Page 113 of The Hitman's Secret Baby
She walks in like she never left.
Not as a ghost returned to flesh, not as a woman who once brought this house to its knees with a single vanishing act, but as the Salvatore queen in every inch of her bearing.
Valentina's heels strike marble with the weight of memory and thunder, the rhythm of her steps threading through the ribcage of this old house like a prayer wrapped in threat.
The fabric of her dress shimmers like oil in moonlight, dark and moving slowly, catching the eyes of every man in the room as she passes, not because they dare admire her, but because they know better than to look away.
She stops beside Luca's chair, not waiting to be acknowledged, not seeking permission, her silence louder than anything spoken.
He doesn't rise. He rarely does.
But there is a flicker in his posture, the kind of stillness that means his every thought has turned to steel. His cigarette burns low in the ashtray beside him, a thin line of smoke curlingtoward the ceiling where frescoes of saints look down with the kind of judgment even we have learned to ignore.
"I will not have her dead," Valentina says, her voice clear, soft as silk drawn tight. "Aria risked her life to help me disappear. She gave up everything for me. Her name. Her safety. Her place."
Across the room, Marco's jaw tightens.
Sofia stares at the wall like it might provide a better outcome than the one unraveling here.
The boy, Gabriel, inches closer to Aria, pressing into her side.
I feel his pulse from here, even though I am nowhere near him. His fear is the kind that buries itself young and never really leaves.
Luca taps once on the armrest. Then he speaks, eyes still on the woman beside him, not the one on trial. "She is not of this house. She ran. She aided your escape. She broke the code."
Valentina's hand settles on the carved wood behind him, her fingers splayed like she is steadying not herself, but him.
"She kept your secrets even when it would have saved her life to betray them. She did what you always claim to value. She stayed loyal."
Luca's eyes slide to Aria, then to me. There is nothing soft in his stare, only the hard truth of a man who understands legacy better than love.
"Do you know what became of your name?" he asks, and it is not a question that needs answering. "The Lombardi crest was wiped from the records. Every ally you had, every family who once knelt at your father's feet, now lies beneath unmarked stone. The debts are gone. The alliances are dust. Your father passed from a heart attack. Nothing is left of the Lombardi name except you. If I bury you now, nothing stirs. No council rises in protest. No retaliation comes. The world moves on without a tremor. That is the silence you left behind."
Aria's spine straightens. She absorbs the news of her father's death, and to her credit, she does it without once looking away.
Luca watches her a moment longer, then turns his gaze back to Valentina.
"I will let her live," he says. "Because you asked it of me. No other reason."
There are no thanks exchanged.
Valentina does not soften.
She nods once and lets the silence that follows settle like smoke.
Luca looks at me again. This time, the words are carved from old iron. "You want to make her your wife."
I don't answer. He already knows.
He turns his head slightly, not with disbelief, but with the cold recognition of a man who has lived through centuries in the span of years.
"Then let her prove herself. Let her live without your shield. Let her earn what you would give her for free. You may claim her, but you will not walk her into this house with a crown. Not yet. That will not happen until I say it can."
Aria does not flinch.
She only tightens her hold on Gabriel, and I see it then, the steel beneath her skin, the thing that kept her alive through five years of exile, the thing that once made me fall to my knees behind a locked door with her name in my mouth.
Luca straightens in his seat, one hand resting on the curve of Valentina's hip now, not with ownership, but with warning.
