Chapter 19

VALERIO

W hy was I still in Chiara’s life?

Her father was gone, as I’d planned for years.

But it was not enough to avenge my parents and uncle.

I needed to tear down what was left of the Tirone empire.

Except that now the main cash cow was Galleria Gisela.

The art space Chiara had set up to honor her mother.

Over the next few days, as I spent time with Chiara and made love to her, I also observed, learned, and drilled deeper, always digging for the ultimate truth.

What I found hit me like a punch to the gut.

Claudio and Aldo were using the showroom as a front for one of the oldest tricks in the book: using art to launder dirty money.

It played as improbable as all hell. But the more I uncovered, the more obvious it became.

I believed Chiara was privy to certain aspects of the operation, but I was unsure if she was aware of the lengths her brothers had gone to.

They might have clued her in on their small artwork purchases to distract her from their more significant deals.

Claudio had been inflating prices behind her back.

Art pieces that wouldn’t fetch more than a few thousand were, all of a sudden, sold for millions. A genius move or utter desperation?

But what was clear was how perfect it all looked on the surface—the art market’s lack of transparency allowed the brothers to hide their deals with anonymity, secrecy, and plenty of room to play around.

Transactions were happening in the dark, masked by private sales and auctions where no one asked too many questions.

Their operation mimicked similar enterprises in which buyer and seller identities were obscured, the artwork’s provenance—its history—was manipulated, or the canvas was conveniently lost.

No red flags or alarms popped up on any systems as exchanges were conducted in the shadowed reaches of the criminal underworld.

The funds flowed with smooth precision, crossing borders with ease, protected by the system designed to preserve the integrity of the art world.

Except, in this case, it was facilitating crime.

Claudio had figured out how to exploit certain loopholes.

He wasn’t only hiding money but laundering vast sums across different jurisdictions.

Moving a painting from one country to another was easy, evading scrutiny at every checkpoint.

The Tirone family had entrenched themselves in the dark art market, and Chiara had no clue how deep it had gone.

Whenever I thought about how she trusted her kin and poured her heart into that gallery, thinking it was an honest venture, I was furious.

Claudio was using her passion, her dream, to hide his filth.

It wasn’t limited to the money laundering that made my blood boil; he was doing it with her art—her healing.

I refused to let it go on.

She’d given herself two weeks off from the gallery after the funeral.

It was expected, and it’d raise suspicion if she opened her show space sooner than that, so we’d spent the last few days working from home, relaxing, fucking. Eating, rinsing, and repeating.

Now, it was 3 p.m., and she was asleep upstairs after I had rocked her to bed with my cock after a lazy lunch.

I smirked at the thought, then switched my view from the laptop in front of me to the streets outside the window that was quiet during siesta hours.

I stared at one of the paintings on the wall of her guest quarters.

It was one of hers—a modernist piece, vibrant yet chaotic, full of life and pain.

The irony wasn’t lost on me. She had created this to save herself, and now it was being used to bury the sins of her family.

Only one solution was available to me. I had to end it.

I had to shut down the Tirone family’s fraud operation before it swallowed her whole.

I picked up my phone, tapping the screen to dial.

Mauri’s gravelly voice came through on the other side.

‘I need a favor,’ I said, cutting straight to the point. ‘It’ll cut into your vacation time.’

‘Hit me, I’m bored as fuck at the villa. What kind of favor, padrone?’

His tone was wary, cautious.

He understood me well enough to sense when things were about to get messy.

‘I have to burn Claudio Tirone’s money-laundering operation to the ground.’

Silence fell before Mauri exhaled slowly. ‘You know what that means, right?’

‘Yeah. I know.’ I clenched my jaw. ‘I don’t care.’

Mauri didn’t ask questions. He knew better. He grasped the stakes.

This wasn’t about some shady family business; this was about protecting Chiara from the storm coming her way.

‘I’ll make some calls,’ he said, and I detected a cigarette lighter firing up.

I imagined he was reaching for one of the dark, thin cheroots he favored.

‘But once this starts, there’s no turning back,’ he rasped. ‘The Tirones are in with some nasty mofos. Find out who, and how we can get an in to them.’

‘They don’t have a choice.’ My voice was cold, certain. ‘They’ll face me. Or they’ll have nothing left to deal with at all.’

As I hung up, I mulled my changing plans.

Even though I’d planned to tear apart the empire her father and brothers had built, tearing it down brick by fucking brick, I now had her to factor for.

Making my job all that more difficult.

CHIARA

5 p.m. and all was quiet in the guest quarters.

I sat at my dining table, tapping my fingers on my coffee cup, tossing around options - to go or not to go for a walk?

To disturb or not disturb Rio?

He was working. I saw him seated at his desk through my bedroom window, which overlooked the garden, pool, and visitor quarters.

I was desperate for a stroll and keen to return to the one activity I enjoyed, next to swimming and yoga.

Surely, no one would try anything at this time when the sun was still shining.

The neighborhood was safe for the most part, and I needed a quick 20-minute jaunt as a release.

Besides, some time back, he’d asked me to give him a heads-up for major trips, dinners, office, and business meetings. He hadn’t specified harmless little walks in the local area I loved.

So I chanced it.

Slipped into running shoes, I wore a light, sweat-wicking jacket, a cap, and sunglasses for anonymity.

I also tucked a blade in the slimline pocket of my tight-fit exercise tights.

I took off, easing out the front door, locking it securely, and arming it before loping down the street.

