Page 23 of Saint Of Envy
When I don’t budge, he motions for one of his men to come and grab me. I try my best to keep my arm protectively over mystomach without drawing attention to it, even though Leonardo is already well aware that I’m pregnant. The man shoves me into the backseat right beside the man that I despise most in this world. And as soon as I’m seated, and the car drives off, Leonardo smirks with a look of complete satisfaction.
“Where are we going?” I ask him.
“I’m going to put you somewhere safe and sound, somewhere that Luciano can’t find you.”
“And then what? Are you going to marry me again?” I scowl at him. “If you do, then I’ll run away just like I did the last time.”
“I haven’t quite decided what I’m going to do with you yet,” he says as he looks out the window, ignoring direct eye contact with me as if my betrayal still repulses him. “I guess that depends on several factors. But for right now, I’m going to take you to one of my acquaintances’ businesses, where you will stay hidden away from prying eyes until I decide what to do about you.”
“We’ll be at the Barone’s warehouse in ten minutes,” the driver says over his shoulder to Leonardo.
“Excellent.”
“Angelo Barone? That’s your new friend these days?” I taunt him. “You know Luc will come for me, don’t you? And he’s going to kill you if you harm me or our child.”
That garners his attention enough for Leonardo to look over at me and glance down at my hand resting on my stomach.
“Ah, yes, the baby. If you really are pregnant, I haven’t yet decided what to do about that either. First things first—your new living quarters.”
When we arrive at the Barone’s warehouse, it looks even more miserable than I’d expected. Not only is it dank and dark and practically abandoned, it’s also completely uninhabitable.
Leonardo gets out of the car and walks around to open my door. When I refuse to get out of the car, he reaches his hand in and pulls me out.
“See now, you had such a beautiful home before, Valentina. You had everything that any woman could ever want—wealth, comforts, baubles, the company of staff and servants, and even the pleasure of my company whenever I was in the mood for you,” he sneers. “Now, you have this—an empty, uncomfortable warehouse where you will sit alone in a room guarded by my men until I decide to take you out. You should have been smarter before you ran from me in Italy. You could have had a pleasant life as a kept woman, and now you have fallen from my good graces.”
With that, he shoves me toward the door of the building, and two of his men walk me inside. I try to get a look at my surroundings before I’m stuffed inside a room, but the light is dim, and everything looks gray and monotone. As soon as the doors are closed, I hear Leonardo giving the guards their instructions outside.
“Feed her, make sure she doesn’t escape, and don’t let her do anything stupid like try to run or hurt herself. I’ll be back soon.”
A single tear falls down my cheek. I'm back inside a cage again, and this time—the cage doesn’t even have windows for me to look out of.
CHAPTER 14
LUC
When I get back to the casino, Vincent is waiting for me in his corner booth. I’d expected him to look more stressed or to have a pressing expression on his face since he made it sound like this meeting was urgent. Instead, he’s sitting there with a drink in front of him and his eyes keenly focused on his phone screen until I walk over and sit down to join him.
“Luciano, thank you for coming,” he says as he looks up and puts his phone back in his pocket. “I'm sorry that I had to interrupt your accompanying Valentina to her doctor’s appointment.”
“It’s okay,” I say, even though I’m not at all thrilled to be missing it, especially since I’m going to be sending her away soon and was trying to spend as much precious time with her as possible first. Plus, impending fatherhood, even though it was an unexpected occurrence, isn’t somewhat that I want to miss out on any moments of.
“You said it was important,” I remind him. “Has something happened?”
“Not quite, but there is intel that suggests something is about to.”
That holds my attention now. Honestly, I want Leonardo to make his move, whatever it’s going to be. The sooner he acts, the sooner we can counteract and put him down, and that means the sooner Valentina can stay by my side so that we can move on with our lives and her pregnancy.
“People have seen Leonardo, Angelo Barone, and Valentina’s father together near the Vegas Strip during the last twenty-four hours,” he says.
“Giovanni Ricci?” I ask, surprised that he would still be in bed with the likes of men like Leonardo after what happened in Italy.
Leonardo Conti isn’t a very forgiving man. Considering that Giovanni’s daughter made a fool of him in front of a crowded church audience, I’m surprised that Leonardo hasn’t had Giovanni killed, or at the very least, cut him out financially and made his life a living hell. There’s only one reason Leonardo would still keep Valentina’s father around, and that is because he wants to use him for something.
“Has Valentina mentioned anything about her father contacting her?” Vincent asks.
“No, not at all.” I shake my head. “Actually, she mentioned how hurt she felt he hadn’t even bothered to contact her after the Italy fiasco.”
“Well, if there’s one thing that we both know, Leonardo is a master of, it’s manipulation. He’s probably pulling Giovanni around on strings like a puppet,” he says. “And I’m guessing that he’s going to use Giovanni to get to Valentina. I’m just not sure how yet—maybe he’ll threaten her father in order to leverage herback or send Giovanni to talk some sense into her and ride her with guilt about breaking the arrangement.”
