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“Would you have rather I killed him?”
“Of course not!” She grimaces and paces the little space she has to roam. “He was just a kid. You could have let him go.”
“I did let him go.” My eyebrows pinch together. “And he was hardly a child. Valentina. Please.” I hold out my hand for her to take. “Enough. It’s over. Let’s return upstairs.”
She whirls on me, eyes wide like she’s in shock I’d even suggest such a thing. “Return to the party? Are you insane?”
I can feel my patience thinning. First, I have to deal with a scumbag, and now, my wife thinks I’m insane for making sure he paid for his crimes.
“Don’t cross me, Valentina.”
She glares at me. “Or what? You gonna break my nose too?”
I close the distance between us two long strides, so fast that she recoils against the wall. Slamming my palm against the stone, I lock her in place beneath me. “I made him apologize to you,” I growl, my anger lashing at me like a whip. “I let that little perv go instead of kicking his teeth in like he deserved, yet you taunt me like I’m the villain.”
“You are the villain,” she shrieks, battering her fists against my chest. “You’ve always been the villain. You, my dad, everyone in this fucking place! I didn’t see it before, but I see it clear as day now. It’s no wonder my mother tried to leave. It’s no wonder she got fucking killed for it?—”
My eyes narrow as Valentina continues to rant. Not once has she mentioned her mother’s death being murder before. Did she come to that conclusion on her own, or did someone plant the idea in her head?
My thoughts immediately swing to Mikhail. He should learn to keep his mouth shut.
No one actually knows what happened to Maeve. The official story is that she got sick, but to disappear in one day? I’d suspected foul play, but Tolkotsky never said anything, and I knew better than to ask.
The rumors have always been about how Maeve had a secret lover and ran away, or that she got kidnapped by a rival family, or that she died giving birth to a second child. Each rumor was more ridiculous than the last.
But Tolkotsky never looked for Maeve after she disappeared. I’d suspected it was his pride that kept him from action. He didn’t want to seem weak, pining after a woman who got away from him, either through death or abandonment.
Of course, there were rumors that he’d killed her, but as his right-hand man, I never saw or heard anything.
Maeve’s disappearance got swept under the rug quickly.
Valentina’s disappearance, however, enraged him. He took it out on everyone within striking distance, and the reverberations of his rage trickled down into every layer of the Bratva. We spent years looking for Valentina, until finally, Tolkotsky surrendered to his own illness and died.
I never gave up the search, but I didn’t order my men to continue theirs. They had spent enough time searching for ghosts of the past.
I grasp Valentina’s chin and tilt her head up to gaze into her eyes. Tears shine in the corners, like raindrops about to fall. “How do you know what happened to your mother?”
Her lip trembles, and she jerks her head to tell me no.
“Valentina.” I press my thumb against her pretty pink lips. “Tell me.”
I wait as she gathers herself. With each second that passes, I brush my fingertip against her bottom lip, unable to stop myself. I used to steal kisses from those lips. Chaste, little kisses, like the delicate flutter of a butterfly’s wings.
I stole a much better kiss from her the other night. The memory lingers close enough that I can still taste her on my mouth.
Valentina takes a shaky breath. “She tried to leave.” One of the tears falls, rolling down her cheek. “I found a letter she wrote to my father. Or, well, it found me.” Her face scrunches and more tears fall. “I don’t know, Andrei.” Her voice cracks. “The letter said she was leaving and taking me with her, but then she disappeared before she could ever come get me. I came here to ask my father what really happened. He has to know something.” She chokes on a sob. “Had to.”
Another sob wracks her body, and the pieces of my heart ache with every broken sound she makes. I shouldn’t care so much after everything she’s put me through, but fuck. My muscles tense as I war with my emotions.
I want to wring Tolkotsky’s neck for dying before Valentina got answers, but the bastard’s death was long overdue. I’ll never regret watching his life snuff out breath by breath on his sickbed.
Part of me wants to kiss away Valentina’s pain, but the other part wants to watch her suffer. She deserves some misery after leaving me and the Bratva behind.
I hold my breath as I watch her crumble.
“And now,” she murmurs, “now I’m stuck here.” She wipes her tear-stained cheek. “I’m not supposed to be here, Andrei!”
That’s ridiculous, and if she were thinking straight, she’d know that. A flare of righteousness flickers inside my heart.
