Page 31 of Brutal Union
Valentina stands, and for a moment I think she might take the offer. Instead, she bends to kiss Sarah's cheek, a goodbye that feels final.
"Take care of yourself," she says, then walks out, leaving her old life behind again.
Tommy's voice in my ear: "She refused help. Could have screamed, could have run. She chose to leave alone."
I watch her on the street cameras, the way she pauses outside the coffee shop, hand on her throat again.
"Stay with her," I order Tommy, then turn to Luca who's been sitting across from me, cleaning his weapons while I watch my wife. "Handle the Torrelli situation. I want their capo missing by sunset."
Luca's smile is all teeth. "How missing do you want him?"
"Lake Michigan missing."
"My favorite kind." He stands, tucking his gun away. "She's got you wound tight, brother. When are you going to stop playing and just fuck her?"
"When she begs for it."
"From what I hear, she already did. With her mouth on your…"
The paperweight hits the wall where his head was, but Luca's already moving, laughing as he exits.
The bookstore on Michigan Avenue is one of the last independents, too stubborn to die like the woman browsing its shelves. I switch between security cameras, watching her fingers trail across spines. The way she bites her lip while reading makes me picture those teeth on my skin.
She pauses in the philosophy section, pulls down Marcus Aurelius. I know she's already read my copy, left her own notes in my margins. The thought of her handwriting mixed with mine feels more intimate than sex.
Then she finds the strategy section.
My breath catches as she reaches for Sun Tzu's "Art of War." The exact edition I have. She opens it, reads, and something shifts in her expression. Decision crystallizing.
She takes it to the counter, pays cash. Money from the wallet I left on the dresser this morning, another test passed. She borrows a pen from the cashier and scrawls something inside the book, but I can't make out what she's written.
"Dammit!" My fist pounds the desk.
"Boss," Tommy's voice tightens. "She's heading to St.Mary's Cemetery."
Where her mother is buried. Where my mother rests three rows over.
I switch to traffic cameras, following the taxi's path through Chicago's veins. Watch her pay the driver, walk through iron gates that have witnessed too much grief. Her heels, the Louboutins I bought her, sink slightly in the grass.
She finds her mother's grave easily. "Chiara Bernardi, Beloved Mother."
Valentina kneels, expensive dress spreading on the cold ground. The book rests beside her as she traces her mother's name.
"Hi, Mama." Her voice through the phone bug is soft, broken. "I know it's been a while."
She tells her mother about the wedding that wasn't, the marriage that is. About my family, about the violence, about the way I watch her.
"What would you think of me now, Mama?" The words catch, tears flowing. "He's nothing like Father. He's worse. He makes me want the cage. Makes me forget why I should hate him."
The confession hangs in the April air. She's crying properly now, shoulders shaking.
"When he looks at me, I feel like I exist. Like I matter. Not as property, but as… God, Mama, I think about him constantly. Dream about him."
Tommy's report vibrates my phone: "She's been crying for fifteen minutes. Should I…"
"Don't you fucking dare approach her," I type back, my free hand gripping the desk hard enough to leave marks.
She stays another ten minutes, whispering things the wind steals. When she stands, she kisses her fingers and presses them to the stone.
