Chapter 10: The Devil's Bargain
Valentina's POV
I woke to sunlight streaming through unfamiliar windows.
For a moment, I forgot where I was. Forgot everything that had happened. Then reality crashed back in, heavy and suffocating.
My father was dead. I was living in Dante Moretti's penthouse. I'd agreed to be his mistress in exchange for help I wasn't even sure he'd provide.
I sat up slowly, my body aching from sleeping in jeans. The room was exactly as I'd left it. My bag still on the floor. The closet door slightly ajar, showing racks of clothes that had belonged to someone else.
Someone Dante had kept here before me.
I pulled out my phone. Dead. I'd forgotten to charge it.
There was a clock on the nightstand. Eleven thirty-seven AM. I'd slept for almost five hours. The meeting was at noon.
I needed to shower. To change. To pull myself together before facing him.
The bathroom was marble and glass, expensive in the way only old money could achieve. I found towels in a cabinet, toiletries that looked new and unopened. Someone had prepared for my arrival.
Izzy, probably.
The shower was hot enough to burn. I stood under it until my skin turned red, scrubbing away three days of fear and sweat and desperation. Washing away Valentina Romano, piece by piece.
When I finally stepped out, I didn't recognize the girl in the mirror.
No makeup. Wet hair hanging limp. Dark circles under my eyes that no amount of concealer could hide. I looked like someone who'd survived something terrible.
I looked like someone who might survive more.
I dried off and went to the closet. The clothes were expensive, designer labels, all in my size. Dresses, jeans, blouses, even underwear still in packaging. Someone had thought of everything.
I chose simple black pants and a white silk blouse. Armor disguised as elegance.
My father's watch went on my wrist. My mother's earrings in my ears. Small pieces of who I used to be.
At exactly noon, someone knocked on my door.
I opened it to find Izzy, dressed in tactical black, her expression unreadable. "Ready?"
"As I'll ever be."
"His office. Follow me."
We walked through the penthouse in silence. I noticed things I'd missed earlier. Photographs on the walls showing Dante at various ages with a woman who must have been his mother. She was beautiful, dark-haired, smiling. Dead now, Izzy had said.
We passed a room with the door open. Inside, Luca sat at a desk covered in papers, talking quietly on the phone. He looked up as we passed, his eyes cold and assessing.
He didn't trust me. Smart man.
Izzy stopped at a heavy wooden door at the end of the hallway. "He's expecting you. Don't make him wait."
Then she was gone, leaving me alone.
I raised my hand to knock, then stopped. Took a breath. Reminded myself why I was here. What I'd agreed to. What I was willing to sacrifice.
Everything.
I knocked.
"Come in."
Dante's voice was muffled through the door but unmistakable. I turned the handle and stepped inside.
The office was nothing like I'd expected. I'd imagined something cold and sterile, all glass and chrome and calculated minimalism. Instead, it was warm. Rich mahogany furniture, floor to ceiling bookshelves actually filled with books, a massive desk covered in organized chaos. Art on the walls that looked chosen rather than purchased.
And behind that desk, backlit by floor to ceiling windows overlooking the city, sat Dante.
He looked different in daylight. Less like a monster, more like a man. He wore a black shirt, sleeves rolled to his elbows, revealing forearms corded with muscle and marked with scars I didn't remember. His hair was still damp, like he'd showered recently.
He was reading something on his laptop, didn't look up when I entered.
Making me wait. Establishing dominance.
I closed the door behind me and stood there, hands clasped in front of me, feeling like a student called to the principal's office.
After what felt like an eternity, he looked up. His eyes traveled over me slowly, assessing. Taking inventory of what belonged to him now.
"You slept." It wasn't a question.
"Yes."
"Good. You looked like death this morning." He closed the laptop, leaned back in his chair. "Sit."
I crossed to one of the leather chairs facing his desk and sat, keeping my spine straight, my hands folded in my lap. All those years of etiquette training kicking in automatically.
Dante watched me with an expression I couldn't read. Then he opened a drawer, pulled out a folder, and slid it across the desk.
"Your father's murder. Everything my people have gathered so far."
I opened the folder with shaking hands. Crime scene photos stared back at me. My father's body from angles I hadn't seen, hadn't wanted to see. Blood patterns. Bullet trajectories. Medical examiner's preliminary notes.
"Three shots, tight grouping, center mass." Dante's voice was clinical. "Professional. Someone trained, experienced. The shooter was in the room with him, close range. Under ten feet."
"How do you know?"
"Powder burns on his shirt. Your people missed it, or ignored it." He pulled out another paper. "The window was staged. Made to look like an exit route, but the glass was broken from the inside. Whoever killed your father walked out the front door."
My stomach turned. "So it was someone he trusted."
"Someone he let into his study alone. That narrows the field considerably." Dante stood, moved to the windows, hands in his pockets. "Who had access to your father's private meetings?"
"Paulo always. Sometimes Roberto. Marco when Dad wanted to talk to him, but that was rare." I swallowed hard. "And me, sometimes. When he needed me to play hostess or discuss family appearances."
"Anyone else?"
"Business associates, but never alone. He always had Paulo present for those."
"What about the night he died?"
I tried to remember. "There was a gala. I was there until I got Paulo's call. Dad stayed home, said he had work to finish."
"Who else was home?"