25. Valentina

Chapter 25

Valentina

I miss my family. I miss the full house, the laughter, the jokes and the banter. I miss knowing there’s someone nearby to help whenever I need it.

I don’t miss the fucking headaches.

Which is exactly what Rocco Ferraro’s turning out to be.

The man is a pain in my ass. No, Ronan’s a pain—Rocco’s more like a festering freaking wound. Every time I make a suggestion, from a route change to better storage protocols, he dives down my throat and gets all aggressive and mad. It’s like dealing with a toddler, except he’s a dangerous, grown-ass man, and I somehow have to work with him.

Rocco’s driving me insane. But slowly, over the course of a week, we make some progress. Routes are hammered out, distribution is agreed upon, pricing is negotiated with Ronan’s constant approval, until we end up in a place where the product might actually start flowing. Which is good, since he’s nearly done selling through that meth shipment we stole already.

I spend most of the day at Bloody Strike at a corner booth. The Irish lads joke that it’s my office, and mostly they’re nice to me, if a little distant. Niall’s the only one that spends any significant time in my presence. Mostly they act like I don’t exist, and that’s fine with me, since I’m having a hard enough time getting Rocco to behave like an adult businessman and not a screaming baby.

It’s Thursday night. My shoulders ache from the stress. I unlock Ronan’s front door and let myself inside; we’re past the point of knocking and all that. It’s weird, but I live here. My clothes are in the closet, my toiletries are in the bathroom, and we’re having sex pretty much every night at this point. We’re pretending like I stay in the guest room, but I haven’t slept in that bed since the night he first fucked me in the kitchen.

“Something smells good,” I say as I kick off my shoes and hang my keys up. Ronan’s in the kitchen, shirtless, wearing only a plain gray apron and a pair of black joggers. His arms look so freaking good, it’s obscene, as he stirs something in a Dutch oven.

“You’re back early,” he says and quickly goes to pour me some wine.

“What’s all this?”

“I wanted to surprise you.”

“It worked.” He hands me the glass, which I accept and take a long drink. “But I’m more wondering why.”

“I know you’ve been taking a lot of shit from Rocco, and I wanted to do something to help ease your stress.”

I stare at him. I look at the pot on the stove. I glance at his muscular forearms. “Who is this man and what did you do with Ronan?”

“Cut his throat. I’m his evil twin brother, Fonan.”

I roll my eyes and sit down at the table as he gets back to cooking. “You didn’t have to do this, you know. You’re dealing with a lot too.”

“Ah, love, don’t stress about that too. Besides, I like doing this. I haven’t had an excuse to put together a classic Irish stew in a long time.”

I make a face. “ Stew ? Seriously?”

“It’s fucking good.” He waves a spoon at me. “Don’t complain until you’ve eaten some at least.”

I hold up my hands in defeat. “You’re right, I’ll cut it out.” But this better be worth it because I’m starving .

I watch him as he finishes cooking. Back in the day, my father used to spend a lot of time in the kitchen, and he was damn good at it. It was like a hobby, he’d tell me, a way to be a normal human being when most of the time he had to be something else. I didn’t understand back then—I thought life in the Famiglia was normal—but looking back, I think I know what he meant.

Life in a criminal organization is life or death. It forces its members, especially its leadership, to twist their morals and start acting out on the margins of society. That changes a man, makes him more feral, more violent, grinds him down into dust. Nobody can exist like that forever. Cooking is about as simple as it gets, and for a little while, Dad could forget about his problems and focus on making a meal. It was a way to short-circuit the processes around him molding him into a thug and a killer. It was simple and very, very normal, and that’s exactly what he needed.

I didn’t appreciate that back then, but now I think I’ve gotten closer to how he must’ve felt all the time, and it couldn’t have been easy.

I wish I did things differently with Dad. I wish I was more patient, more forgiving, a little bit kinder. I wish I had tried harder to understand. But at the time, when I was in it, the Santoro Famiglia felt like it would last forever, and I had no idea that one day my father would be gone and I’d be on the outside looking back on what we had and realizing that it was special.

