Page 12 of Savage Enemy

Marco Moscatelli put a hand on his brother’s shoulder before the kid could open his mouth. Enforcers were typically loose cannons, but Moscatelli seemed smart enough to keep his brother on a short leash.

“I assure you, I understand the terms of the treaty, Vignali. We’re not here to cause New York any trouble or to disrespect you personally. A member of our family strayed, and we’re only here to retrieve her. Same as you would do.”

Then Moscatelli reached into his breast pocket.

Tony and Bruce raised their guns, aiming at Moscatelli’s head.

The younger Moscatelli drew his pistol.

Without sparing my men a second glance, Moscatelli pulled out a photo and handed it to me while his expression remained professionally blank.

I accepted the photo and studied the image in my hand.

Valerie. My Val.

Young, like when I’d first met her, but there was no mistaking her features. The shape of her face, her eyes, her lips.

She stood on a pedestal in what looked like a high-end dress shop, her dark hair piled on top of her head, and she wore a white wedding gown. With her porcelain skin and her lips painted pink, she looked like a doll.

So pretty, but with lifeless eyes.

Her rounded shoulders and her arms hugging her abdomen revealed fear. A sad, frightened girl without hope. Nothing like my foul-mouthed barista, so full of light and fire.

Fuck. I finally saw her truth.

Val had said she didn’t want to be with a killer, and I still believed that, but it wasn’t the only reason she wanted out.

Now I could see it. When she left me after finding out my real name, after learning my family worked in the gray and the black, she knew our relationship was forbidden.

She knew it would bring death.

She’d been hiding from her family.

A Chicago family—my rivals, my enemies.

My girl was a runaway princess.

My goddamn head spun as I stared at the photo.

She’d had many opportunities to come clean with me. I would have protected her. If she had told me the truth, I would have done anything to keep her and my son safe from the Chicago syndicate.

I would have paid her father any price—or killed him.

After resolving the matter of her father, I would only have had to marry her to fully claim her. Once the church said she belonged to me, that would have been the end of it.

Yeah. So there had to be something else.

Was she already married, running from a husband?

I continued staring at her image, careful to mask my expression to hide the emotion swelling in my chest and the rage climbing from my gut to meet it.

Once these men were gone, Val had a lot of explaining to do. And punishments to endure.

Did she even understand the fucking mess she’d put me in or how easily we could have avoided the whole thing if she had just fucking told me the truth?

I handed the picture back to Moscatelli.

“The resemblance is remarkable, but you risked coming here for nothing. This isn’t my Valerie.”

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