VALENTINA
With eyes clamped shut, Val prayed for a swift death. She expected a flash of pain before blessed relief, and yet...
There was no pain–at least, nothing besides the pounding ache in her temple. She was alive, but she didn't quite know how. She'd heard a gunshot, after all.
"Fuck!" Mario shouted, and Val wrenched her eyes open in time to see the crooked club manager spin toward the door, where light from the hallway now bled into the shadows, eclipsed by a single figure.
Val recognized Matteo's tall, broad frame immediately and nearly wept in sheer relief. She never imagined she'd be so happy to see him. She took Mario's distraction as a chance to finally retrieve her cellphone and scurry for cover behind another wooden crate.
Peering around the corner, Val saw Mario point his handgun toward the door and the man who occupied its entrance, but his movements were too slow. Matteo already held his gun level, pointed at Mario's head. The manager didn't have time to dodge before another ear splitting CRACK filled the warehouse, and warm wet droplets splattered on the cement floor.
Val gasped, clamping her palm against her lips to smother a yelp as Mario's body collapsed to the ground, limp. Dead. Shot in the forehead like he'd been killed executioner-style.
For a moment, she had half-a-mind to be frightened of any man capable of such lethal accuracy, but Matteo's heavy footsteps thudded above the blood pounding between her ears. Val ripped her eyes away from Mario's dead body just as Matteo rounded the corner to find her.
"Damn it, Valentina!" he exclaimed, stepping over a lifeless Mario and dropping to his knees by her side. His dark brown eyes scoured her for injuries, snagging on the bloody cut on her forehead.
"You're hurt," Matteo half-growled, one of his hands rising to gingerly brush Val's aching temple. A soft hiss escaped her lips at the gentle touch. "He hurt you."
Val tried to crack a smile, but it felt more like a grimace on her lips. "Actually, I did this to myself," she admitted. Technically, she'd slipped while running from Mario, but she didn't feel the need to relive the experience by recounting the story. "We can't all be badass hitmen."
Matteo didn't smile at her teasing. In fact, his mouth didn't so much as twitch as he stared at her wound. With every passing second, the frenzy faded from his brown gaze, and the tension loosed from his shoulders.
"It's deep, Val," he muttered, gruff, before shrugging his jacket off of his shoulders and bunching it up in his fist. With the jacket padding his hand, he lifted the fabric to her forehead to soak up some of the blood.
Val winced against the pressure but somehow managed to stay still as he cleaned off her forehead and hairline. "You don't have to do that," she murmured, reaching up to take the bundle jacket from him.
He frowned but didn't stop. He didn't so much as look down at Val to acknowledge her, diligently tending to her injury.
Val sighed and tried again, attempting to grapple the jacket out of his hands. "Seriously. I can do it myself. You don't have to–"
"You don't get to speak to me," Matteo ground out. He pulled his jacket away from her temple, long enough to level a cold, stern glare at her. "Not after what you just pulled."
Val flinched, and, this time, it had nothing to do with her forehead. She felt warmth begin to flood her cheeks and, despite herself, ducked her head in shame. "Can I at least say thank you? For saving me?"
"You can say it. Doesn't mean anything."
His words felt like a bucket of ice water being dumped on her head. Val kept her eyes down until she felt Matteo stand from her side and walk toward Mario's body. She watched as he nudged the dead man's shoulder with the toe of his dress shoes. Mario's eyes were still open, and blood trickled from the corner of his open mouth.
If Matteo had arrived even a few seconds later, she might be the one lying on the warehouse floor...
Val swallowed her emotion and forced herself to stand up. Her knees felt weak, but she somehow managed to pad over to Mario's body, carefully avoiding the blood puddled on the floor. She kept her gaze away from the gaping bullet-hole on the center of Mario's forehead and crouched by his torso, slipping a hand into one of his pant pockets.
It felt wrong. So wrong to dig through a dead man's pockets, but Val needed to find as much evidence of Mario's involvement in the Belyaev trafficking scheme as possible. When one pocket turned up empty, she began rummaging through another.
