“Plus, now you know that, if you survive the shit your own flesh and blood try, you can survive anything.” Valentine looks at me as he speaks, but I know his awareness stretches past the small bubble he makes me feel like I’m in.
“But we’re not married,” I say under my breath.
He starts to say something but squeezes my hand instead as we round the last corner in the hospital, the doors to freedom at the end of the corridor. First, though, it appears we’re about to run the gauntlet.
Both sides of the walls of the corridor are lined with Vitale’s guards. I intentionally take a step closer to Valentine, and he wraps my other hand around his wrist. I feel safer, but I still have this growing sense I’m nothing but a slab of meat about to be torn apart by Vitale’s rabid dogs.
We make it halfway down without anything happening, but then one of them spits at my feet and hisses, “buchiach.” Obviously, the word is as disrespectful as him spitting at my feet, but I focus on Valentine’s coaching about not letting them see it upset me. Instead, I pick up the train of my dress and step over the mess before I slide under Valentine’s arm.
We take maybe two steps before a sweet cloud of Amaretto curls around me. I twist to watch without stopping, catching Dante moving as fast as a whip, grabbing the man who spat bythe throat. Dante bounces the man’s face off his knee before he lets him drop to the floor.
“Baby, are you ready to go home?” Dante winks, talking over the sickening thud the man makes as his unconscious body hits the ground.
I’m ready to check into the asylum and never ask to leave.
The moment we step out the doors to the private hospital, it’s like everyone takes a collective breath. No one relaxes, but there is a sense of relief. Matteo moves in front of us, and guards I hadn’t noticed previously step out of shadows to swarm protectively around us.
It’s clear these guards are as loyal to Pack De Luca as Vitale’s guards are to him.
I cling to Valentine as we walk to the waiting line of Escalades. My head is a mess, but some pretty big things keep popping up on my radar.
Once we’re in the SUV and we merge into traffic, I turn to the three of them. “Your comment before, Valentine, about married women?”
“Yeah, Valentine, what did you mean?” Dante says, mimicking me in the way he speaks.
Then, in the very next moment, he relaxes against the plush leather seats, but only after pushing a large, formal-looking envelope onto my lap.
What is happening?
14
Valentine
“She doesn’t look too pissed.” Dante turns, not hiding his surprise.
But barely a second later, the bedroom door slams so hard, it nearly rattles the Banksy clean off the wall.
“I take that back.” He laughs before his mood slips. “Did you get what Vitale said?”
Pulling out my phone and opening the app, I download the audio file from the hospital. The small audio device is hidden in the dress Matteo chose for her to wear, right between my wife’s lush tits. I’m not sure I’ve ever been jealous of an inanimate object before today.
By the time we’re sitting around the island, the file is ready to listen to. We skip over Vitale whining about our lack of respect, and his usual rhetoric of making it so our pack is excluded from the race of being named his successor, until we come to the part where he ordered us out.
The recording picks up the moment her breathing hitches louder, but it also doesn’t miss the way she purposely controlsherself. I could spend a lot of time listening to her breathing. Equally satisfying is the sound of Vitale struggling to pretend he’s not dying. His emphysema is music to my ears.
“So, you are a woman who opens her legs for powerful men, in hopes of becoming something of value to them, when all you are is another cunt to fuck.”
Matteo drops the crystal tumbler, the glass shattering over the marble, but it’s essentially forgotten when we all lean in closer to hear her response. The chair she was sitting on scrapes, then she takes a small inhale. I blaze with pride that she didn’t break down immediately. My grandfather might literally be on his last legs, but he is still an unpredictable narcissist with a propensity for violence and intimidation.
Light footsteps are next. She put her back to him. The most disrespectful thing you can do in our world.
Vitale barks, “My grandson won’t be able to protect you forever.”
She doesn’t whine, even though he would have been trying to shove his dominance down her throat. Instead, by the sound of the recording, she doesn’t even bother turning to look at him when she replies. “Your three grandsons have already told me they kill to protect.”
The way she emphasizesgrandsonshas me nearly pumping my fucking fist.
“Fuck me. We are never letting her go now,” I whisper, grabbing the bottle of Scotch and filling my glass while taking the recording back to listen to her threatening the old prick again.
