Page 139 of Savage Enemy

He shifted me, stood, bent to kiss my blood-stained lips.

“I’ll just be in the kitchen with your brothers.”

I grabbed his hand as he went to walk away. “Enzo?”

Stefano smiled, and then, without letting go of my hand, he pulled out his phone and got his underboss on speaker.

“The boy’s sound asleep in his bed,” Tony said. “I have the estate locked down like a fortress. Still, I posted a guard outside his room. Everything’s quiet here, boss.”

I nodded, so relieved, tears welling in my eyes again.

Stefano let my hand fall away from his as he headed to the kitchen to meet with Marco and Santo.

“I love you, Ace,” I blurted.

He glanced over his shoulder. “I know, my angel.”

“When did you last eat, Valentina?” the doctor asked.

I couldn’t think. “Um, I don’t know. I can’t remember.”

“Santo said it’s probably been days. Is that right?”

Yes, of course she knew Santo. She’d been the one who treated the injuries that left scars all over him.

I stared at my feet and shrugged.

She understood this life. I didn’t have to explain it to her.

Dr. De Rosa patted my knee. “It’s okay not to remember everything right now. You’re in shock, and it’s masking your physical and emotional discomfort. I’m going to start an IV to hydrate you and get nutrients into your bloodstream. You’ll have some euphoric effects… I’m going to include morphine.”

She pulled on gloves and went right to work on my arm.

“Next, we’ll clean up the wounds, and I suspect we’ll need to address multiple broken ribs. Your brother’s men are on their way in with my portable X-ray machine. But please, all that said, I want most for you to allow yourself the time you need to process what you’ve been through, okay?”

“I’ll try,” I croaked.

I murdered my twin. Stefano might have been the one to shoot him, but he’d done it for me. And it hadn’t been a crime of passion. We planned to do it. A premeditated murder.

Neither of us would be punished for it, though. No one would report Aris’s death, and his body would no longer exist.

Marco would circulate rumors.

Saul and Aris had traveled to the old country to visit relatives and conduct some business. Maybe the Sicilians or the Calabrians murdered them. Maybe Saul simply abdicated to Marco because he chose to retire in Italy. And everyone knew Aris would never leave his father’s side.

Marco would set up a paper trail corroborating his story.

But leaders in a few of the right families would know the truth. Saul Moscatelli’s heir had murdered him.

Marco had taken the family in name and by force, making his claim to the empire irrefutable.

The other person who could’ve but wouldn’t make a claim on our family legacy was Santo since Santo had aided Marco.

As the doctor moved me this way and that, snapping images and giving me instructions, so many thoughts and questions blasted through my mind.

What did all this really mean?

What happened next for my brothers?

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