Page 18 of Wicked Rivals

Then, in just one day, when the Commission killed my father and my brother, I lost it all.

The sight of Valerie now, sitting where we once sat together, drinking her tea, and reading to her child, brought all the unwanted memories back.

I preferred to keep the past in the past. It helped me get through each day as the man I’d become. But seeing Val again made it impossible to keep the memories at bay, impossible to not feel the agony burst inside my chest all over again.

Ten years had passed between us.

I squinted, staring harder at her through the window, and even with only the light from the streetlamp washing over her, she still looked as beautiful as the day I first met her.

The photos in that fucking envelope failed to do her justice.

From my angle in the back of the car, my view of the boy was impeded. I could only see the top of his head, tucked under his mother’s chin. A book covered his face.

My men headed for the café first. Standard protocol. Safety and all that bullshit.

“Call me when it’s clear and be quick about it,” I said.

Val had already noticed the car and now my men heading to her front door.

She said something to the boy.

I had no time to get a look at his face. The boy was on his feet in seconds, and when my men stepped through the front door, Val grabbed the kid and yanked him behind her.

Definitely her son.

Instinct like that only came from a mother.

More memories flashed through my head, twisting and turning, bubbling up like nostalgic fantasies just out of reach. Warm and soft at first, loving, freeing, then nauseating, pulsing with a hot, permeating hatred.

I couldn’t make it stop.

The muscles in my jaw tightened.

How dare she hide him from me but keep him close enough for my enemies to find? How dare she keep my son from me?

He had been so close his entire life, and I missed everything.

I don’t even know his goddamn name!

How dare she hold my son like that in front of a window, where anyone could see him and hurt him or think of taking him?

The boy had been devastatingly vulnerable all these years, and she allowed that to happen.

Val knew danger would follow any child of mine. The day she found out about my real identity, she said she didn’t want me anymore, said she refused to be with someone like me.

She’d been afraid of the Vignali way of life.

Afraid of me.

Yet there she sat with him, in front of a big fucking window, putting herself andmy son in danger. Anyone with a rifle and a vendetta against me could take his best shot.

Clearly, being safe had been another one of her lies.

How little this woman really knew about my world, or even the bigger picture that spanned beyond my own expanding control.

I jerked my neck to ease the pressure, tugged at my collar.

Didn’t she follow the fucking news?

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