Page 167 of Phantom Mine

Valentina Leone.

I could get high on the feeling it incites in my chest.

“There’s no way you can marry a cartel princess and keep your position, Matteo,” he points out. “Our ways are not so different from yours in that regard and we wouldn’t allow it if the roles were reversed.”

The meeting I asked Enzo to schedule with Marchesani is set for this afternoon. It’s my next stop after this.

“Let me worry about that,” I answer.

He smiles at me sharply. “Many men want Valentina. Once the call went out for her, they flocked by the hundreds.”

I think he expects to goad me into flying across his desk and punching him in the face. Instead, I laugh, the sound full of dark edges. “You think I don’t already know how many men wouldsell off a major organ to have her? I know. Believe me, I know. I have eyes,” I assure him. “I have ears, I have a heart. I know just how exquisite she is, just like I know I’m the only one who can make your sister happy.”

“And how the fuck do you know that?” he snaps.

“Ask her,” I urge. “Ask her who she wants, Thiago, and watch her choose me.”

I say it with a confidence I only partially feel, but I project an almost arrogant amount of certainty.

His left eye twitches. “Watch it, Matteo. Need I remind you that you’re still standing defenseless on my territory? I haven’t decided if I’m going to let you live yet.” He flicks another glance behind him, this time at another guard.

The guard exits and walks back in moments later with the paunchy second in command in tow. Valentina trails after them, her eyes red rimmed. Thiago’s man must have had her brought here the second I said her name.

“Hermano—”

Her words cut off abruptly when she sees me and she stops in her tracks. Her gaze moves slowly from me to her brother and she blanches. By now, the guards have lowered their weapons, but they’re still held at their sides and visible.

“Matteo…” she whispers incredulously, walking to me.

My heart attempts to punch a hole through my chest so it can fly into the hands of its rightful owner.

“Stop.”

Valentina halts at Thiago’s request, still too fucking far from me, and glances over her shoulder at her brother.

“What’s going on?” she asks urgently. Her eyes come back to me full of a mix of worry and yearning.

“You tell me,” Thiago answers sharply. His tone draws her gaze back to him. “Matteo here stormed into my office and started making demands, not the least of which was that Ibreak off your engagement or he’d declare war on the cartel.” Valentina’s startled eyes fly to mine, shock blooming in her irises. “So why don’t you explain to me why a man you’re not supposed to have ever even met is ready to fucking die for you?”

Chapter Forty-Five

Valentina

Shock roots me to the floor. I’d only just made it back home when Arturo dragged me out of my apartment and brought me to Tanta, but the last person I expected to find in Thiago’s office was Matteo. He must have come straight here after stalking out of his flat.

Is he on a suicide mission? Because that’s what it looks like. My brother isn’t one to react kindly to being ordered about or threatened.

My heart swings back and forth between being worried for him and trying not to give way to hope. Thiago said Matteo asked him to break off my engagement—does that mean there’s a world in which there’s a future for us after all?

Thiago’s eyes bore into the side of my face but all I can see is Matteo’s staring at me like I’m the center of his world. Like I’m the answer to his every prayer.

He came here to fight for me, to fight forus.

My brother mistakes my drawn out silence for disinterest.

“Kill him,” he orders with a casual flick of his hand.

“No!” I shout at the top of my lungs.

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