Page 65 of Brutal Union
I look down at my hands, rain washing away the blood but not the memory of signing those papers.
"She was never really mine." I turn away from the gate, from the path she took. "Just something I stole."
24 - Valentina
The cemetery gates disappear in my rearview mirror, driving through Chicago’s rain-slicked streets with divorce papers bleeding ink on my passenger seat.
My hands won't stop shaking on the steering wheel. Cold from the rain, yes, but mostly from the gaping wound where my heart used to be. Every breath feels like drowning in reverse, air that won't satisfy, lungs that won't fill.
I can still feel Marco's phantom touch on my skin, making me want to claw myself raw. Those same hands that made me feel alive, that taught me to shoot, that held me like something precious were descended from the hands that signed my mother's execution. Every kiss was a betrayal. Every touch a desecration of her memory.
The truth sits like poison in my veins, burning through every good memory we made. His father paid for the murder. Fifty thousand dollars to make Mother disappear. And Marco knew, maybe not the details, but he knew something. All those warnings about Bernardi women getting people killed. He was talking about her. About what his family did to her.
I left my phone at the penthouse. No temptation to read his messages, no way for him to track me. The silence feels both like freedom and amputation.
He'll tear Chicago apart looking for me. I know him well enough to know that. But by then I'll be long gone, and even Marco won't start a war that would destroy us all.
Would he?
The restaurant disaster proved what I really am to him. The moment my strategy failed, when Dante got hurt, he shut me out completely. Locked me away like the disappointing possession I'd become. "She was never really mine," he'd said. Just another acquisition, another territory to conquer.
But none of that matters now. All that matters is Alice. Nineteen, terrified, in Christopher O'Brien's hands. I know Christopher's reputation with women, the bruises his last girlfriend couldn't hide until she disappeared entirely.
What would Mother think, seeing me trade myself again? But Mother's dead because she tried to run. At least I'm choosing my cage. At least Alice gets what Mother died trying to give us: freedom.
I drive for twenty minutes, circling the same blocks, working up the courage. Twice I park outside safe houses I know Marco owns, almost going in. But Alice's terrified face keeps pulling me south, toward the only choice that saves her.
The rain gets heavier, like Chicago itself is trying to wash away the blood. Through the downpour, I see it. The O'Brien compound squatting on the South Side like a wound that won't heal.
I park right at the front gates, no attempt to hide. The rain has stopped but the air still smells of copper and wet concrete.
"Tell Liam his bride is here," I announce to the guard post, watching his eyes widen with recognition.
The shock on his face would be funny if I could feel anything beyond this hollow determination. They escort me through the gates, past crosses mounted on walls like they could wash the blood money clean. The compound tries so hard to look respectable with its crosses and marble, but I can feel the violence seeping from the walls. It reminds me of Father's house, holiness painted over blood.
Liam waits in what must be his father's study, all leather and mahogany trying to look legitimate. The leather chair creaks as he stands, and the sound makes me think of Marco's office chair, how it sounded when he pulled me into his lap that first time I brought him coffee. My pussy clenches at the memory, and I bite my tongue hard enough to draw blood.
Christopher stands beside him, and my stomach turns to ice. There are scratches on his face, fresh ones, the kind fingernails make when someone's fighting for their life. Alice fought him. My baby sister fought while I was in Marco's bed.
"Well, well." Liam's eyes glitter with something between surprise and triumph. "The stolen bride returns."
Christopher's gaze travels over me with the kind of hunger that makes my skin crawl. His reputation precedes him. Girls who stop speaking, who disappear into themselves before disappearing entirely.
"Let her go," I say without preamble.
"Let who go?" Liam asks, though his smile says he knows exactly who I mean.
"Alice. Let her leave Chicago. Go to college. Have a real life." My voice stays steady despite the earthquakes in my chest. "She's nineteen. She doesn't deserve this."
Liam circles the desk to study me closer. When he stops just inches away, his cologne, all wrong, nothing like bergamot, makes my stomach turn. His fingers ghost over the bruises on my throat, Marco's marks, still purple-dark against my skin.
"And in exchange?" Liam asks, his breath hot against my ear.
"I'll honor the original agreement. The marriage our families planned."
Christopher actually laughs, the sound sharp as breaking glass. "You're already married, princess. Or did you forget whose bed you've been warming?"
I throw the divorce papers on the desk with enough force to scatter other documents. The pages are water-stained, wrinkled, the ink running in places making the text barely legible. But you can still make out Marco's signature if you look closely, those bold strokes of ink bleeding but visible.
