Page 60 of Brutal Union
"We have to go get her!" She crosses to the desk in three strides, hands slamming down on the wood, leaning forward. I catch a glimpse of the bruise I left on her throat yesterday. Mine, even when I can't trust her judgment. "Now, Marco. Right now."
"It's a trap." The words come out cold, factual. "Just like your restaurant was a trap."
She flinches, but doesn't back down. "I don't care if it's a trap. She's my sister, Marco. The only family I have left that matters."
"And Dante is my brother." I stand, using my height to tower over her, feeling the heat radiating from her body, remembering how she felt beneath me at dawn yesterday. "He might lose his hands because I listened to you. Because I let you convince me that childhood memories were enough for tactical assessment."
Something dies in her eyes. I watch it happen, watch the light go out. But her voice stays steady. "So you're not going to help me?"
"I didn't say that." I turn back to the maps, shutting her out with my body language even as every instinct screams to grab her, to keep her close where she's safe. "But you're not coming. You're excluded from any rescue plans."
"Excluded." She repeats the word like poison. "From saving my own sister."
"You've done enough." Each word is deliberate, designed to cut. "Every time I let emotion override judgment, people get hurt. My people. So yes, you're excluded. Go wait in our bedroom while I handle this properly. I promise you, I'll get Alice back."
The words burn my tongue. Part of me wants her there, safe, where I can find her after the blood settles. Another part knows that locking her away makes me just like her father, everything she detests.
The silence stretches between us, heavy with everything broken, everything that might never heal. When she finally speaks, her voice is hollow.
"Is that what I am now? Just another wife to lock away when she becomes inconvenient?"
I don't answer. Can't answer. Because saying yes would be a lie, but saying no would mean admitting she still has power over me. And that power nearly cost me my brother today.
"We will talk about this tomorrow, Valentina. Right now, I have several problems to address. Like getting Alice back."
She stands there studying my face, and I watch her memorizing every line, every shadow. Like she's creating a portrait to carry with her. The scrutiny makes something twist in my chest, something that feels like a rib breaking inward.
"I understand," she says finally, and the resignation in her voice is worse than anger would have been.
She turns and walks out without another word. No slammed door, no tears, no pleading. Just footsteps fading down the hallway, measured and final. My hands ache to grab her, pull her back, slam her against the wall and remind us both who we are together. Instead, I let her go.
I turn back to my war plans, but the maps blur together. My cock is still half-hard from her proximity, from the memory of yesterday when she rode me until we both shattered. Her taste is still on my tongue. Coffee and need and that sound she makes when she comes. My hands shake as I try to mark coordinates.
Fuck. I can't focus. The clean clothes she dropped are still on my floor, and her scent rises from them with every movement of air.
I last thirty seconds before I'm storming toward our bedroom. She needs to understand the tactical situation. That's all. I need her to know why she has to stay here, safe, while I handle the blood work. My body moves on autopilot, already anticipating the fight, the way her eyes will flash with defiance, the way I'll have to press her against the wall to make her listen, the way that always ends with us tearing at each other's clothes.
The bedroom door swings open, and I'm already speaking. "Valentina, you need to understand—"
Empty.
Not bathroom-empty. Not stepping-out-for-a-moment empty.
Gone empty.
We haven't spent the night here together, always choosing to stay at the penthouse, but she usually has books scattered about the room so she can retreat here after family dinners. But on my pillow, my pillow, not hers, sit her mother's rosary beads. The ones she clutches when she's scared. The ones that never leave her pocket.
Left behind. Deliberately.
My chest constricts. She didn't wait. Didn't obey. Didn't play the good wife locked in her tower.
She's not waiting for me to save Alice.
She's going after her sister herself.
I'm already moving, grabbing my jacket, my gun, calling Tommy to bring the car around. But even as rage consumes me, something else burns hotter.
Five minutes. She has a five-minute head start into whatever hell she's chosen.