Matteo's eyes practically burned a hole in the back of her head, but he didn't bother asking what she was doing. Instead, he placed a large hand on her bare shoulder and gently tugged her back. "Let's go."
"Not yet," Val argued, turning her attention to one of Mario's jacket pockets. She grinned when her fingers finally curled around a slick phone screen. "There you are."
Clutching Mario's cellphone like a lifeline, Val stood once more. As soon as she reached her full height, however, a wave of dizziness overcame her, and she swayed on her feet.
If it wasn't for Matteo's steady hand wrapping around her waist, Val would've fallen and hit her head a second time. The hitman released a string of whispered curses, and black splotches began swamping Val's vision.
Shit, had she really lost so much blood?
Before the darkness could completely take over, Val felt herself being lifted from the ground and cradled against a hard chest. Eyes closed, she rolled her neck back until the uninjured side of her forehead nestled against Matteo's soft t-shirt. Peppermint and leather filled her every inhale, and his sizable muscles cushioned her pounding head.
This is nice, she hummed internally, allowing the pain to fade with every gentle rock of Matteo's body beneath her.
"Alright, principessa," Matteo murmured, as if he'd somehow heard Val's thoughts. His voice was gentler than before, lacking the anger that he'd previously wielded against her.
Val pressed her face closer to his chest, her hand grasping a fistful of his t-shirt. I hope he forgives me, she mused.
Perhaps Val's mind was playing tricks on her, or perhaps she was finally losing consciousness. But, seconds before the darkness took over, she swore she heard a soft chuckle rumble in the caverns of Matteo's chest. His grip on her body tightened in the slightest.
"Try to sleep now," he instructed, and Val obeyed.
***
When Val awoke again, she felt like she'd been wrapped in a cocoon of heat. Hot air blasted against her face, warm leather radiated against her back and legs, and the signature smell of "expensive new car" surrounded her. She recognized the thrum of the Alfa Romeo's engine before she even opened her eyes.
She blinked the bleariness from her eyes, adjusting to the dim blue lighting from the car's dashboard. Val glanced sideways, where Matteo sat in the driver's seat, his gaze never moving from the road.
"Matteo?" Val murmured, her voice crackling with sleep.
"You're alive," he drawled, still not looking away from the windshield. His voice held none of the gentle worry from the warehouse. "Welcome back."
Val frowned but refused to be baited by the callousness of his words. He was angry, and, frankly, she couldn't blame him. She'd snuck away from him and nearly gotten herself shot in the process, but she'd also uncovered valuable information about her father's enemies. Anyway, her actions hadn't truly harmed anyone–besides Mario, of course. Matteo would get over it.
Val reached up to brush her finger pads against the cut on her forehead and only felt dried blood, It had stopped bleeding, and the sharp pain had dimmed as well. After confirming that she still held two phones, her own and Mario's, in her lap, Val turned her attention to the window and the countless cars that they sped past.
Wait.
Val's eyes flashed to the speedometer on the Aston's dash. 95 miles per hour. Definitely not city driving. They raced beneath a bridge that held a big green navigation sign that read: Exit 22 Hutchinson River Parkway to Scarsdale.
Val bolted upright in the passenger seat and stared incredulously at Matteo. "You're taking me back to Scarsdale?"
For the first time since she woke up, Matteo glanced in Val's direction. He cocked a dark brow and leveled an expression that said: Really? You're asking me that question?
"Seriously?" Val scoffed, although newfound nerves coiled in the pit of her stomach. "My dad will only be worried if he sees me like this. At least give me the chance to shower this blood off–"
Matteo flicked the car's turn signal and moved into the exit lane. "I can hose you down when we get there, if you'd like. But you need a medic. And a new bodyguard."
A new bodyguard? Val's heart thumped to an abrupt halt. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"You're surprised?" Matteo shot back.
"You're serious?"