“All right, love, here you are.” Ronan presents a bowl of meat, potatoes, and carrots, garnished with a little something green, and while it’s extremely simple, I have to admit that it smells good.

“Needs some pasta,” I mutter, smiling to myself.

“Pasta, that’s all your Italians ever talk about is pasta .” He makes a face and sits across from me, waving a fork in the air. “This is hearty cooking made by people that actually had to survive, instead of your soft Italian ancestors living fat and happy in their warm little peninsula.”

My eyebrows raise. “I’m sorry, was it the Irish that conquered the known world?”

“You had more resources. The Romans had access to some of the most advanced and wealthy civilizations on the face of the earth.”

“And your ancestors had sheep to fuck and stews to cook.” I wink at him as he laughs and take a bite. It’s shockingly good with a spicy, complex flavor profile very much at odds with its simple appearance.

“Well?” he asks, leaning forward. “Still think we’re just a bunch of sheep fuckers?”

“Yes,” I say, and he glares at me. “But you do make a mean stew.”

“That’s my girl, I knew you’d come around.” He looks very happy as he digs into his portion. I give him a few more compliments because that’s only polite, but I really do mean it. Ronan’s a lot of things, but I never imagined he’d also be a pretty good cook.

We make some small talk. He tells me about running around the kitchen as a little boy and learning to make this dish with his mother and his aunts, and how his father gave him shit for weeks calling him soft and gay for liking to cook. “Beat that out of me quick,” Ronan says, smiling slightly, but there’s a softness to his face. “But really it taught me just to keep my mouth shut around my father.”

“That must’ve been hard.”

“Yes and no. It’s how things were in the family, right? Men were men and women were women, and the roles were strictly defined.”

“Were?” My eyebrows raised. “It’s different now?”

“Not exactly, but the newer generation is less liable to call you a fairy for liking to cook at least.”

“Ah, yes, homophobic slurs. I swear, it’s like every insecure guy immediately starts calling everyone and everything gay.”

“It’s the insult of choice for men without much of a brain. But again, falling out of fashion. A couple of the cousins are gay and while nobody talks about it, they’re also not ostracized like they might’ve been a couple decades ago.”

“Very progressive.”

“Nah, not really, but what do you expect from a bunch of criminals? All in all, a more united family is a stronger family.”

He asks me questions about what it was like growing up in a crime family as a woman and I try to be candid. It wasn’t always good—my opinion wasn’t necessarily valued by all of my father’s Capos—but I had my dad’s backing and support, and that was generally enough to keep the worst of the bad behavior away. I go quiet and focus on eating, and a wave of homesickness washes over me.

“You know, we should talk about our next target,” he says, sounding almost casual about it.

I tilt my head. “Already? We just finished up with Rocco.”

“I know, love, but idle hands and all that. We should be working on the next score.”

“I’m already working.” I feel a little defensive and frown at him over my glass of wine. “What’s the rush?”

“There’s no rush.” He leans back to study me. “You said you had three targets. We hit one of them. Now it’s time to start thinking about the next, that’s all.”

I don’t like his tone. Something about it bothers me, and I can’t pinpoint why. “I feel like I’ve done enough already. More than enough, actually.”

“I didn’t say you haven’t. I only mean?—”

“You want to rush on to the next score, right? That’s all you mean. But you dumped Rocco in my lap and if you haven’t noticed, I’m more than a little swamped dealing with that difficult asshole.”

“I know, but?—”

“And now you want more? Come on, Ronan. When’s enough actually enough ?”

He opens his mouth to explain, and I can tell I went too far. Guilt rolls down my spine and lodges in my belly. I should take a breath, calm myself down, and explain that I’m just stressed from dealing with Rocco, living in somebody else’s house and basically hiding out from a French gangster that might just want to kill me, and oh, yeah, the pressures of Ronan’s own family basically hating me aren’t helping. I shouldn’t take it out on him, but I also feel like I can’t handle adding another thing on top of all the other things demanding my attention.

