Vengeful Mafia Prince (Vicious Heirs #2)

Chapter Twenty—Giovanni

When I hear the door open, I draw in a deep breath and take a long sip of my scotch.

I doubt my sister is going to make this easy for me. But I need her on my side right now, and I'm willing to do anything I can to make that happen.

When Valentina steps into the living room, unwrapping her scarf from around her neck, she freezes.

"What are you doing here?" she demands, voice taut. She's got every reason to be mad at me. After all, I've been avoiding her like the plague after what happened with Elena's father just a few days ago. But now, at least, I have something in the way of good news for her, and I'm glad that I don't have to keep hiding from my sister any longer.

"Elena's father is dead."

She stares at me for a moment, her eyes widening as though she's waiting for me to tell her it's a joke or a game. I don't. I meet her gaze steadily, almost daring her to contradict me.

"He's...?"

"He's dead."

She presses a hand to her chest and sinks onto the couch, her eyes squeezing shut. I know those are the words she has wanted to hear for so long now, that the person who has caused our family so much pain and suffering over the years is well and truly gone.

But a moment later, they spring open again, locking on to mine.

"How do you know he's dead?"

"Because I'm the one who killed him."

"You killed him? What the hell were you thinking, Giovanni? Are you hurt? Are you—"

"Let me explain," I insist, and after taking another sip of my scotch, I finally start to fill her in on the details, on everything that has happened—Elena texting me, me rushing over to her father's house and rescuing her, him following us into the woods and threatening me. About him taking the shot and about the way I jumped into action without even thinking, just so I could stop anything from happening to Elena. And how he's dead now, lying out there in the woods, where nobody will find him unless they know where to look.

She takes it all in, not saying a word till I'm done. And then, she lifts her gaze to meet mine.

"And what about Elena?"

Now, there's the issue. That's the part I'm going to have an issue with, I'm sure. She's never taken well to me doing things behind her back, and after everything that has happened with Elena, it wouldn't surprise me if she thought I had turned my back on this family for good.

"She's upstairs."

"She's upstairs?!" she exclaims, looking around like Elena might manifest right there in front of her if she doesn't move fast enough. "What were you thinking, Giovanni? You don't think someone is going to come looking for her and—"

"The only person who would have come looking for her is her father," I reply calmly. "From what she's told me, she didn't exactly have a good standing in his business. Nobody will notice she's not at her dorm room as long as she makes it to her next few classes on time."

She shakes her head. "There's no way she can stay here," she warns me. "You need to get her the fuck out of here. Because if you think I'm having the daughter of the man who killed our parents living under our roof like some kind of houseguest, you've—"

"Valentina, listen to me."

"No, you listen to me!" she argues, remonstrating as she stabs her finger in the air. "You have been going around with her like— like you love her. And you know who she is. You know what her family has done. You should know that better than anyone, Giovanni, and yet here I am, having to tell you that she's dangerous!"

"She's not dangerous," I protest. "She never has been. Her father, he's always been the problem. She didn't know any of what he was doing, not a damn thing. I'm the reason she found out about it all in the first place. She's innocent in all of this. She always has been."

Valentina parts her lips once more, clearly intent on continuing to argue with me, but something about my words seems to get through to her.

"God knows that we understand how easy it can be for families to be into things everyone doesn't know about," I continue. "Look at Mom and Dad. How much did you know about them, before...?"

"Enough. I knew enough."

"Yeah but there's probably so much more we never even heard about," I point out. "So much that they never wanted us to hear because they were scared it would change the way we looked at them. That's what happened to her. She had no idea what her father was doing. And as soon as she did, she took the first chance she had to turn against him and make him pay for what he did. She led me to him. And she's here now, needing our help. Are you really going to turn her away?"

She inhales deeply and heads to the drink cabinet to pour herself something strong. For a moment, the only sound in the room is the ice hitting her glass and then the generous measure of vodka being poured over it. Once she's taken a long sip, she finally manages to turn back to me.

"You really think you know what you're doing with her?"

"I don't think, I know," I reply. "I know. I trust her, Val. I really do. And she needs someone right now. She just lost her dad. We know how that feels, don't we? How it feels to have someone you thought was going to be there for the rest of your life just up and vanish out of nowhere?"

I can see something in her soften, a rare event for my sister, but a good sign. I know it's going to take a lot more than that for her to start seeing things from my perspective, but at least she can relate to Elena on some level.

I rise to my feet and go over to my sister. She still can't quite bring herself to look at me. I can't say I blame her after everything that's happened. It's a miracle she's still here in front of me and didn't fly for my face like a harpy after I told her I let Elena into this house with us.

"I know how hard it is for you to accept," I continue. "God knows it's been hard for me, too. I just miss them so fucking much, and I felt like— I felt like, if he was gone, then we would be able to move on at some level, you know?"

She nods.

"And he is gone," I assure her. "He really is gone, there's nothing else he can do to us or anyone, you understand? We're safe now. Our family is safe."

"But what about her?" She finally meets my gaze, her voice tight.

"What about her?"

"You know exactly what I'm talking about," she fires back, her tone coarse. "We can't keep her here. You can't— you can't just fall in love with her, Gio, that's not how this works. You know who she is—"

"It's too late for me to try and stop myself from falling in love with her." I say it as gently as I can, but it still sends a shock of horror through Valentina's face. She stares at me for a moment, clearly unable to wrap her head around what she's hearing.

"You're in love with her?"

I nod. "I'm in love with her. And I don't want to have to lose anyone else I care about. I've been through enough of that as it is."

