Page 78 of Brutal Union
Valentina stands and smooths her skirt, the motion precise, almost ceremonial. She looks at me, her eyes shining with unshed tears, and I realize she’s never looked more alive. She’s not here for forgiveness or reconciliation. She’s here to bury the past, and herself, and rise from the grave.
"We all failed her," she says quietly. "But Alice and I survived."
She gathers the papers, now legal documents that make her head of what's left of the Bernardi organization. The power shift is tangible, electric. My wife just became even more dangerous, and my cock responds to that knowledge with inappropriate interest.
"Where's Alice?" Alonzo whispers, more to himself than us.
"Gone," Valentina says as she turns to leave. "You'll never either of us again."
As we reach the door, Alonzo calls out with surprising strength: "The Rosettis will destroy you too! Just like they destroy everything they touch!"
I turn slowly, my hand finding Valentina's. "No.We'll destroy anyone who threatens us."
The old man's laugh is bitter. "You think love conquers blood debts? You think because she spreads her legs for you, the past disappears?"
The words are barely out before I'm across the room, hand around his throat. "The next word out of your mouth better be 'goodbye,' or I'll cut out your tongue and feed it to you. My wife is feeling merciful. I'm not."
But Valentina's hand on my arm stops me. "Leave him. He's a small man. Don't give him a big death."
Alonzo shrinks back into his pillows, finally understanding what he's created. Not a victim or a pawn, but something far more dangerous—a woman with nothing left to lose and everything to gain.
We leave him there with his bandages and his bitter fear. The elevator descends in silence, but I feel the energy radiating from Valentina. She's processing what just happened, what it means.
"He'll run," I say as we reach the lobby.
"Good. Let him spend the rest of his life looking over his shoulder." Her voice carries an edge I'm still learning to recognize. "Let him wonder every day if today's the day we change our minds."
We step into the late morning sun, and she stops, tilting her face toward the warmth. In this light, she looks like what she's becoming—dangerous and beautiful in equal measure. The same woman who waited anxiously at the coffee shop now stands like she owns the city.
30 - Valentina
Three weeks. That’s all it took to go from fucking away the cemetery memories to sitting at Rosetti family game night like I belong here. Like I haven’t been marking territory distributions on my thighs where Marco’s bruises fade, replacing pain with power.
"Is this what family game night looks like?" I ask Marco, watching Dante sign careful insults about Luca's defense strategy, trying to follow what he's saying. I'll have to learn. His movements are slower, more deliberate than before the injury, but still too fast for me to read.
Faith sits at Luca’s side, conspiring quietly with him when she thinks no one is watching. He grips her hand with iron fingers, like he has no intention of ever letting go.
Sofia threatens to flip the entire Risk board if Alex doesn't stop humming victory songs. The metallic taste of anticipation coats my tongue, the same taste I get before violence, before sex, before anything that matters.
Three weeks since I shot Liam O'Brien in his own church, and the memory still arouses me. God, what has Marco turned me into? Or maybe, what was I always meant to be?
"This is tame," Marco says, calculating his next move with the same focus he uses for actual warfare. His sleeves are rolled up, and I notice a spot of dried blood he missed on his cuff. Someone's blood. Someone who probably disagreed with our territory expansion. "Last month Sofia actually stabbed Luca with a Monopoly hotel."
"He deserved it," Sofia says without looking up from her systematic conquest of South America. "He was cheating."
"Everyone cheats," Luca counters, rolling dice with suspicious precision. "It's practice for real life."
Ana passes me a glass of wine, the rich burgundy catching the light. She pours herself a glass of water, holding her sleeping baby in her arms. They named the baby girl Antonia, in honor of Dante’s father. At just four weeks old, she is tiny and fragile, with tiny black curls plastered to her face. The scent of baby powder and milk lingers in the air around Antonia, a comforting smell that brings to mind warm cuddles and soft kisses, but somehow doesn’t seem out of place.
“The smell of this red wine doesn’t bother you, Faith?” Ana asks. “I couldn’t stand it when I was pregnant.”
Faith grins. “I’m in the middle trimester. Nothing bothers me anymore.”
“Just wait a couple of months,” Ana mutters. “You’ll feel like a beached whale.”
“I can’t wait,” Luca says, with a glint in his pale blue eyes, and I’m glad they’re locked on his wife and not on me.
Marco's hand brushes mine, but he says nothing. Just turns back to the board where Dante is methodically destroying his European campaign. But under the table, his other hand finds my thigh, fingers tracing the bruises he left there this morning when he fucked me against the shower wall.