There’s a knock at the door.

It grabs both our attention. For a second, dinner’s forgotten, and the stupid argument fades. “Are you expecting a delivery?” he asks me.

“No, definitely not.”

Another knock. This one is a little more insistent.

“Ah, hell.” He gets up with a sigh, walks into the kitchen, opens a bottom drawer, and draws out a gun.

“How many of those do you have lying around the house?” I ask, surprised as he checks to make sure it’s loaded.

“Lots,” he says and goes to answer the door. “Stay here.”

I sit forward, listening intently, as whoever’s waiting outside curses in surprise to find a gun pointed at them. Ronan curses right back, and I recognize Niall as the two men snap at each other.

“Is that how you’re treating guests now? A fucking gun to the face? By fucking Christ, Ronan, you can’t do that shit. My heart’s racing.”

“Don’t be dramatic. I wasn’t going to shoot you. What the hell are you doing here, anyway?”

“Dropped by to check in. Is that dinner I smell? You order something good?”

“Cooked. Since when do you drop in?”

“Since tonight.” There’s the creak of floorboards, but it stops.

“I didn’t invite you in.” Ronan’s voice, cold now. “You can’t just show up like this.”

“You got a guest in there?” Niall tries to make it sound mocking, but even I can tell it’s a serious question. “You hiding someone, cousin?”

“I don’t like you showing up here without announcing yourself first.” Ronan skirts the question. “If you want to talk, we can talk tomorrow.”

“I’m here. You’re here. Let’s talk now. Maybe over some wine? Or you can share some of that meal.”

“ Niall .” Ronan’s voice is a warning. “Don’t cross a line.”

“Cross a line, cousin? Like you’ve already crossed?”

I get up from the table. This is foolish and they’re going to ruin their relationship all because Ronan’s too stubborn to tell Niall the truth. I can’t let that happen—I’ve seen families fight on the inside, and I know what it’s like to lose the people that matter the most. Ronan doesn’t see that now, but he could one day. I want to avoid that for him.

Both men look over at me, Ronan with frustration and anger, and Niall with a cool, unsurprised smile.

“Hello, Valentina,” he says. “I was wondering when I’d see you.”

“God damn it, Val,” Ronan grunts at me. “What are you doing?”

“Niall, you’re loyal to Ronan, right? He can trust you?”

Niall’s eyebrows raise. “I hope so.”

“It’s yes or no. None of that deflection bullshit.”

“All right then.” Niall nods at me, face serious. “Yes, he can trust me.”

“Good. I’m living here.” I wave away Ronan’s curse and protest. “Stop complaining, it’s better this way.”

Niall looks genuinely surprised. He stares between me and Ronan. “Living together?”

“Temporarily,” Ronan says, rubbing his face with a palm. “She’s having some problems with Julien, and I thought it was best if she stayed here for a while until that blew over.”

Niall nods to himself and strokes a hand down his chin. “Yeah, I can see that. Julien blames her for what happened with Adam, right?”

“That’s the implication.”

“You’re right, she’s definitely safer here than she would be at home.” Niall’s jaw works as he turns to the door. “You should’ve told me.”

“You know why I didn’t.”

“Yeah, cousin, I know.” Niall steps outside and heads to his car. Ronan moves to follow, but I put a hand on his arm.

“Talk to him tomorrow after you’ve both calmed down.”

Ronan’s jaw works, but he pulls the door shut instead and turns on me. “You had no right.”

“You were going to get in a fight over nothing. Now at least you don’t have to worry about lying to your cousin.”

“I never lied.”

“By omission. Whatever. You know what I mean. It’s better this way.”

He grunts and walks past me. “Guess you’re right. Not that I can do anything about it now.”

I watch him go. Maybe I shouldn’t have done that, but I don’t want to see him fall out with Niall over me. He’s already risking so much with his family to help me out, and it’s painful enough, but he and Niall are actual friends. I just can’t handle watching him push anyone else away.

I’ve lost too much, and I won’t let him go through the same thing, not if I can avoid it.