The Hitman's Secret

Ch. 9: Risky Business

VALENTINA

Val couldn't sleep.

Every time she closed her eyes, she heard Ezra's voice again. Heard his sickeningly cordial reminder that she'd signed her life away on their marriage contract. Heard the underlying threat as he asked after Lara and her unborn child...

Just the thought of it had Val's chest tightening to the point of pain. Was she responsible for this?

She groaned, flopping onto her back. Maybe if she stared at the shadows on her ceiling long enough, her racing mind would eventually lull itself to sleep. Of course, that hadn't worked for the past three hours, but she didn't know what else to do.

Almost as soon as the McLeod entourage departed the mansion, her father called Adriano and Matteo to his study. Val guessed that he wanted to discuss Ezra's not-so-subtle warnings and a plan to discreetly evacuate Lara from the Hamptons as soon as possible, but she couldn't be sure.

Unsurprisingly, her father didn't invite her to this meeting. She was engaged to the damned enemy, after all.

When the guilt squeezing at her stomach became intolerable, Val huffed her frustration and snatched her phone from the nightstand. She scrolled through her most recent messages to Adriano:

Hey, is everything okay? You guys have been in my father's study for a while.

Sorry about today. The training center and Ezra.

Are things good with Elisa? I had fun with her today. She's nice.

Adriano?

He never responded. In fact, he hadn't even opened the messages, which had been 'delivered' but not 'read.'

Finally accepting defeat, Val swiped out of her messages with Adriano and scrolled down until she found another name. Matteo Costa.

She hesitated for a moment, chewing on her inner cheek as she debated between shutting her phone off for the night and texting him. Eventually, her desire for company won. She mustered a few seconds of courage and typed a hasty text. You awake?

As soon as she pressed send, she wondered if she made a mistake. She and Matteo didn't text often, and, beyond the night at the gala, never more than a few short blurbs. It also didn't help that he was not very happy with her at the moment, either.

Val stared at her phone, waiting for the three little dots to appear and tell her that she hadn't made a mistake. And yet, seconds turned into minutes, and no reply came.

"Fuck," she whispered, sighing as she tossed her phone to the bed beside her.

Her eyes found the ceiling once more, and she contemplated going to the restroom for yet another glass of water when her phone finally buzzed, sending little vibrations along the mattress.

Matteo. Val's heart palpated as she grabbed her phone, but disappointment clenched her stomach when an unfamiliar number appeared on the screen.

She frowned, but tapped the unknown sender's message nonetheless.

Did you survive Costa's wrath, passera?

Even without the use of the unwelcome nickname, Val would've been able to guess that Sebastian Allesi sent the text. Not many people were brave– or arrogant– enough to text her, unannounced and without an introduction.

She tried to find it within herself to be angry about Bastian's swaggering familiarity, but, in truth, she welcomed the distraction.

Val flipped onto her stomach and rested her elbows on her pillow as she began to type a hasty reply. A small smile tugged on her lips. Who gave you my number, Bastian? I need to know who to punish.