Page 93 of Brutal Obsession
Thank you.
She must type at the speed of lightning, because before I can request an update on Valentina, another message pops up.
Concetta:
The doctor said they’re keeping Valentina under sedation until he’s confident they didn’t miss anything. That gives you plenty of time to grab Valentina a change of clothes... and perhaps the baseball bat from my apartment!
Her suggestion re-sparks the darkness inside me. She knows what’s coming, but instead of shying away from it like she did a relationship with my father in her late teens, she wants to be a part of it.
I like that almost as much as I’m obsessed with her daughter. If she’s no longer afraid of what my family name means, she won’t object when I gift it to her daughter.
Me:
Consider it done.
When my phone whooshes, announcing my text has been sent, I store it back in my pocket and turn to face Dante. “What the fuck happened? When I tried to call to get someone to checkon Maria, my calls went unanswered. I thought we were under attack.”
The instant our father became unwell, we became primed for our enemies to make a move. It would be the first internal mafia war since the Cosa Nostra was almost wiped out, but only a fool believes loyalties won’t be tested when he’s got everything to lose.
Dante rubs the back of his neck while muttering, “It’s complicated.”
“Complicated?” He did not just fucking say that to me.
Like a man not in fear for his life, Dante jerks up his chin before shifting his narrowed eyes to his right. My teeth meet forcefully when I follow his gaze.
Valeria is in the foyer of my family home, milling around like a fucking guest. Her composure screams the fragility of a porcelain doll with a large crack down its face, but that’s it. That’s all she is. Upset but relatively uninjured… and somehow still breathing.
My blood pressure spikes.
How the fuck is she still walking after everything she did?
My brothers were meant to handle this, yet here she is, breathing in the air she tried to permanently snuff from Valentina’s lungs.
The rage I’ve been struggling to contain all day is too much. I move before thinking. Dante shouts for me to stop, but I don’t hear a word he speaks. The fury burning me alive is too deafening.
Valeria flinches when I storm toward her, and a ton of excuses tumble out of her red-painted lips. “I didn’t know.” Her hands rise to protect her face like my punishment will only involve my hands. I’m not going to smack her around like her father did her entire childhood.
A bullet is much more effective.
When I yank my gun out of its holster, she talks fast. “All I did was ask the IVF nurse to place your sperm inside Valentina. That’s it. I didn’t want to get fat taking hormones for egg production, andyou weren’t interested in the old-fashioned approach, so I picked someone I thought would remain a random. Someone I assumed you’d have no interest in. It just helped that she had a similar name. But that’s all I did, Giovanni. I swear.”
Her tone is drenched in as much honesty as it is desperation, but I’m done playing nice. “Valentina was poisoned.” I crowd in closer until my shadow replicates the darkness I’m about to shove her in. “With the cakeyougave her.”
Her eyes widen as sheer panic slides over her face, her mask ripped away. “I didn’t know he was going to do that.” Her crackling whisper can’t hide the truth in her statement. “I swear to God, Giovanni. I had no idea. He just asked me to give her the cake.”
An icy chill rolls down my spine as my wish for vengeance doubles. Good, because I have too much adrenaline to disperse for only one hit.
“He?”
That one word kills Valeria better than a bullet ever could. She looks panicked. Rightfully so. She knows I’ll be digging more than one grave tonight.
“Who ishe, Valeria? And why would he want to hurt Valentina? The only person stupid enough to think they’d get any benefit out of her death is you…” My words trail off as the answer to my question wounds me like a bomb exploding in my face.
Two weeks ago, in this very fucking compound, I cut all ties with Tommaso when he delivered Valeria to me already injured. That wasn’t my request. I said I wanted eyes on her, but he took it upon himself to split her lip, bruise her eye, and give her a bloody nose.
I told him it was the last straw. If he couldn’t follow orders, he wasn’t the right fit for the Caruso name.
His mocking laugh rang in my ears for hours.“You don’t have a choice,” he said, like he had every leg to stand on. “My grandchild makes me family. There are rules not even you can break when blood is involved.”
