Page 61 of Brutal Union
And when I find her, when, not if, I'm going to remind her exactly who she belongs to. Right before I kill anyone who dares to lay a finger on her.
22 - Valentina
The rain pounds against my windshield as I pull up to the cemetery gates, each drop like gunfire against glass. My hands won’t stop shaking on the steering wheel. The Glock Marco taught me to use sits heavy in my coat pocket, its weight both comfort and mockery. My body betrays me even now—my throat burns where Marco marked me this morning, my thighs still ache from how he claimed me at dawn. Every physical reminder of our connection pulses with each heartbeat.
St.Mary's Cemetery stretches before me in the darkness, rows of headstones disappearing into fog that rolls between the graves like restless spirits. The smell of wet earth mixed with rotting funeral flowers fills my lungs. This is where Mother rests. Where Father buried her after the "accident." Where Alice always came when our world fell apart.
I push through the rusted gates, my heels sinking into wet grass with each step. The blue dress clings to my legs, already soaked through, the silk dragging like hands trying to hold me back. I should have changed into something practical, but there wasn't time. Not when Alice could be anywhere, could be doing anything in her grief and confusion.
The familiar path to Mother's grave winds through older sections, past mausoleums that loom like stone guardians in the mist. My breath comes out in white puffs, the lingering April cold cutting through my coat. Every shadow could hide danger, every sound could be a threat, but I keep moving. Rain mixes with tears, salt and fresh water on my tongue.
Then I see her.
Alice kneels in the mud before Mother's headstone, her white nightgown—Mother's nightgown—soaked through and clinging to her trembling frame. The fabric drags through the mud with each sob, a wet whisper against earth. She's sobbing, great heaving sobs that shake her entire body. Her hands claw at the wet earth like she's trying to dig down to Mother herself.
"Alice." My voice cracks on her name. "Alice, baby, we need to go. Now."
She doesn't move. Doesn't even acknowledge I'm here. Just continues that horrible keening sound that tears at my chest.
I drop to my knees beside her, not caring about the mud, the cold, the rain soaking through everything. "Alice, please. It's not safe here. We need to get back—"
"You knew." Her voice is raw, destroyed. "You knew what they did to her."
"Actually, she didn't."
The voice cuts through the rain like a blade. I'm already reaching for the Glock when Liam O'Brien emerges from the fog, his silhouette materializing between headstones like something out of a nightmare.
"But she's about to."
Irish soldiers step out from behind mausoleums, from shadows I should have checked, from places that I thought were empty of the living. Six of them, maybe more, all armed, all watching us with the patience of hunters who've already won. My mind races through scenarios even as my heart pounds. Six men, Alice as leverage, approximately fifteen feet to the nearest cover.
This isn't my weak, sweating almost-groom from the altar. Liam moves differently now, carries himself with the cold confidence of someone who's been planning this moment. Thehumiliation has carved away everything soft, leaving something sharp and terrible.
"Hello again, wife." His smile doesn't reach his eyes. His gaze drops to my throat, to the bruises Marco left visible above my coat collar. "I see he's marked you. Like a dog pissing on territory. Did you like it when he fucked you, knowing what his family did to yours?"
The words hit like ice water, but I keep my face neutral, mind still calculating: two guards have lazy trigger discipline, one favors his left leg, old injury probably.
Another figure emerges from the fog. Christopher O'Brien, younger than Liam, with the kind of cruel beauty that makes my stomach turn. His eyes lock on Alice, studying her like she's something he's considering purchasing. The way his gaze travels over her wet nightgown, the way he licks his lips, I want to put myself between them, but I can't move without triggering something worse.
"Two Bernardi sisters," Christopher says, his voice carrying an edge that makes my skin crawl. "Just like we originally planned. Though one's a bit used now."
Christopher's hand slides from Alice's shoulder to her throat, a mockery of intimacy that makes me see red. "Your sister's prettier than the photos suggested. Innocent. Marco's already broken you in, but this one…"
My hand moves toward the gun again, pure instinct, but the click of a hammer being pulled back stops me cold. One of the soldiers has his weapon pressed to Alice's temple. She doesn't even react, lost in her grief, but I see the man's finger on the trigger, see how little pressure it would take.
"I wouldn't," Liam says conversationally. "My friend there has a very nervous disposition. Loud noises make him jumpy."
Liam circles us slowly, his expensive shoes squelching in the mud. The rain has plastered his red hair to his skull, but hedoesn't seem to notice or care. His focus is entirely on me, on this moment he's orchestrated.
"Your mother stood right here," he says, stopping beside a mausoleum. "All those years ago. Begging for her daughters' lives."
My blood turns to ice. "What are you talking about?"
"Oh, this is rich." He pulls something from inside his coat, a plastic folder, protected from the rain. "Your precious Marco never told you? The man you spread your legs for never mentioned his family's little arrangement?"
He tosses the folder at my feet. Through the clear plastic, I see photos. Surveillance shots, grainy but unmistakable. Mother in this very cemetery, talking to someone whose face is turned away. The timestamp reads eleven years ago, two days before she died.
"She was trying to broker a deal," Liam continues, watching my face as I process what I'm seeing. "Her silence about family business in exchange for safe passage out of Chicago. For her and her daughters."
