“You had your hands on me.” My voice is shaking. “You pressed yourself against me. You told me you wanted me. And then you came here and—”
“And ordered a man’s execution,” he finishes calmly. “The same hands, Valentina. The same mouth that kissed your forehead. The same body you felt against yours. I don’t separate them. I don’t turn one part off to become another. This is all me.”
“He had a baby.” The words come out strangled. “You talked about his baby, and then you killed him.“
“I didn’t kill him. Raffaele did.” As if the distinction matters. “And yes, he had a daughter. He also betrayed my family and put hundreds of lives at risk. Those are the choices he made.”
“You didn’t have to kill him.”
“Yes, I did.” Now there’s steel in his voice. The same steel that was underneath the desire in my bedroom. “This is my world, Valentina. This is what it looks like. Men betray us; they die. It’s not complicated.”
“It is complicated, and it’s cruel.”
I’m shaking. I don’t know when I started shaking, but I can’t seem to stop.
“You really are a monster.”
I said no to him an hour ago. He walked away. He respected my boundary.
And then he came here and did this.
I expect him to get angry. To snap at me, to remind me that I’m his, that I have no right to judge him.
Instead, he steps closer. Close enough that I can smell his cologne.
The same cologne that filled my senses when he leaned into me.
“I’ve never pretended to be anything else. And now you’ve seen it. The man who touched you in that bedroom, who told you he wanted you, he’s the same man who ordered an execution. Now you know exactly what kind of man you’re going to marry. No illusions.”
He reaches out, and I don’t pull away when his bloodstained fingers, the same fingers that dragged down my gown strap, touch my chin, tilting my face up to meet his eyes.
“I told you in my office, Valentina. I’m a monster who keeps his word. I will protect you from everything in this world, except myself. Because I’m the most dangerous thing you’ll ever encounter.”
“Then why?” My voice breaks. “Why come to my room? Why touch me like that? Why make me feel—” I can’t finish.
“Why make you feel what?” His thumb brushes my jaw. “Wanted? Desired? Like I’d burn the world down to have you?”
“Yes.”
“Because I would. I do. But that doesn’t change what I am, Valentina. The man who wants you is also the man who sanctions a death. You can’t have one without the other. You can’t separate the desire from the violence. It’s all the same man.”
“I don’t understand how you can—”
“If you had stayed in your room, you wouldn’t have seen any of this, and you wouldn’t be afraid right now.” He gestures back toward the warehouse. “But… at least when I walk into your room again, when I touch you, and tell you to take off your clothes, you’ll remember this moment. You’ll remember what these hands are capable of. And you’ll make your choice knowing exactly what I am.”
“I already said no.”
“You did.” His smile is dark. “And I walked away. Because I wanted your no to mean something. But I also want your yes to mean something. When you finally give yourself to me, Valentina, it won’t be out of ignorance. It won’t be because you convinced yourself I’m something I’m not. It will be because you saw the monster and chose him anyway.”
“That will never happen.” The words sound weak even to my own ears.
“We’ll see.” The same thing he said when he left my room.
He releases my chin. “But Valentina? What you saw tonight, it doesn’t leave this property. You don’t tell your mother, your sister, or your friend Lindsay. No one. Understand?”
It’s not a question.
“I understand.”
