Page 209 of Stalking Ginevra

A knot tightens around my throat.

Don’t look. Don’t look. Don’t. Look.

Gravity pulls my eyes down his bruised chest, past the faded scars and wiry gray hair scattered across his abdominal muscles, to the hollow curve of his hips.

The penis hanging between his legs is long and thin, still glistening from sex. Revulsion spasms through my digestive system, making me gag. I tear my gaze away, double over, and retch.

He snickers. “Your mother liked it well enough.”

“She didn’t,” I snarl through the bitter taste of bile and pull myself back to standing. “She was only with you for the money, you bastard.”

Valentino just laughs, the sound echoing down into the pit. “Insult me all you like. It’s the last thing you’ll enjoy before I deliver your head to that arrogant bastard in a Tiffany box.”

NINETY-FIVE

BENITO

Precisely forty-eight hours since Ginevra’s abduction, I stalk through the construction site like I own the night. Ten agonizing seconds hearing her voice—weak, ragged, and barely coherent—was all it took to make me wire the hundred million. Now, Victor Bellavista has me chasing coordinates into this godforsaken pit.

It’s a wreck of jagged beams jutting out like snapped ribs and scaffolding twisting up toward the night’s sky. My boots grind against broken concrete and rusted nails, and I imagine them to be Bellavista’s bones.

We’ve bled every lead dry, squeezed every rat in the underworld, and still come up empty. Bellavista remains a ghost, as if he’s always two steps ahead. But deep down, a sickening suspicion festers that Victor might not even be a man. He could be an alias for Carla, a mastermind working through proxies and hiding in plain sight.

It would make a twisted sort of sense, since I hired her to keep an eye on the casino.

Reaper paces at my left, clad in bullet proof armor. He glances from side to side, his eyes sweeping every shadow. I needhis backup. I can’t think straight, still haunted by those images of the man in leather stripping and debasing Ginevra.

Disgust crawls up my throat, bitter and acidic. Both at myself for doing the same to the only woman I’ve ever loved, and at the rank stench of wet cement and decay that clings to the back of my throat.

How could I have been so heartless?

“Still with me?” Reaper asks, his voice cutting through my thoughts.

Forcing my guilt into the background, I lock focus on the path ahead. We’re seconds away from the drop-off, and every step tightens the tension coiling around my chest.

Roman told me to stay back, that I was walking into an ambush. Cesare told me to at least wear my fucking body armor, but I refused.

The first thing Ginevra sees when Bellavista sets her free shouldn’t be Bob Brisket or another faceless brute in bulletproof gear. It will be her husband—the man who will tear the world apart to keep her safe.

Rosalind and my brothers hover at the perimeter with the Mortis House boys, waiting to intercept Bellavista or his lackeys. A sick feeling in the pit of my gut whispers that no one will see Ginevra tonight. This entire building site feels like a trap waiting to spring, but I’d walk through the gates of hell to retrieve my wife.

“Up ahead,” Reaper says, nodding toward a pile of twisted metal.

Bellavista threatened to deliver Ginevra gift wrapped, but I was expecting a coffin or a crate. Wedged between the rubble is a wooden box, half-swallowed by the debris. Moonlight peeks out from the clouds, illuminating it with an eerie glow.

It’s barely large enough to fit a soccer ball.

The tension in my chest tightens, squeezing the air out of my lungs until I’m barely breathing. I explode into a sprint, every instinct blazing with one blistering, uncontrollable need: Ginevra. Her voice echoes through my ears, weak and desperate, begging for my help and fueling every frantic step.

Reaper grabs my arm. “Don’t touch it. Could be another explosive.”

The words barely register through the dull roar of blood pounding through my ears. My focus is tunneled, blackened at the edges, zeroing in on that fucking box. Cold adrenaline surges through my veins, and I shrug him off like he’s an action figurine. By the time Reaper tackles me to the ground, I’ve already ripped off its lid.

The metallic stench of blood hits me like a punch to the throat. Something heavy and wet tumbles out—dark, slick, and glistening under the moonlight. My stomach flips. It’s head-shaped, smeared with blood, with a face frozen in a rictus of shock.

Gut clenching, I hit the floor, my eyes locking on the severed head. Her face is bruised, eyes wide, hair matted with blood.

“Benito.”

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