Page 102 of Phantom Mine

Seeing the fear in his eyes is a balm to my soul. It feeds a monster inside me twenty years in the making. Its sharp jaws snap together excitedly in anticipation of his death.

The pungent odor of urine filters through the air. I look down at Rocco’s crotch and laugh.

“Did you just fucking piss yourself?”

“Fuck you,” he spits.

“I shouldn’t be surprised to see you have as little dignity in death as you did in life, but I am.”

I shove him back down to the ground, enjoying the dull sound his head makes when it bounces off the asphalt.

“You should scream, Rocco,” I stand and aim my gun down at him. I’ve waited for this moment for years and it’s tasting just as sweet as expected. “It won’t save you, but I like to work with music.”

My finger curls around the trigger.

“Stop.”

I glance over my shoulder at Valentina. Thoughts of Rocco and a long awaited revenge take a backseat to how strong the pull is to check her for injuries, tug her into a protectiveembrace, and shield her from any further pain, whether emotional or physical.

Her body is battered, the violence my brother unleashed on her clear in the emerging bruises I see on her arms. Despite her brutalized appearance, she stands proudly, her shoulders back and her head high. Pride hardens my cock even as my gaze catches on the strap of her bra hanging loosely around her bicep.

It’s such a small detail, but it undoes me.

My eyelid twitches again, my jaw turning to granite thinking of what Rocco would have undoubtedly done to her if I hadn’t appeared.

I frown at her. “You want me to spare him?”

Valentina shakes her head. “No, but I… I need to ask him a few questions.” She walks past me and picks up what looks like a square piece of paper from off the ground. A look of true sorrow crosses her features as she turns it over and stares at it, her thumb rubbing affectionately over the face it reveals. She extends it out to me. “I need to find out what happened to her,” she whispers softly, and even though she’s covered in bruises, even though her voice shakes and tears well in her eyes, she’s never looked stronger to me.

I don’t know who the woman is, where the photo came from or why it matters, but I don’t need to know. Not when Valentina is silently begging me for help. Cupping the back of her neck, I pull her against me and drop a lingering kiss to the top of her head.

“Go ahead,cara mia.”

If she could see into my thoughts, she’d realize how much power she holds over me with just one raw look in my direction. It’s a power most would kill to have, but I don’t think she’d be interested in wielding it even if she knew of its existence.

Valentina is unflinching as she walks over to Rocco. She doesn’t cower away from merciless violence when any other sanewoman would. Whoever she is, whatever her true identity might be, she’s seen bloodshed. That makes me even more desperate to find out everything about her.

She takes the same position I occupied minutes before, crouching next to Rocco and extending the photo between them.

“This is Adriana. Nearly two years ago, she walked through the doors ofFirenzeand she never left. You took this picture of her that night, before you—” The words catch in her throat and her shoulders tighten. “Before you murdered her.”

It’s as if a high suction vacuum opens up in my stomach and siphons out my guts. The frail vulnerability in her voice as she finally says the words that help me understand why she’s here kills me.

FUCK.

I never stopped to ask myself what happened to her friend. If I had, even for a moment, I could have guessed Rocco was responsible.

No wonder she doesn’t trust me.

My heart bleeds for her, for the pain and loss she’s experienced, and yet I find myself thanking whatever deities looked after me that night that I inadvertently kept her safe.

Rocco doesn’t even look at the photo. He’s prone on the floor, covered in piss and bleeding from all four extremities, and he still manages to wrap his sadistic superiority around him like a cloak.

“Fuck you,” he hisses.

Alright, he wants to die. I click the safety off, raise the gun and storm towards him.

“Don’t,” Valentina begs, raising a hand between us to stop me. It’s only the desperation in her eyes that makes me listen. “Tell me what you did to her. Tell me where you put her body.”

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