Val hated the tightness in her throat. Hated how much Matteo's words felt like a punch to the gut. Hated that she wanted to try to argue and convince him to stay... She'd grown accustomed to his brooding, morose presence, even though she'd never admit it aloud.
"You're a spoiled princess with a knack for lying and making stupid decisions," he replied, as if that was enough explanation for his resignation. "I'll let someone else make a fool of themselves trying to babysit you."
"Will you at least let me explain why I snuck away?" Val's fingers curled into tight fists.
Matteo didn't reply, but tension flickered in his jaw, and his knuckles bleached as he squeezed the steering wheel. He clearly didn't want to hear any of her excuses, but Val didn't know if she'd ever get the chance to explain herself again, so she began.
"I found incongruities in Lo Specchio's transactions. Extra money leaving the club's accounts that lined up with biweekly beverage deliveries. None of my father's other venues were paying as much for their drinks," Val rushed, anxiously watching the familiar streets of Scarsdale blur past. "Besides Lo Specchio's cash records and my gut, I didn't have any real evidence of anything wrong..."
"So you decided to find evidence yourself?" Matteo finished. He sounded anything but impressed.
Val chewed on the inside of her cheek. "I needed to be certain before I brought anything to my father."
Matteo brought the car to a stop at a traffic light, the hue of red illuminating his hard, strong features as he turned to face Val at last. The intensity of her gaze nearly took her breath away. "Why didn't you tell me?"
Val inhaled deep, forcing herself to hold his gaze. "I was trying to show my father that I'm capable–that I can help the famiglia without calling a man to come to my aid. Clearly, that was shortsighted of me."
Matteo's eyes narrowed in the slightest, and his lips pressed into a thin line, not quite convinced.
Val sighed and continued. "And I didn't want to risk the humiliation if my hunch turned out to be nothing. I didn't want you or anyone else to report to my father that I failed."
Her words were honest–brutally, embarrassingly honest. She'd allowed her pride to nearly get her killed. At the time, it'd seemed like the best option to preserve her place as her father's heir, but now... Now, she felt foolish.
Matteo's hard, condescending glare didn't help. He looked at her like a child. Like she was the same, powerless girl that had held to his shoulders and wept after the death of her mother. The same girl that had been shipped across the Atlantic because she didn't belong in this world.
The light turned green, and Val leapt at the chance to break eye contact with the man. Heat crept up her neck at the sense of Matteo's whiskey eyes still watching her, even after the Alfa Romeo began accelerating.
"I wouldn't have done that," Matteo finally answered, his voice quieter, more gentle than before. "Wouldn't have told your father or humiliated you."
Val's teeth tugged on her chapped lower lip, and she nodded once. "Noted."
Another long silence hung between them, and Val's stomach knotted. She blamed it on the fact that Matteo pulled the car down the familiar street of the Romano estate, but, really, she knew it had more to do with the man sitting across from her.
She should've trusted him. Now, he had no reason to remain loyal to her. As soon as they arrived at the mansion, he'd feed her to the lions–or, lion. Her papà.
They rolled up to the estate's gate, and Matteo announced their arrival to the guard on duty, who buzzed them through. A matter of minutes separated Val from her fate. Suddenly, her temple began pulsing again and her fingers trembled as she clutched Mario's phone.
In one final effort to win Matteo to her side again, Val spoke. "You never asked if I found anything. Don't you want to know what Mario was hiding?"
Matteo brought the car to a slow stop in front of the house's grand entrance, shifted the gear to "park," and turned off the engine before turning to face her again. "Well?" he huffed. "Did you find your evidence, principessa?"
A smirk curled on Val's lips as she held up the phones from her lap. Matteo's attention flickered to the devices, one of which contained a video-confession of Mario's trafficking scheme. The other held the dead man's every secret.
A kernel of confidence sprouted in Val as she remembered crucial information she'd uncovered in the midst of her foolish mission. "You should bow, Mr. Hitman. Because you're looking at the future queen of the Romano famiglia."