I take her chin, forcing her eyes to meet mine. “You want the real reason?” My voice is low, raw. “It's because I love you and I’m giving you what you deserve.”
Her eyes flash. “And I love that you think I deserve this.” But there’s still something sharp beneath her softness. “You still haven’t answered me about Boris.”
I shrug. “Nothing to be scared of. Boris made poor judgment decisions, and it cost him his gym.”
She turns from me, taking the room in slowly like she’s absorbing every inch I tailored to her. The heavy, dark desk is clean. The trophies and belts are displayed like a kingdom she now commands. The deep red sofa was picked just for her. She crosses to the small fridge and laughs when she sees inside. “You thought of my cherry cola.”
I grimace. “I’ll bring you anything you want. As long as it puts a smile on your face, there isn’t a thing I wouldn’t do.” She watches me like she’s trying to decide whether to melt or ignite. Then she walks to the door, closes it. and turns the lock with deliberate slowness.
When she faces me, her eyes are no longer shining; they’re burning.
She gathers her hair into a small ponytail, and the simple movement punches all the air from my lungs. She knows what she’s doing. She knows exactly what she does to me.
I smirk, slow, hungry, as she walks toward me. When she reaches me, her hands press to my chest, guiding me back. Notforceful, just certain I’ll follow. My legs hit the sofa, and I drop into it, eyes locked on hers. Valentina lowers herself to her knees in front of me, and the sight of her there, choosing it hits harder than anything else ever has.
Her mischievous eyes meet mine, and she grins.
“Remember when we first met, and I told you that you needed to earn the right to have me on my knees?” I nod and smile. “Guess what? You just did.”
And in that moment, her kneeling for no one but me, her trust a weapon and a gift, I know one truth with absolute certainty:
There was nothing I wouldn’t do for her.
Nothing I wouldn’t give.
Nothing I wouldn’t burn.
She wants, and I provide.
She asks, and I obey.
She looks at me like that… and I surrender willingly.
Because she is the one thing in this world I will doanythingfor.
Anything.
When Naomi cheated on me, I thought she would be the only woman in my life. I never expected or wanted to have feelings for another woman again. That was why I agreed to the marriage. I thought it would be just an agreement, but it was more than I bargained for.
Looking forward to getting home, knowing there’s someone waiting for me, was never so appealing as it is now.
Settling into new routines and agreements was never better. Going home early just to see her and surprise her with a ticket to a champion fight she was eyeing the other day was never on the cards.
Even with all the good stuff, I still feel like there is a storm on the horizon. That this is just a dream in some other dimension of my mind.
Maybe it isn't our relationship; maybe it's all that is going on in the Cosa Nostra. The fact that we’re still searching for Sabatini and that it has been quiet lately, even before everything that happened with Salvatore. But that also might be a coincidence, or the fact that Salvatore is being the monster everyone was afraid of.
I grab a bouquet of flowers on my way home and hide the tickets inside. I enter the penthouse with one thing on my mind. Valentina.
The second I’m inside, something in me settles, like her presence alone is a lighthouse dragging a drowning man ashore. I don’t call for her. I don’t have to. My body already knows the path, pulling me up the stairs toward the soft humming of a vaguely familiar melody.
I stop at the doorway, and my brows knit as I look at the scene in front of me. Valentina sits cross-legged on our bed, an AirPod tucked in her ear, completely lost in her own world. But it’s what’s spread out in front of her that punches the air out of my lungs.
Clippings. Photographs.
Of me.
My eyes narrow, slow and predatory, taking inventory. Newspaper headlines. Old fight pictures. Years of my life laid out like some private shrine. She hasn’t noticed me yet, so I step inside quietly, setting the flowers on the commode near the door.
