Page 84 of Wicked Rivals

No reality remained in which she didn't spend all her nights in my bed.

That time had passed.

Val went back to cleaning the kitchen, wiping down the island countertop as I watched and considered spelling out her new reality for her in terms she wouldn’t misunderstand.

No, too soon.

She would fight me. She might even do something stupid.

Like try to run.

To get Val to stay with me where she belonged, I had to show her a few things. Enzo would never again truly be safe anywhere but here under my roof. And she couldn’t be happy anywhere but here with me. I had to show her what I could provide for her and our son.

In the event she refused to see those things, refused to do the right thing, then I would cross that bridge if we came to it.

The front entrance door slammed shut, something that always pissed me off.

A few seconds later, Tony came into the kitchen carrying a dark red envelope, and immediately I recognized the raised gold lettering on the front.

Fuck. The day just kept getting better.

Without saying a word, I took the envelope from him but didn't bother opening it right there. Everyone in New York knew what this envelope contained.

I’d just received an invitation.

The kind of invitation I couldn’t ignore, not yet… but soon.

“We’ll finish this later,” I said. “I want the names, Valerie. All of them. Make a list while I’m gone.”

She rolled her eyes as she offered Tony a plate of cookies that he greedily accepted.

“If you say so,” she said.

Her bratty dismissal of me in my own kitchen made me want to bend her over my knee and show her what happened to insolent little girls.

The time would come when she found her place by my side in public, on her knees in private, and in my bed every night.

Soon. The time would come.

I gnashed my teeth as I headed for the staircase, needing to get away from her, needing to clear my head before dealing with what waited for me inside the red envelope.

Upstairs in my office, it seemed lonelier than usual. The energy seemed different. So much had happened in the room over the last twenty-four hours.

After sitting down at my desk, in my father’s heavy leather chair, I glanced over at the box holding Val’s necklace. It still belonged to her, and one day she would wear it.

I shook my head, pushed my hand back through my hair.

The empty feeling inside would fade away as soon as I got down to business. It always did.

Gripping the envelope, I sliced the fucking thing open.

Edgardo Lordi.

The man who’d had my father killed. And my brother.

Lordi was many things. A brilliant strategist. An ambitious, successful man. A man whose ambition had led him to break with Cosa Nostra code by taking out another boss without having the Commission’s permission.

A power-hungry, neurotic fuck yet to be punished for it.

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