A towel hung low around his waist, barely clinging to his hips, while droplets of water traced the hard lines of his body, slipping down the taut muscles of his chest and abdomen. Valentino moved with the fluid, predatory grace, the sound of his bare feet on the polished floor almost too quiet, but unmistakable. His presence, heavy and commanding, seemed to fill every corner of the room.
I was in bed, my back pressed against the headboard, an open report lying in my lap. My eyes shifted from the words on the page to him, as he ran a towel through his wet hair, rubbing it dry with a practiced motion.
He didn't glance at me right away-his vision, without his glasses, was almost useless at a distance, a rare flaw in a man who otherwise had none. It was a small imperfection, but if he had perfect vision on top of everything else, no one would dare stand in his way. He would have been unstoppable.
My gaze lingered on him, following the water droplets as I examined him, not just physically, but mentally. Valentino was many things, insane being one of them, as I ran back through the conversation we'd had earlier. Just thinking about it made my skin crawl, the unsettling weight of it gnawing at me.
Ruben had asked for a favor-an admission that felt wrong coming from him, a man who had spent his entire life making others beg instead. And as if that weren't bad enough, he had asked it from the Rossi family-our father's old rivals.
In our world, syndicate families treated loyalty like currency. Every favor came with a price, every alliance was a contract written in blood. And since we worked for Volkov-since Ruben worked for Volkov-this wasn't just a lapse in judgment. This was dangerous. Either Ruben no longer gave a damn about where his loyalties lay, or something far worse was at play.
Because for him to go against them-to risk Volkov's wrath, to step over a boundary that had been drawn in war-meant one thing.
He was desperate.
And desperation, in our line of work, meant something had gone to absolute shit.
Protection.
Ruben hadn't just asked for protection. He had asked for protection from the Yakuza.
He'd crossed paths with them in South Korea, and now, he was tangled up in something far worse. Of all the criminal families known for their infamy, it was the Volkovs, the Rossis, and the Inagawa-kai that struck the most fear. To be involved with them meant danger, the kind that never gave you peace.
