Chapter 6: Ghosts of the Past
Valentina's POV - Ten Years Ago
The garden party was supposed to be boring.
My father had dragged me to the neutral estate for some kind of peace negotiation between families. Temporary alliance, he'd called it. Necessary evil. I was fifteen and supposed to smile politely while adults talked about things I wasn't allowed to understand.
Instead, I'd escaped to the maze.
The hedges were tall enough to hide me, twisting enough to lose myself in. I'd found a stone bench in the center and pulled out the book I'd hidden in my purse. Finally, some peace.
"You're in my spot."
I looked up to find a boy standing there, maybe seventeen, with golden brown eyes and a smile that could've melted ice. He wore a suit like all the other mob sons, but his tie was loosened and his hair was messy like he'd been running.
"Your spot?" I raised an eyebrow. "I don't see your name on it."
"Fair point." He sat down anyway, right next to me, close enough that our shoulders almost touched. "I'm Dante."
My stomach dropped. Dante Moretti. Son of the family my father had been complaining about all week. The enemy.
I should have left. Should have run back to the party and told my father.
Instead, I said, "Valentina."
"I know." His smile widened. "Vincent Romano's daughter. The pretty one."
Heat flooded my cheeks. "How do you know I'm the pretty one? Maybe I'm the ugly sister."
"You're an only child. I did my research." He leaned back, studying me. "What are you reading?"
I showed him the cover. Jane Eyre.
"Classic choice. Bit depressing though, isn't it?"
"You've read it?"
"My mom made me. She says all the good books are depressing." He tilted his head. "So what's a Romano princess doing hiding in a maze reading about sad governesses?"
"What's a Moretti prince doing interrupting her?"
"Touché." He laughed, and the sound did something strange to my chest. "The party was boring. You looked more interesting."
We talked for an hour. Then two. He made me laugh with impressions of the stuffy old bosses inside. I told him about the book. He listened like he actually cared.
When Paulo came looking for me, I lied and said I'd gotten lost in the maze. Dante had already disappeared, melting into the shadows like he'd never been there.
But he left a note tucked into my book: "Same time next week? If there is a next week. Our dads might kill each other first."
There was a next week. And a week after that.
For six months, we met in secret. In gardens during family meetings. In parks when we could sneak away. Once, daringly, at a coffee shop across town where no one knew us.
He told me about his father's expectations, the weight of being an only son. I told him about my mother's death, the loneliness of being perfect. With him, I didn't have to be Valentina Romano, pristine daughter of the mob. I could just be Lina.
He was the only person who ever called me that.
"What do you want to be?" he asked me once. We were sitting on a bench by the river, sharing cheap tacos from a food truck. "If you could be anything."
"Free," I said without thinking. Then laughed at how dramatic it sounded. "I don't know. Normal? Is that stupid?"
"Not stupid." He bumped his shoulder against mine. "I get it. Sometimes I think about just... leaving. Getting on a plane and never coming back."
"Would you?"
"Would you come with me?"
My heart stopped. He was looking at me like I was the only person in the world. Like he could actually see me.
"Yeah," I whispered. "I would."
He kissed me then, soft and sweet and perfect. My first kiss. His too, he admitted later, embarrassed.
We were young and stupid and thought love could fix everything.
We were wrong.
- Ten Years Ago -
The alliance fell apart three weeks later.
A shipment went missing. Accusations flew. Someone threw the first punch at a meeting, and it escalated from there. By the end of the week, the Morettis and Romanos were at war.
Dante's father died in the crossfire. Ambushed in his own territory. Three bullets, execution style.
The Morettis blamed my family. Swore it was a Romano hit.
My father swore we had nothing to do with it.
I didn't know who to believe.
Dante disappeared after the funeral. No notes. No secret meetings. Nothing.
I tried to reach him once, sneaking out to a place we used to meet. He was there, but he wasn't the boy I knew anymore. His eyes were cold. His smile was gone.
"Did your family do it?" he asked. No greeting. No Lina.
"I don't know."
"That's not good enough."
