Page 69 of The Agreement

“What is it?” Val groaned into the pillow and that made Vinny laugh as he sat down on the edge of the bed next to her. “That doesn’t help me, you know? Whatever you just saw on your phone made you visibly sick, what was it?” Val turned her head on the pillow to look at Vinny before sitting up.

“I got a text from my father.” She rubbed her stomach at the thought. “Guess who we are having breakfast with tomorrow?” At the mere mention of that, her stomach twisted again and she made a beeline for the bathroom, coughing up the contents of the few things she had managed to keep down. Stress was a bitch and she knew she would only be worse tomorrow.

“You okay?” Vinny asked as he walked up behind her and rubbed her back, not caring about the fact that she was kneeling in front of the toilet. She wiped her mouth and nodded before finally getting up to brush her teeth. He leaned against the doorway as he watched her and every so often she would glance at him in the mirror. Finally, as she finished, she turned around and looked at him.

“What?” she asked.

“Stress makes you throw up?” She sighed as she put her toothbrush away before turning to look back at him.

“It can. It takes a lot but in my defense, it’s been a roller coaster of stress over the last few weeks, you know?” He nodded as he pulled her into his arms to hold her.

He did know and he hated it, but there wasn’t anything more he could really do and they both knew that too. Once he was able to talk with her parents, that would be it, there should be nothing else coming their way. Well, other than figuring out who was behind attacking them. But that was something he was already working on. He had Frankie talk to Salvatore earlier and he was checking on what he could. What was funny, though; was going back to the gun shooting that happened in the city a while back. Because Celeste claimed her car was shot at as well, but Vinny remembered questioning it and now he was all the more certain there was some type of pairing going on. He was just having a hell of a time figuring out who, or even better yet, a why.

“Let’s get changed and go to bed, huh? I doubt you could eat anything after that and sleep should help you.” Val nodded and Vinny swopped her up in his arms, making her laugh. That was a sound he much rather preferred to hear anyway. He sat her down in the closet while he grabbed her pj’s, and then his, and changed before crawling into bed, and once more pulling her into his arms.

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Vinny watched as Val eyed the two-story large house, her breath catching for a moment. He wanted to take all of this away from her, but he knew the moment that he told her ‘yes’ to running away, this was going to come after them. They didn’t have the world to do that, but he wasn’t going to let anyone else bug them after this. This was their choice, and by rights, they had the approval that was needed, regardless of what their parents thought.

“You know, at one point in time, I never thought I would see the front of this house and tremble. I never thought I would be afraid to walk through the front doors of the house I grew up in.” Vinny took her hand and kissed the back of it.

“They are parents, they love you and you love them, but I won’t let them strip you down and I won’t allow them to break you.” Her eyes turned to look at him. She reached over and cupped his cheek, a smile tugging at her perfect lips.

“I know you won’t. You didn’t last night with your own parents.” He took her hand and kissed the middle of it before squeezing it.

“Still feeling nauseous?”

“Lingering. But it’s eased a lot with the orange juice. Odd, not my choice of drink in the morning but it sure sounded good.” Val took a breath and nodded. “Ready to go bang a few more heads around?”

“Sure am babe.” With that, he got out of the car and walked around to help her, making note that Joey’s car was there as well. Val climbed out, seeing the car as well, and took his hand as they walked up to the front door. She paused and looked back at him before knocking on the door. He stepped up behind her as her mom opened the door, her eyes glancing between the two.

“Come in,” she said, opening the door wider to allow them to enter. Vinny tried his best to ease Val’s tenseness but he knew that wasn’t going to work. And the atmosphere in here seemed a lot worse than it did at his parent’s house last night.

“Look, my daughter and her husband decide to step foot in my house.” Val stopped in the doorway to the dining room and stared at her dad.

“Really, that’s how this is going to start, dad?”

“Did you think I would let this go?”

“No, father, but I thought you would be human enough to at least let us sit down, maybe have a bite, a cup of coffee, anything before raking us over the coals.”

“You must think I’m someone else, Val because when my daughter does stupid mistakes and makes wrong decisions, I’m going to call her out on them.”

“Excuse me, they weren’t stupid, nor wrong,” Vinny said, stepping up beside Val. He stared at the older man, not ready to see Val start crying right away, or at any time for that matter. He had no problem raising his hand to this old man, regardless of he who he was. He was sure as fuck tired, though, of her dad picking on her.

"You don’t have a say here, Vinny. I thought you would have more respect for her and me than to run off and do something like this. Did you knock her up and thought this was the best course of action?" Vinny ground his teeth together and slowly shook his head.

"No, I did not. And I have tons of respect for her. That's why we did this, why we both felt this was the right thing. Neither one of our parents wanted to lay off our backs long enough to allow OUR marriage to happen in OUR way so we just eloped."

"Every word you just said, Giovanni, is a slap in the face,Lo sai(do you know that)? That you didn’t listen to us shows us just how much disrespect you have." Rafael turned his gaze to his daughter and took a step towards her but Vinny stepped before her, his eyes blazing.

"Remember, De Luca, she’s my wife now, not just your daughter and I will not allow you to lay a hand on her as you have in the past. You scream at her for her lack of disrespect yet you offer her none. She has watched you play favorites with Joey over her and never offered a word because she thought you loved her.

"You pushed a contract on her that she didn’t want but did it to protect her family because she loves them. You didn't offer Joey, you offered your daughter! What kind of respect is that? Then you accuse her of being pregnant and that’s the only reason for a wedding, not even thinking of the pressures you put on her shoulders. No, De Luca, of anyone in this room, she has been the one to show more respect to you while you have shown her none.” Vinny paused, his voice dropping to something low and it shot tingles down Val’s spine; this was the mafia boss in action, she noted, and to her, it was hot as hell. “And that stops now. I will have my wife respected by anyone and everyone."

"Why should I even trust you, huh? You allowed her to get shot at, twice plus almost bombed. It's not as if you have the greatest means in taking care of what's yours." Rafael crossed his arms and looked at Vinny. "Maybe you have no respect for her." Vinny snorted at that, not surprised in the last that De Luca would go that low or that he knew about Vegas.

"I protected her in Vegas and it was me that got shot, not her. And Valentina," he said, wrapping his arm around her waist and pulling her close, "knows I respect her. That she means a lot more to me than you want to give us credit for." Vinny watched as the older man clenched his hands and he swore he saw fumes come out of De Luca’s ears.

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