Page 175 of Valentino

"Yes." She doesn't look away. Doesn't make excuses. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have. I was scared and I wasn't thinking and my daughter was with me and I just⁠—"

She stops. Takes a breath.

"I can't pay you back. Not right now. I don't have—" Her jaw tightens. "I don't have anything. But I will. Somehow. I'll figure it out and I'll repay you for whatever damage I caused, whatever inconvenience, I'll⁠—"

"I don't want your money."

The words come out flat. Final.

She blinks. Something shifts in her expression—confusion, maybe, or a new kind of fear.

I could tell her that money means nothing to me. That I have enough to bury three generations and still leave plenty for whoever's left. That there's nothing she could give me that would matter, nothing anyone could give me, because the only thing I ever wanted got lost once and for all⁠—

Cold metal presses against the back of my skull.

The click of a safety disengaging.

"Don't fucking move," a voice says behind me.

Luca Sartori hasn't felt anything in six years.

Then a stolen car, a scared woman, and a silent little girl walk into his life — and the most frozen man in the family finally has something to lose.