The King Killer | Mafia dark romance | ✔️

24. Valentina's secret

Antonio

"How was it?" I looked over to Alejandro and Agustin who were beaming with an unsaid joy.

They had been in the dungeon for a whole day. After Salazar's plan came to light, we knew for sure he wasn't working without help from someone on the inside. A few of our allies were rounded up. Many of them cracked when Al pounded confessions out of them. It wasn't new for my second in command to use his fist for play and to employ people as punching bags.

I moved out from my seat, grinning faces of my brothers watching me intently. "It was good," Al said, plopping  into a chair. His left leg crossed over his right which tapped on the marble as he cleaned up his bruised knuckle with a kerchief.

Agustin sat besides him, panting like he ran all around the place. "We got some information, but not much." Defeat was a tone I could recognize from any distance and my younger one's voice carried it.

"What have we got?" 

Leaning forwards, Al picked a pen and drew doodles on a plain sheet. "That whoever we captured were only men working from the outside. There were people on the inside too. Many who haven't been caught yet and many who might be close to us." He pointed to the epicenter of his badly scribbled circles with stick figures dancing around it.

The mole among us.

"How can we find them?" I pulled the paper back, wracking my mind. There had to be way to find out who were infiltrated among us and carried our secrets to Santos and his men. Those half dead men, hanging from the dungeons weren't the actual moles. They were merely pawns, moved across the board by men who learnt our weakness. Pawns who supplied the information to our enemies. To Salazars.

Agustin straightened on his chair, tapping his chin and contemplating his next words carefully. "Maybe we can use you. Your name still scares them."

"You want me to go down and do the job which Gabriel or Mateo can do?" My knuckle rested my chin. He was known for good ideas but lately he seemed to be in a rut.

Agustin tilted his head and waved his hands in tandem. "No, I mean come along. Let them roll in fear. Maybe it would get us something, maybe not." He moved back on his chair, cracking his knuckles. "And don't tell me that you don't miss the action."

He was right. I did miss the action. The sound of ribs cracking when punching a man hanging upside down, while his pleadings bellowed through the dungeon got me hard. When dad was in command, I used to be his henchman. Any insubordination was dealt with blows so hard, I could hear the poundings of their heart when my talon like fingers would hook inside their chest.

"Or do you want our newest member to help you this time too?" Al continued, looking out at a distance and resting his arms beneath his head. When my head tilted in question and lips pursed together, he read my doubt. "I meant Val. She got the last good prey."

Agustin groaned in his seat, shifting. "Don't remind me of that. Her face was sprayed red. I still can't wipe that image off my mind."

"Why? Because lady you eyed was unaffected by blood?" Al punched him playfully. Both of them chuckled.

A ball of fire rose inside my chest. The lady he eyed. My mind tried to pacify my wildly beating heart. Alejandro meant it as a joke. They both knew, not to cross a certain line. Al had always respected Valentina as a sister but I wasn't sure of Agustin. I was also the idiot husband having pushed  Agustin towards her. She never resisted my decision and he was overjoyed to be given the opportunity to sleep with her.

But things changed since the party. Not that I had any dearth of women to please me, what irked me was the difference I felt with her. A part of me wanted to know her, talk to her. The last time I felt such heavy emotions, it was for Elena. With Val, it was a mere contract. A sham. We both knew of it. We both accepted it. But now..