Dante Valentino
As soon as she left, I could feel the weight of her gaze lifting off of me.
I turned my eyes to Giovanni and Fabiano. Their eyes were on Leyla who looked more uncomfortable than ever.
I squeezed the life out of the man under me.
"Let's get this over with," Giovanni spat and then it was a blur. We had planned to drag it out, kill them slowly, but my urgency to get to Blue was too much, and the cage did not open till the fight was done. Fucking rules.
So we ripped them apart, dodged the knives some of them had bought and cut them up with them. Soon, it was done. The crowd parted. I ran outside, eyes searching for her. She couldn't be far.
And then I saw him, and her, by my car. His body hid all of her.
I walked towards them, grabbed his collar and slammed him on the ground. My foot collided with his neck, pinning him down. It took everything in me to not bash his head in, to not kill instantly.
I stared at his struggling form, unable to keep a satisfied smile away from my face. Finally, a reason.
I lifted my eyes to Blue. Her hands were clasped on her forearms, eyes wide and afraid, and on Aldo. I had never seen her this fragile. I hated every second of it.
"What did he say to you?" I asked her because it was obvious he had done more than just pin her to the car.
"Not-"
"What-" I repeated, the sharpness of my tone making her jerk her eyes to me. "-did he say to you, Blue?"
"He..." She took in a shaky breath, closing her eyes for a moment to stabilise herself. "He called me a whore. Said he would cut me up and send me to my whore of a mother."
Whore.
I knew that bring her here would make people talk, but I had not yet expected anyone to be idiotic enough to approach her.
But Aldo, here, had lost it since his bastard of a father died.
I looked down at him. There was blood on my body, some of it mine. I wondered, for a moment, why every part of me raged.
I didn't dwell on that thought much. I removed my foot and motioned for a few soldiers to pick Aldo up and drag him back to the arena, down the basement where some...interrogations happened.
I looked at her.
Her eyes were on my body. The blood on my skin. She didn't say a word, but her terror screamed.
For a moment I convinced myself to say some words of comfort, but I didn't know what to say.
So I said the first thing which came into my mind - which was a rare occurrence. Thinking over my words was a habit.
"I am sorry," I said. "I shouldn't have bought you here, he shouldn't have called you that. He will be dealt with, I assure you."
Her jaw clenched, beautiful curls brushing on her face in the cold wind, she didn't push them away. My hands twitched for all the wrong reasons. "He didn't say anything wrong. Everyone here, even your brothers, think I am your whore."
I nodded. "It's the only disguise. As I said previously, I can't be seen protecting a bastard without any sort of connection."
She gulped, angry eyes staring down. "It's humiliating," she whispered. "The way they talk to me."
They. Aldo and my brothers.
"Aldo has his reasons to hate you," I said. "But I assure you, my brothers won't say anything like what they said today. No one ever will."
"They'll still be thinking of it."
"How can I make this better for you, Lily?" I asked. I didn't know how.
She opened her mouth to answer but her eyes again looked at the blood on me and she swallowed, darting her gaze away.
"I'm sending you home. I will be back soon. We shall discuss this later." I looked over my shoulder at the driver Leyla had sent for Lily and nodded once.
"What-" she hesitated but then continued. "What are you going to do?"
"He touched what's mine," I said, determination coursing through my veins. The high of the fight was yet to fade. Aldo would help me with it. "I'll make sure he is taught to not do that anymore."
. . .
(1/5)
