I just sold my soul to the devil.
Signed my name to a contract that makes me property.
Agreed to marry a man who threatened to dismember my family while looking me in the eyes without a shred of remorse.
But Elio's words echo louder than everything else.
Ask her about the Castellanos.
What does my mother have to do with any of this?
What isn't she telling me?
But most importantly, what in the literal fuck has my life become?
CHAPTER FOUR
Salvatore
How to disappear without a trace.
The search query glows on her laptop screen, naive, desperate, futile.
Valentina. Valentina. Valentina.
There isn’t a place in this world you could hide that I wouldn’t find you.
Not a city big enough. Not a border far enough.
I already know the name you’d use. The passport you’d buy. The first place you’d run.
You’re mine, Valentina, and you already know it.
* * *
I made a decision that will either secure my empire or burn it to the ground.
I’m betting on the former.
“You’re out of your fucking mind,” Matteo says, not bothering to look up from the financial reports spread across my desk.
I lean back in my chair, unbothered, listening to my brother dismantle my plan line by line. Matteo sees angles and consequences the way other people see colors, instantly, instinctively. It’s what makes him brilliant at turning dirty money clean, at spotting loopholes and leverage before anyone else does.
It’s also what makes him exhausting.
“Noted,” is all I say after he’s done going off about all the reasons I shouldn’t marry Valentina.
“Noted?” He finally looks up, and there’s actual concern beneath the irritation. “Sal, you’re talking about marrying a woman you’ve known for thirty minutes to solve a problem that has a dozen other solutions.”
“None as satisfying as this one.”
“Satisfying.” Matteo sets down the report. “This is about satisfaction now? What about revenge?”
“That, too. Revenge, justice, and getting debts paid. About taking what should have been ours years ago.”
“She’s not her father or her mother; she doesn’t owe us shit. What happened to doing things differently? These marriage alliances are so old school, but if we use that as leverage, it has to make sense. We don’t need her. You want that debt paid, kill Marco, and get it over with. Quick, easy, final.”
He says “we” don’t need her like I was taking her for all of us, she’s mine, and mine alone. I need her. “Who says I want easy?” I open my desk drawer, pull out a file. Inside is a surveillance photo, Valentina leaving the library, arms full of books, completely unaware she’s being watched. Before I decided to pay her a visit.
