me home.
To deliver me to my death.
"Everything," I spat, trying to twist away. His grip didn't budge. "I heard everything they're planning. The shipments, the cartels, all of it. And I saw the emails on Richard's computer—dates, names, account numbers. My memory doesn't let things go, Alessio. Every detail is locked in here." I jerked my chin toward my head since my hands were still trapped. "Which means they'll kill me the second they figure that out."
Something flickered in his expression. Surprise, maybe. Or calculation.
"Your father said you had a breakdown. That you needed psychiatric care."
I laughed, and it came out jagged and bitter. "Convenient story. Get me committed, declare me unstable, and anything I say becomes the ravings of a crazy woman. Or just kill me quietly and call it suicide. Troubled bride, wedding pressure, such a tragedy."
His jaw tightened. "Marco invoked a blood debt. Said you were in danger, needed protection."
"Protection." The word tasted like poison. "Is that what you call dragging someone back to be murdered by their own father?"
"I call it honoring an oath my father made twenty-three years ago." His voice went colder. "Blood debts are sacred. Refusing would mean war between our families."
"So, you're here to deliver me gift-wrapped to my execution?" My heart hammered against my ribs. "At least be honest about it."
For a long moment, he just looked at me. Really looked… like he was seeing past the ill-fitting thrift store clothes and smeared makeup to something underneath. His thumb brushed against my pulse point—probably feeling how fast my heart was racing.
"If I wanted you dead," he said finally, "you'd already be dead. I wouldn't have bothered disarming you first."
"Then what do you want?"
"The truth." He released my wrists, but his hands didn't immediately leave. They slid down my arms—slowly, deliberately—before settling at my waist to steady me.
Just for a moment.
A moment that stretched too long.
I felt the warmth of his palms through the thin fabric of the thrift store sweater. Felt the controlled strength in his grip—gentle enough not to hurt, firm enough that I knew he could hold me there if he wanted to. His thumbs rested against my ribcage, and I was suddenly, viscerally aware that he could feel my heart hammering.
Not just from fear.
His eyes flickered to where his hands rested, then back to my face. Something shifted in his expression—dark eyes going darker, jaw tightening just slightly.
He felt it too. Whatever this was.
Then he stepped back, hands dropping away like I'd burned him.
