Page 26 of Wicked Rivals

After taking a moment to collect himself with a deep breath and a short, violent sigh, Stefano headed over to Enzo and me. His every step crunched, grinding the shards of my life to dust beneath his designer shoes.

“Are you two all right?” he asked.

It seemed like the stupidest question anyone had ever asked me.

Shaking, I straightened fully to my feet but kept an arm outstretched in front of my son, holding him against the solid, tangible safety of that single brick wall. After a deep breath of my own, I faced the man who had done this to us.

The panic, the rage, my terror, everything I’d felt up to that moment coalesced into one blazing electrical pulse searing through my veins. There was nothing I could do but let it out, or risk going up in flames beneath the all-consuming heat of it.

“Are we all right?” I repeated. “Did you really just say that? You show up after ten years, no warning, and the next thing I know, someone’s shooting up my café. Shooting at my son! Look at him, Stefano. He’s covered in your blood, and he’s terrified. And that’s all you have to say? No! We are not all right.”

Stefano blinked, then rolled his eyes and turned away to look around the café again, or what was left of it.

“There’s nothing else to say, Val. So if you’re done with the hysterics, we can?—”

I didn’t make the conscious decision to lash out, but then my fist crunched into his nose the very second he turned back to me.

Pain throbbed in my hand and wrist.

“Fuck you!” I screamed, “You want to know why I decided not to tell you? For this reason. Wherever you go, this violencefollows. Like a fucking plague it follows you, and now you’ve brought it to our doorstep.

“We never had any trouble until you walked through the door, and it only took five minutes before you turned everything to shit. So fuck you, Stefano. Get out!”

His face twisted into a sinister glower.

“Maybe you weren’t paying attention. Or maybe all these years of playing house by yourself has dulled your mind. But I just took a bullet for the boy, Valerie. I didn't have to do that.”

“Oh, fuck off. It's not like you did it on purpose. This isn’t about you. You’re not our savior. You’re not a hero. You’re the villain, Stefano Vignali.”

“Well, this villain’s life would have been much easier if I’d thought only about my own safety and let the two of you fend for yourselves, now wouldn’t it?”

He growled, tilting his head as he stepped closer to me, his nose bright red but no worse for wear than that.

“You think you were being smart, is that it, Valerie? Sitting in front of the window with him, right out in the open, practically begging for someone to find him and do exactly what they did tonight? If you can’t see your own part in this, then you’ve made an even worse mother than I expected.”

White hot rage erupted inside me, and I lashed out again.

But this time, I aimed my fist right for the gunshot wound on his arm.

“Goddamn it!” he roared, gripping his biceps.

A second later, gritting his teeth and seething through them with a heavy breath, Stefano drew his pistol again.

He aimed the barrel at the center of my forehead.

CHAPTER 6

STEFANO

I had my pistol sighted directly between her eyes.

“You forget yourself, Valerie. Strike me again, and I swear to Christ it will be the last thing you ever do.”

The boy ran to his mother and pushed in between us.

While keeping my gaze locked on hers, I dropped my arm, engaged the safety, and put the gun away.

I had done plenty of fucked-up things in my life, and I would commit many more terrible acts in the future. Still, I had to draw the line somewhere, and under no circumstances would I allow myself to aim a loaded firearm at a child.

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