"Dante, please. We can still—"
"We can't." He stepped back like I'd burned him. "My father is dead. Your family killed him, or someone close to your family did. There's no us anymore, Valentina. There never really was."
"Don't say that."
"Go home. Marry whoever your father picks. Be the perfect daughter." His voice was ice. "And stay away from me. If I see you again, I won't remember what we had. I'll only remember what you are."
"What am I?"
"A Romano." He turned and walked away. "The enemy."
I stood there crying until my bodyguard found me and dragged me home.
My father never knew about Dante. I never told anyone except Lucia, years later, when I was drunk and sad and couldn't hold it in anymore.
Dante left the city a year after that. Went to Europe, I heard. Learning the business. Becoming the man his father had groomed him to be.
Becoming the killer I'd met tonight in that warehouse.
- Present Day -
I woke up gasping, tangled in sheets damp with sweat.
The dream, the memory, clung to me like cobwebs. I could still feel that last kiss by the river. Could still see the way Dante had looked at me before his father died, like I was something precious.
Now he looked at me like I was prey.
My phone said it was three in the morning. My father had been dead for fourteen hours. I had twenty-four hours left before Alessandro made his move.
The card with the address sat on my nightstand, taunting me.
I picked it up, studying it in the dim light from my window. Who had sent it? Who knew I'd be desperate enough to seek out the Morettis? Who wanted me to go there?
The smart thing would be to ignore it. To accept my fate. Marry Alessandro, be the good wife, survive the only way women in our world were allowed to survive.
But smart hadn't saved my father. Smart hadn't protected Marco. Smart wouldn't stop Roberto from destroying everything.
I got up and crossed to my closet. In the back, hidden behind a false panel I'd installed years ago, was my escape bag. Every smart mob daughter had one. Cash, fake ID, burner phone, gun.
I'd never thought I'd actually use it.
I pulled out the gun, checked the clip, put it back. Then I grabbed the plainest clothes I owned. Jeans. Black hoodie. Sneakers that had never touched our manicured lawn.
If I was going to do this, I needed to look desperate.
It wouldn't be hard. I was desperate.
A soft knock at my door made me freeze.
"Val?" Lucia's voice. "You awake?"
I shoved the bag back into its hiding place and opened the door. She looked as bad as I felt, makeup smudged, hair tangled, still wearing her dress from yesterday.
"Couldn't sleep," she said. "Can I...?"
"Yeah." I let her in, closed the door quietly.
We climbed into my bed like we had a hundred times before. She curled against my side, and I put my arm around her.
"I heard about the meeting," she whispered. "Roberto's taking over."
"Yeah."
"And they moved up your wedding."
"Yeah."
"Val, I'm scared."
"Me too."
We lay there in the dark. After a while, her breathing evened out. She'd fallen asleep.
I stared at the ceiling and thought about choices. About the boy who'd called me Lina and the man who'd said "what a surprise" like I was a gift wrapped in my own desperation.
About the card that promised nothing but offered everything.
About the warehouse where men went to die.
Trust no one. Not even blood.
My father's last words. His last warning.
But he'd also taught me something else over the years, watching him maneuver through the complexities of our world: Sometimes the only person you could trust was your enemy.
Because at least with an enemy, you knew where you stood.
I extracted myself from Lucia carefully, leaving her sleeping in my bed. I got dressed in the dark. Found the card. Tucked my father's spare gun into my waistband, hidden under the hoodie.
Then I left my room, my house, my life.
The guards at the gate knew me. They let me pass without question. I was Valentina Romano. Where would I possibly go?
I drove through empty streets toward the warehouse district. Toward enemy territory. Toward the boy I'd loved and the man I feared.
Toward my last desperate chance at survival.
The address led to an alley behind an abandoned factory. A man materialized from the shadows, massive and scarred.
"You looking for someone?" His voice was gravel.
"Dante Moretti."
He studied me for a long moment. Then pulled out a phone, made a call, spoke too quietly for me to hear.
"Wait here."
He disappeared. I stood in that alley for twenty minutes, shivering in the cold, wondering if I'd just made the biggest mistake of my life.
Then a car pulled up. Black SUV, tinted windows.
The back door opened.
I got in.