Page 58 of Saint Valentine

I turned and walked out.

Aria was waiting in the car, her face pale, her hands clenched in her lap. She didn’t ask if it was done. She already knew.

“It’s over,” I said.

Drake nodded once, starting the engine.

Aria didn’t speak.

And neither did I.

Epilogue

A year later, the day before Valentines.

The compound was quiet now—the kind of quiet that comes after a storm. I sat in the office, the same one my father used to run his empire from. The desk was clean, the bloodstains scrubbed away. The ghosts were gone. The stench that used to stink up the house was gone.

I’d spent six months after his death, cleaning up the mess my father left behind. All the power was mine now, and I’d used it to make sure there wasn’t a single man left standing who wanted Aria dead. Bodies piled up, blood soaked into the ground, but I didn’t lose a night’s sleep over it. They’d made their choices. I’d made mine.

Brooker Jr. had just left. His beef was never with me. I gave him the deal my father was supposed to give Drake. The deal that got his father killed. It was the least I could do. Aria was Aria/ Cora Valentine now—by choice. She’d taken my name, and I’d taken her. For better or worse, we were tied together. Her parent’s were back in Africa and everybody still thought Drake was dead.

I left my father’s house and drove to the house I used to live in on the compound. The maid had left my mail on the desk, a stack of envelopes gathering dust. I flipped through them, my fingers stopping on one. The DNA test. I’d been too busy to answer the doctor’s calls, too buried in blood and business to care. But now it was here, staring me in the face.

I tore it open, my eyes scanning the results.

Donato Valentine: 100% match.

My chest tightened, a cold knot forming in my gut. I grabbed my keys and drove straight to the doctor’s office, barging in while hewas with a client. The man looked up, startled, but I didn’t give him a chance to speak.

“You lied to me,” I said, my voice low and dangerous. “You told me Donato wasn’t my father.”

The doctor paled, his hands trembling as he gestured for his client to leave. When the door shut, he looked at me, his face a mask of fear.

“The woman you were with… she came into my office while you waited that day. She told me to tell you Donato wasn’t your father. Threatened me. Said she’d have her cousin Brooker take care of me if I didn’t. I can’t handle that type of trouble.” He swallowed hard. “I told you what she said, but I rushed the real results to you. I didn’t want any part of it.”

I stared at him, my jaw clenched so tight it hurt.

Aria.

Of course she had done this. She’d played me again. I remembered her telling me her cousin used the doctor. At the time, I didn’t know that had been Brooker.

I didn’t say a word. Just turned and left, the test results crumpled in my fist.

When I got home, she was in the kitchen, cutting vegetables. We’d moved into my mother’s house on the outskirts, two cities over. No one knew we lived here. It was supposed to be a fresh start for us. But now, standing in the doorway, I felt the weight of every lie, every manipulation, every moment she’d played me for a fucking fool.

She looked up and smiled. “Hey, I’m making a cake for your birthday, chocolate or vanilla?”

I threw the test results on the counter. She glanced at them, her expression never changing.

She sighed. “Your father’s worst nightmare was you turning against him,” she said, her voice impassive. “I made sure that happened. But I didn’t even have to try that hard.”

I stared at her, my chest rising and falling with the effort to keep my anger in check.

“You lied to me. Again.”

“You remember how this started, right? You kidnapping me? I hadn’t done anything to you. I might have chosen not to.” She tilted her head, eyes locked onto mine. “But if I did it my way, you would’ve gotten some pussy, me and Brooker would’ve killed your father, and you wouldn’t have had to. But you manipulated the situation into what it turned into. I literally told you to let me, Isabella, and Jason go—that this situation wasn’t going to end the way you wanted it to. But you wanted to be a fucking caveman.”

I exhaled, my jaw ticking. “I killed my father.”

---