Finally, I see it, the moment it all starts to break through for my sister. Her face crumples, and she sinks into me, gripping hold of my shirt as she starts to cry.

I put my arms around her and try to be there for her as the brother she needs right now. I haven't seen her cry much since we lost our parents, as though she's been doing her best to keep the pain that's running through her at every moment to herself. But now that he's gone, now that the man who did this is no more, she seems able to let go a little.

"I just... I miss them so much," she gasps to me as I rub her back.

"I know, I do too. But he's gone now. It's behind us. And we can move on. I just want to move on with Elena, and I don't want that to mean losing you in the process."

When she pulls back from me, she reaches for some napkins and quickly dabs her eyes. She doesn't like people seeing her emotional—she never has. I wonder if that's going to change in the future. I wonder if she's going to meet someone who will open her up the way Elena opened me.

"You don't have to lose me," she promises, wiping away the last of the tears from her eyes. "You have my word on that. I'm not saying I'm going to be playing happy families with her from day one, but..."

"I don't need that. I just need to know that I can have both of you in my life."

She smiles. "Then I can give you that." She gives me a quick hug again.

But then, I hear a creak on the floorboard behind me, and I whip around to see Elena standing there in the doorway to the living room. She's in some of the clothes I laid out for her, an old tee of mine and a pair of joggers, and she still looks exhausted.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt anything," she blurts out, holding her hands up and backing away as though Valentina might pull that knife on her again.

"You're not," I promise her, and I go over to her, putting my arm around her shoulders. Valentina holds back, clearly in no great rush to get all friendly with her. She stares at her over the top of her glass, sipping slowly.

"Valentina, this is Elena," I say to her as I walk Elena closer. "Elena, this is Valentina. My sister."

Both of them seem confused for a moment, clearly baffled as to why I'm introducing them when they both already know each other, but then Elena seems to realize what I'm doing—I'm introducing them again, giving them a chance to get to know each other on this new level.

"Nice to meet you," Elena tells Valentina quietly, offering her hand. Valentina looks at it for a long moment, her face impossible to read, and I hold my breath. I don't want her to turn this down. I don't want her to turn Elena away.

And at last, she reaches out her hand to take Elena's.

"You, too."

She grits the words out, and the handshake barely lasts beyond a couple of seconds, but to me, it's about the best thing in the whole world. I head toward the kitchen, leading Elena with me so I can get her something to eat, leaving Valentina with a moment to herself.

"What the hell just happened?" Elena mutters to me as soon as we're out of earshot.

"I was just letting you meet my sister," I reply casually, and she bumps me with her hip.

"I know that's not all it was. Come on. Please. I'm confused enough as it is, I don't need more stuff to overthink."

"I wanted the two of you to meet each other... without all the baggage."

"I don't think that's possible," she replies with a slight snort as she leans up against the counter.

I start to pull out some food for her. "Granted," I agree, dipping my head to the side in concession. "But I don't think you have to worry about her hating on you anymore."

"You don't?"

I turn to her and take her hands in mine. "I'm so sorry about your father," I tell her, and she shakes her head.

"You don't have to be. You protected both of us. You..." She trails off for a moment and then continues, renewing her certainty. "He made me choose. He asked me to choose between you and him, and I know there's no way you ever would have asked me to do that. That's how I knew what choice to make. Because you never tried to push me. And he didn't just try to push me, he tried to kill me. And you. And if you hadn't acted when you did, then we would both be dead. I owe you my life."

She kisses me on the cheek. Hearing those words come out of her mouth is an enormous relief, though I have no doubt that she's going to have some mixed feelings about all of this in the future. It's never that simple when it comes to grief. You can't just brush it off with good sense and logic. No matter how sure she is that I've done the right thing, she's still talking about the loss of her father, and that's just not the kind of thing you can breeze across.

"But I'm sorry I've made things so complicated for you," she admits. "I don't want to cause trouble between you and Valentina, but I don't want... I don't want to lose you either, Gio."

"You're never going to lose me," I tell her, my voice laced with so much certainty that it catches me off guard. "I promise you that. You're never going to lose me. Valentina isn't the warmest person in the world, and she's still got a lot to wrap her head around when it comes to you, but she understands that you've been through something awful. Something pretty close to what we went through. She knows what it feels like. She's willing to give you grace. If you just give her a bit of space."

"A lot of space," she corrects me, and I chuckle.

"Alright, yeah," I concede. "A lot of space. But she'll get there, I know she will."

She takes my hands in hers, squeezing them tight. "Just checking you're really here," she murmurs, offering me a small smile.

"I am," I promise. "I'm not going anywhere, you have my word on that." I kiss her again. "I love you, Elena. So fucking much."

"I love you too, Giovanni."

The two of us just stand there for a moment, letting the sweetness of those words course over us. In this moment, nothing else in the world could matter more than being here with her, knowing that she doesn't want to be anywhere else but in my arms.

But I know it's been a long time since she ate, and I want to make her something. If she's going to be staying here—which it looks like, for the foreseeable future, at least—then she's going to have to get used to treating this place like a home.

"You hungry?" I ask as I pull back from her.

She plants her hands on her stomach as though checking and then nods. "Starving."

"Let me make you some French toast. Double portions. I'm feeling generous."

"Oh, don't worry, I can get something for myself—"

"Elena." I cut her off and turn to her, the pan in one hand. "I'm not doing this because I'm worried. I'm doing this because I want to take care of you. Okay?"

She bites her lip and crosses her arms over her chest. "Hey, if you insist..."

And with that, I set about cooking her a meal in my home for the very first time.