Page 67 of Unravel You

“Fine. See if the Copenhaver guards saw anything.” That was sure to be a dead end. Ana’s security was minimal. She hated having strangers roaming around her house. The few bodyguards she had were there because Wesley insisted—more like made her keep them. I was glad he had. They might be of help to us tonight. “Stay alert and be careful. We may be dealing with a sociopath.”

“Yes, sir. The guys have a picture of the suspect.” The guard took off with a quick nod.

My first instinct was to grab Valentina and hide her in her room until I knew for sure Alex wasn’t responsible for the disappearance of the guard. I wished I could put him behind bars now. But no one had ever gone to jail for showing up at a pub and smirking at his ex-girlfriend’s fiancée. Fuck.

Even now, I had no proof. Alex was the one who knocked out one of my guys. Why would he do that? To get in the house? And then do what? Getting in was one thing, but how would he get Valentina out of the house without anyone noticing? Especially when every single person at the house was dying to get a few minutes of face time with the bride-to-be.

Alex Maio put me on edge every time he came near my family. Every time he took a breath, if I had to be honest. Something about the guy wasn’t right. The grin, the sociopathic way he talked about Valentina, as if she were a trinket that belonged to him.

I should have sent him to jail for extortion when I had the chance, but at the time, all I could think of was getting him as far away from Valentina and Max as I could. I never wanted them to have to deal with him, see him, or even be near him. A trial would have made Valentina relive all the shit she went through the short time she was with him when she was only nineteen years old. That would have been her worst nightmare. I didn’t want that for her.

As it turned out, fifteen hundred miles of distance were not enough. What did he want? Money? Again? I couldn’t spend the rest of our lives paying him to let Valentina be. He’d made a mistake coming to Atlanta and showing up at the pub. What was his plan? To taunt me so I would lose my mind again and bend to his will in exchange for peace of mind?Not this time, asshole.

So many fucking questions and not a single concrete answer. For now, all I could do was stay close to Valentina and make sure she was safe. I stomped through the gardens back to the drawing room, where I’d left her earlier. She needed to know Alex was in town. I should have told her when I had the chance, but I didn’t want to ruin this party for her over some hunch of mine.

She was nervous as it was; adding Alex to the mix would have been too much for her. No time for regrets or should’ves. I scoured the sea of faces in the dim-lit rooms, covering every inch of the house. She was gone. On my way back to the gardens, Wesley stopped me on the patio deck.

“The hell is going on?”

“Have you seen Valentina?” My pulse had been pounding in my ears since the head of security came to tell me one of our men had disappeared. This feeling wasn’t going to let up until we figured out what the fuck was going on.

“Yeah, I saw her. It was a while back, though. In the basement. She seemed, I don’t know, flustered. She was barefoot and covered in mud.”

“What?” My heart pumped hot blood through me. “Why didn’t you stop her? Was she hurt?”

“She didn’t look hurt. No, wait. I saw her in the drawing room after that.” He pursed his lips. “When Anabelle played the piano. She was with you.”

“Help me find her. I’m going to check our room. Could you check with Ana? Maybe they went to her place?”

“Yeah, man. I’ll take care of that.” He slapped my shoulder and took off toward Ana’s house.

People stopped me to chat about the wedding plans and a bunch of other crap that at this moment didn’t matter. None of this mattered if Valentina wasn’t with me. I nodded and smiled as I continued to work my way toward the grand staircase. No one needed to know about Valentina’s crazy ex.

Our bedroom was empty, but Valentina had definitely been in here after Wesley saw her. I picked up one of her muddy heels. The strap on it had been broken. A million images ran through my mind until I settled on the one where she fought with Alex and barely got away. But if she got away, why wasn’t she here? She left her shoes behind but not her dress.

On the vanity dresser, a crumpled note with wet spots stood out amid her makeup brushes and lipsticks. My hands trembled as I read it, trying to imagine how she felt. How every word, every line was designed to make her afraid and remind her how capable he was of hurting her. A part of me wished Valentina had learned in our time together that she could trust me. That I would do anything to protect her from this asshole. How the hell did Alex get in our room?

I stomped to the safe in the library, not wanting to confirm what I already knew. Valentina didn’t think I loved Max enough to risk my own life for him. She thought she had to deal with this herself, on her own, just as Alex had asked her to do. What else would he ask of her?

I dialed my phone again and called the head of Max’s security detail. I winced when I realized that I hadn’t included Valentina in any of my plans to keep Max safe. If she tried to call the house or Em and got no answer, she would not have known who else to call. This was all my fault. “Where’s Max?”

“Home, sir.”

“I need visual confirmation.” I rubbed my temple, taking deep breaths to calm the fuck down and chase away the image of Alex and Valentina.

“Of course.” The phone went silent. After a few minutes, he returned. “He’s in bed reading, sir. Em is with him.”

“Thank you.” I ended the call.

I punched the code on the keypad and swung it open. All the cash was gone. Valentina had fallen for Alex’s bluff. Why the deception? What did he want with her? My mind conjured a myriad of scenarios. Some of those Alex had put in my head himself the first time he came to my house in Arizona looking for her. Back then, he’d insinuated Valentina was only after my money, and I believed him.

He spoke of her as if she went around fucking guys for money. He’d known exactly which buttons to push that day. That was his MO. By the time he’d asked for money, I was more than ready to pay up just to get him the hell away from my family. I knew enough of her now to know she only wanted me. She never cared about the money.

His infuriating smirk and Valentina’s ashen-face every time she spoke of him flooded my thoughts. I braced my hands on my knees and cleared my mind because none of this helped Valentina.

She was with him.

I fished my phone out of my pocket and called the guard. “Track Valentina’s phone. She left the house.”

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