Page 60 of A Game So Reckless

“Would you have preferred the dick in a box scenario?” I growl at her, cracking my knuckles. I run my tongue along my teeth then grin. “I can probably still make that happen.”

She rips her gaze from me, staring hard at the floor between my feet.

I don’t like how much I love having her here. Inside property that I own. Never would have thought I’d be happy about having a Titone in my domain. Unless I was about to gut them like a fish.

“Why did you kill Dario?”

Tension radiates from my spine. I narrow my gaze at Valentina, trying to read her expression, but she’s schooled it into something blank. Her gaze is still aimed at the floor.

“He fucked me over on a real estate deal,” I finally say. It’s the truth. I was supposed to help finance a new commercial development project Dario was trying to get underway without his father’s influence. The Titones were too heavily invested in his father’s other projects to support it. I saw an opportunity and I moved on it.

Turns out, Dario already had financing secured from Russian sources. And the commercial leases I was promised had been promised to the bratva as well.

“Real estate,” she repeats woodenly. “A deal went bad. So you threw him off a building.”

“He got off lucky,” I scoff. “I’ve done far worse to better men.”

She doesn’t answer. Doesn’t look at me.

“You can’t possibly be upset about that weaselly fuck being dead,” I say at length. “In fact, you should be thanking me. I got you out of marrying that sad sack of shit.”

“But I just told you!” she exclaims, finally throwing her gaze against mine. “I’ll just end up engaged to someone else! And it could be to someone even worse!”

No.

The word screams from my brain, splitting my skull.

No. She won’t be engaged to someone else.

I would murder every man in the fucking country before I let somebody else have her.

Touch her.

Fuck her.

Marry her.

But then what does that mean for me?

For her?

For both of us?

My mind whirrs and stutters like a failing machine. Failing because it’s confronting something I told myself I’d never do. A computer coming up against self-destructive code.

I told myself I’d never marry.

But marrying Valentina doesn’t mean loving her. Maybe I can keep her without breaking any of my other rules.

Without losing myself to total obliteration.

“You will marry someone worse,” I agree grimly.

There ain’t much worse in this world than me.

Chapter26

Valentina

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