Page 66 of The Veiling

I snickered. “I’ll leave that to you from now on.”

“Probably best, mi amore.” He rested his palm on my stomach. “After I take care of Felipe, I want us to go visit my parents, but I need a few months to settle things down at the office.”

“Will I be able to travel, then?”

“We’ll just meet at their Hamptons house. You’ll be fine.”

“What about the rest of the family?” I smiled. “Can we just have a family gathering?”

He loved how family oriented I was. He nodded with an amused expression painted on his face. “It might be a great time for my parents to see Marco again.”

“Hopefully, you can talk him into coming.”

“I’ll try.”

“I love their home there. You know I’m obsessed with it. I’d totally get married there in a heartbeat. It’s my second happy place.”

KNOCK! KNOCK!

He peered around me. “Come in!”

Joseph opened the door and poked his head in. “Marco is about fifteen minutes out. Blaine is here.”

Valentino nodded. “I’ll meet you guys downstairs.”

Joseph offered a single nod and shut the door.

Valentino sighed, cupping my cheek. “After tonight, he’s dead. You have my word.”

“Check his pulse over and over to make sure, please.”

“I assure you, the way I plan to dispose of the body, not even Doctor Frankenstein could put him back together.”

I wrinkled my nose.

He tugged me into his body for another embrace, placing a kiss on the top of my head. “I should go get ready.”

Noah let me know the moment Marco arrived. I took the elevator to the basement. Still unsure how I would handle Felipe exactly, I knew whatever I chose would be painful. Rage simmered inside me the more I replayed all the pain he had caused Isabelle and my friends.

She was the only good thing to come out of this entire thing. Had he never asked me to watch her, I probably would have never had the chance to be with her. I would probably still be the man who paid women for sex and sent them on their way when I was done with them, whether it was for charity or not. As I trekked down the long corridor, cracking my knuckles, I thought back to the moment Iofficiallymet her in the bar that evening.

She did not want to serve us that night. Instead, she wanted to leave as fast as she could. It was not until later I realized it was to get away from Jesse. I had always seen her from a distance, but that evening was the first time I had come face to face with her.

Though shy, the way she gazed at me told me she was just as smitten with me as I was with her. In my attempt to remain professional, I spoke to her in a cold, commanding tone. It was my defense that I kept up the façade and appeared bothered by her lack of interest in serving us.

I could not take my eyes off her. She was radiant, even when she did something as simple as cleaning tables nearby. It took everything in me that night, not to kill Jesse after she ran out of the restaurant crying. I did not know exactly what happened in his office at the time, but we all heard the yelling. I vowed to make him pay for it the first chance I got…and I did.

“Take the chain off his mouth,” I ordered when I came to a stop in front of Felipe.

Blaine bent over, unlocking it, then unraveled it from his disfigured head. Felipe’s mouth was shattered as he offered a toothless smile at me.

Shaking my head with a grin, I admired what Isabelle had done to him. “Damn, she really fucked you up, didn’t she?”

“Te mato!” he slurred with blood spewing from his mouth.

“You’ll kill me?” I laughed. “You had your chance. Many of them, actually.”

He puckered his lips, spitting at me, but it landed on my brother’s shoe.

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