The weather was glorious.

I joined the throngs of dog walkers, joggers, and swimmers headed for the beach five minutes from my house.

I soaked it all in.

My eyes took in the views, loving the sunshine and freedom.

I crossed several streets, took a set of stairs down to the park by the shore, and sat down to smell the roses and exchange smiles with my neighbors.

I’d only completed the circuit, was on my way home down a leafy street, and rounded a corner when a body slammed into me.

‘The fuck?’

As the words left my mouth, a hand slipped over my face, and I was thrown against the hard chest of a man and pulled into the bushes.

I kicked, screaming into the void of his hand, trying to reach my blade before I realized it; he had both my hands captured in one of his.

He was pulling me through into a shadowed dell.

Panic bloomed as I struggled until he brought his mouth to my ear. ‘Chiara, stop twisting like a banshee.’

I froze as rage erupted. ‘Fuckin Rio!’

He released me and stepped back, allowing me to see him.

He wore a dark hoodie and sunglasses, his tight body in lithe sweats.

‘What the hell were you thinking?’

His head turned, and eyes lit on a form huddled nearby under a tree.

‘What the hell were you thinking? Leaving without me? You were being tailed and had no idea. This fucker was about to jump you on your way back.’

We glared at each other until I looked away and spotted the house a few meters away through the trees.

‘Are we in someone’s garden? I hissed.

Rio shrugged. ‘We are. Now let’s get the fuck out of here.’

I protested as my bodyguard and lover strong-armed me out of the private backyard, through the leafy bushes, and into the street.

We emerged in a flurry, surprising a man strolling with his dog.

He stared at us as I brushed leaves from my tresses and Rio straightened his hoodie.

Not suspicious at all.

‘Who was he?’ I groused.

‘A man walking a dog,’ Rio growled.

‘Fuck you, I meant the man we left lying half unconscious under a tree?’ I hissed, hating the gleam in Rio’s eyes.

He finally indulged me. ‘I went through his shit and found a Barbieri business card. He’s some associate, which most times means a capo or enforcer. You’re lucky he didn’t snatch you.’

‘I had a blade.’

‘You had nothing. I overpowered you weapons-free.’

‘Is he dead?’

‘No, but he’ll wake up with a nasty headache.’

‘Are we leaving him?’

Rio bit his lip, irritated by my disobedience and twenty-to-one questions. ‘What kind of monster do you take me for? I’ll call the cops and report a trespasser. They’ll cart him away, and he’ll have little to go on to prove he wasn’t an intruder. He’ll probably be slapped with a fine or jail for a few days.’

‘All for hiding in the bushes?’

‘Chiara, he might have killed you.’

This time Rio spoke with such power, his rumble so menacing I locked up.

Still, I found some willpower in me to grouse. ‘But he didn’t. You’re the one who almost slayed me with a heart attack when you jumped me.’

‘For fucks sake,’ he growled. ‘Why so contrary? I just protected your life, and you’re giving me a hard time. Woman, you’re going to be the end of me.’

‘All this drama for a walk?’

‘You don’t understand it, do you? You’ve got the hounds of hell after you. I just saved you from one of them. You’d think I’d get a thank you from you.’

We glared at each other again, even as I simmered down, the adrenaline fading.

The reality hit. ‘He was truly trailing me?

‘For three streets.’

‘How did you find me?’

‘You unlocking then locking your front door sent me an instant alert on my phone. Your key chain and phone have locators via the software and apps I downloaded when I first got here. The rest you can work out.’

I calmed further down at the realization he’d saved my ass when I’d needed him to.

‘ Grazie ,’ I murmured. ‘ Bello ,’ I added, softening my voice and reaching a hand to touch his.

‘Apology accepted,’ he rasped, those pale blue eyes glittering. ‘Now you understand the importance of giving me a heads up every fuckin’ time you leave the house?’

I nodded.

‘ Va bene . Let’s go home.’

He lifted a hand to usher me forward.

I took a breath and began walking, thankful for the opportunity to blow off steam before we reached my front door.

When we did, he surprised me by grabbing my arm and pushing me against the external jamb.

One hand gripped my waist, and the other slid to my neck. His thumb rested on its pulse point.

I stared at him, not quite being his pale blue eyes through the glasses.

But fuck, I felt the intensity.

‘ Leonessa , you cannot go wandering like that ever again until all this shit is over.’

I lilted my head, reached a hand, and slipped off his sunglasses.

‘That’s better. Now I can see your eyes,’ I murmured.

He was furious. His eyes were an inferno of pale azure wild frost if ice could flame.

‘Don’t you dare do that to me again? It took me running at full tilt for five minutes to find you. Five minutes when anything might have happened, five minutes when you could have been abducted, knifed, shot -.’

I slid my hand over his mouth to shut him up.

At the same time, I realized he was starting to care.

For me.

As I was, for him.

Cazzo .

‘Nothing occurred because you were nearby, and we’re OK now,’ I whispered. ‘I’m sorry for leaving. My selfishness overrode my good sense, and I promise it won’t happen again.’

‘It’d better not,’ he growled, tearing his face from my hold. ‘Still, you’ll need to fuckin’ make up for it.’

My eyes widened, imagining the worst. ‘How?’

That’s when his mouth lifted at the edges, and he leaned in to nip my ear lobe. ‘I’ll show you how, and you will obey.’

He proceeded to unlock the door, shove me inside and upstairs, where he made his freakin’ wild demands, and I obeyed.