Page 31 of Saint Of Envy
“Please,” I plead with her. “I’m here to save Valentina. Surely you know that she’s going to be sold to the highest bidder tonight, don’t you?”
“Of course I do. The entire place is abuzz with chatter over tonight’s auction. If you want to have her, then you should just come inside and buy her yourself,” she says. “Unless?—”
The old woman looks at me more carefully in the dim moonlight, and her eyes widen. “You’re Luciano Moretti,” she gasps. “You’re the one who fathered the child within her.”
“Yes,” I say. “I am. And I love her with all my heart—both her and our unborn child. Please help me save them both. Valentina is a good woman. She doesn’t deserve any of this.”
The expression on the woman’s face drops, and her eyes look saddened. “You might already be too late for that,” she says without elaborating. “And you’re right. None of us deserves this. But this place is crawling with armed men loyal to Leonardo and to Angelo Barone. You’ll never reach her in time. You’ll never make it out of here alive, any of you.”
“I have to try.”
For a moment, the fate of this plan hangs in the balance as the old woman considers whether to risk helping us and putting herself on the chopping block if she gets found out as having let us inside. But then, she says something that changes the course of how tonight’s plan will go.
“You know, when I was helping to get Valentina dressed for the auction tonight, I couldn’t help but notice the same look in her eyes that she had on the day I was helping her get dressed for her wedding ceremony in Italy,” she says thoughtfully. “It was a look of sheer and utter hopelessness—like all the life left her eyes as she resigned herself to accepting a fate she didn’t want. I’ve tried to toughen her up, but there are some women who can never survive in a cage. Valentina is one of those women.”
With that, the woman reaches out her hand and punches a few numbers on the keypad. The door swings open, and she turns to hurry back into the house without another word.
“Thank you,” I whisper to her as she leaves.
She turns to glance at me with a blank expression on her face, one that proves she is the woman who can survive in this environment and that her act of pity for Valentina is a gift that she doesn’t do often.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she says in denial as she scurries away.
Once inside, there is a flurry of activity, which makes it all the easier for Vincent and me to blend in. We’re dressed like every other man here, in fine suits with designer accessories, and bulging wallets in our pockets to spend at the auction. No one here knows that we are uninvited guests, and so as long as we steer clear of running into any of the Barone or Conti crew, we should be able to make it into the auction before raising any alarms.
A cocktail waitress walks down the wide marble hallway past us, and Vincent reaches for a drink off her tray. I give him a crooked glance as he takes a sip.
“What? It helps us blend in to look like we’re enjoying ourselves. Besides, it takes the edge off for a steady trigger finger.” He takes a sip and then hands the rest of the glass to me, and I do the same.
When we reach the double doors of the main ballroom, we hear the sounds of the auction already beginning inside.
“It’s too late. It’s already begun,” I shake my head.
“That doesn’t mean they have already auctioned her off,” Vincent reminds me as the staff opens the double doors and lets us inside the grand space.
Eager, hungry men, nearly shoulder-to-shoulder, crowd the ballroom, ready to spend their money on beautiful women and expensive status symbols. Leonardo frequently holds events like this to sell off trinkets and girls, and everything in between. I once heard of him selling off a prized thoroughbred with a saddle laden with designer drugs. The man is a gluttonous prick with little respect for anything other than himself.
“There!” Vincent whispers as he taps me on the side of the arm.
I look up and see Valentina being dragged out onto the stage by a leash that is affixed to a collar around her neck. The entire scene is nothing short of barbaric, coated with a layer of luxury to make it more palatable for those spending their money. Many armed people are here. It will not be easy ambushing this event and getting her out of here.
“We’re literally outnumbered several dozen to one,” I say to Vincent under my breath.
A voice from behind us responds to my remark.
“Actually,” the man says. “I’d wager you’re outnumbered a hundred to one.”
We both turn to find Angelo Barone standing there behind us with his gun held at his side.
“I could just kill the two of you right here,” Angelo smirks. “But where would the fun in that be? I’d much rather wait and let you watch Valentina get sold off first. Then we can handle our unfinished business.”
“Valentina isn’t leaving this place with anyone other than us,” Vincent growls at him in a low voice as the sounds of the auction for Valentina begin all around us.
“I assure you she is,” Angelo sneers. “But don’t worry. I haven’t forgotten about the special debt that I intend to claim from you specifically. Your precious Isla will be on this same stage soon enough.”
What happens next happens faster than I can react to it. Within a second, and with a smooth, silent movement that no one even notices until it’s too late, Vincent pulls his gun and shoots Angelo Barone dead between the eyes.
The sound of the shot echoes above the noise of the auction, and the spray of blood and bits of Angelo’s flesh erupts in a gruesome confetti onto all the guests directly around us. Instantly, everyone scatters as screaming breaks out and Angelo’s lifeless body falls to the ground with a dull thud.
