Page 128 of Valentino

"Please. I'll do anything. Whatever you want."

Enzo doesn't look at me.

"Look at me."

The translator stays silent.

No one moves.

No one gives me the mercy of pretending I matter.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Valentino

Amanda is still screaming when the guards bring me in.

My name. Over and over. Hoarse already.

She won't forgive me for coming here. I knew that before I fired at the gate. She'll hate me for trading myself, and I want her alive long enough to do it.

Enzo Basile stands beside a long wooden table. I look at his hands first, then his face. His hands are folded. His eyes are dry and red-rimmed, the eyes of a man who has already cried somewhere private and will not do it again in front of me.

I knew men like him growing up. My father came from the same world. Men who could order a death before breakfast and still believe there were lines a man did not cross. Trafficking. Women. Children. Powder money. They called the new generation clever for finding profit anywhere. Men like Enzo called it rot.

He won't kill Amanda now that he has me.

Not yet.

Me, he can hurt. Me, he can keep. Aldo is dead, and Enzo did not bring me here because one bullet would satisfy him.

"Benvenuto," Enzo says.

Welcome.

He says it like manners still matter.

"Valentino, don't." Amanda's voice tears through the room. "Don't just stand there. Don't do this. Don't you dare do this."

I do not look at her yet. I need to answer Enzo first. I need him listening to me before grief gets louder than truth.

Enzo gestures, and one of the guards pulls out a chair. No one shoves me into it. I sit because I came here to be seen, not dragged.

"You came to my gate and threw down your gun," Enzo says. "I buried my boy. I have heard ten versions of why from ten men who were not in the room. The Renaud woman gave me three more before she stopped being useful."

His eyes stay on mine.

"You were there. Tell me why."

A simple question. The only one he cares about.

"You want the truth?"

"I want the reason."

"Your son drugged her."

Amanda goes silent behind me.