~VALENTINA MONROE~
I couldn't tell which was more terrifying—the gun pressed against my throat or the hatred burning inside his eyes.
The barrel rested coldly against my skin while his body caged mine against the wall, and I could feel the heat radiating off him, could hear the slow, controlled rhythm of his breathing.
His gaze dragged slowly over my body, taking in the black lace clinging to my breasts, the exposed skin of my stomach, and the curve of my thighs that were exposed. There was no hunger in his expression. No fascination. Just pure, unfiltered hatred.
A sound left him then. A cold, humorless laugh.
“So.... this is what Rudolf Monroe’s daughter became. A whore.” He murmured.
Shame hit me hard and my eyes dropped instinctively, unable to withstand the weight of his stare. It felt like he could see right through every disguise I had built over the years, stripping Emilia Rose apart piece by piece until only Valentina Monroe remained beneath it.
“Kael—”
I shifted without thinking, and instantly his free hand left my wrists and wrapped around my throat. Not enough to choke. Just enough to remind me how easily he could.
The gun against my throat should’ve been my biggest concern. Not the fact that his hand still fit perfectly around my neck or his thumb pressing lightly beneath my jaw while his gaze darkened.
“Careful now,” he said softly. “Breathe too loud or say the wrong word and I’ll pull the trigger.”
Fear crawled violently through me, but worse than the fear was the devastating awareness of him. The roughness of his hand. The heat of his body pressed close. The terrifying realization that even after everything, some traitorous part of me still remembered exactly what it felt like to belong near him. Which was insane. Because Kael Moretti looked at me like he wanted to ruin me slowly.
And honestly? I deserved it.
“I take it Vincent Quinn has no idea who he’s really been hiding under his roof all this time.” His gaze sharpened on my face. “Your disguise could fool anyone, Valentina.”
His grip around my neck tightened slightly. “But not me.”
My pulse stumbled.
“You’re a sneaky little snake,” he continued, his eyes roaming over me again in a way that felt far too deliberate. “Pretty enough to tempt a man into lowering his guard before sinking your fangs into him.”
Oh.
So he did still think I was pretty.
The thought came at the worst possible moment, dangerously misplaced beneath the gun in his hand and the hatred in his eyes.
Something was genuinely wrong with me.
“You have no idea how long and how desperately I’ve been searching for you. And here you are.” His voice remained low yet deadly. “Tell me, Valentina… do they pay well for a night with Rudolf Monroe’s daughter?"
The shame I felt at his words burned so hot it felt unbearable.
“The men downstairs.” His fingers tightened around my throat again. “Do any of them know whose thighs they spread open every night, or do they just call you whatever name you cooked up while they fuck you stupid?”
His voice wrapped around every filthy word like he meant to carve the shame into my skin.
“Kael, I can explain—”
“Explain?” His laugh was quiet this time. Far worse. “You think there’s an explanation for what you did to me?”
“I should kill you. Right here. Right now. But that would be mercy.”
“What I did to you is unforgivable—”
He cut me off. “Yes, it is. You’re the reason my mother died. You’re the reason why I lost everything.”
His eyes darkened, pain clearly visible. I could see how he saw me as a monster, as someone without a soul. If only he knew I had carried the guilt of what I did every single day and that it haunt me every single night.
A sound pulled from his chest—a cough that clearly caught even him off guard, and violent enough that his hand left my neck to grip his chest. The other still held the gun against me.
Shit! The poison was starting to take effect.
“Kael, you need to listen. You can shoot me, I deserve it and worse. But first, I need to help you. You’ve been poisoned.”
“Do not fucking move!” He spoke, even as he visibly choked when I tried to approach him.
“You’re going to die if I don’t help you. One of the men you were with slipped something into your drink.”
He reached for the water on the bedside shelf, the gun still trained on me, and drank.
It didn’t help.
The glass hit the floor, then he went down. One knee first, then both, his hand flat against the rug, chest heaving, the veins at his neck getting visible. He was dying. I moved then, not caring that he could still pull the trigger.
Thankfully, he didn’t. I reached where he was on the floor and crouched down, slipping out the tiny tube that I had hooked to my bottom lingerie piece earlier before climbing the stage.
It contained activated charcoal. It was something every courtesan at Paragon carried. Once in a while, we tend to get poisoned by angry, bitter men, and it usually helped slow the effects down before help came.
I raised Kael's head atop my thigh and tried to administer it into his mouth, but even while choking, his hand still closed around my wrist instinctively, refusing to trust me.
I slapped it off. He wasn’t dying again.
Once I was done, I slipped a pillow under his head to give him support. His eyes were still open, following my every movement, but he looked weak. I couldn’t take him outside. The men would kill both of us, and Kael might kill me too once he got his strength back.
So, I grabbed his phone from his pocket with shaking fingers, expecting a password. There wasn’t one. Just one contact pinned at the top.
Rio.
I pressed call instantly, and it rang once before a male voice answered.
“Boss?”
“Kael’s been poisoned,” I whispered quickly, glancing at him sprawled across the floor. “Private hall. East wing of Paragon.”
There was silence. Then—
“Who is this?”
I ended the call immediately, taking to my feet to exit Paragon.
Fuck Vincent and his contract. I was done. I needed to be far away as soon as possible before Kael got his strength back.
The door opened before I reached it.
Ronan stepped inside, a gun in his hand, and he halted when he saw me. Then his eyes trailed to the floor where Kael lay, still unmoving and looking unconscious.
Then they came back to me with a new quality of attention that made my skin pull tight.
He smiled.
“Well,” he said, letting the door fall shut behind him. “This is not what I expected.”
I said nothing.
I watched him take a few steps into the room without hurry, glancing at Kael with something that looked almost like satisfaction before his gaze returned to me.
“So, you’re the one he came after.” He studied my face with an attention to detail I did not like. “There is only one reason Kael Moretti came here tonight. One reason that made him desperate. One reason that made him lose his guard and get poisoned by an ally of his.” He paused, tilting his head a little.
“Valentina Monroe.”
I felt the blood leave my face and watched Ronan watch it happen, and understood immediately that I had just given him everything he needed without saying a single word.
“I don’t know what—”
“You showed up at Paragon,” he said, walking slowly toward me, “the exact same month that Rudolf Monroe died and his daughter went missing.” He circled left. “I told myself it was a coincidence.” Another step. “But even under all that blonde and all that paint.” He stopped. “You look just like her, sweetheart.”
“You’re wrong.”
“Am I.” It was not a question. “Kael Moretti has been hunting Valentina Monroe for eight years. He walks in tonight and can’t pull his eyes off one specific woman. You.” His gaze darkened. “That’s not a coincidence.”
His eyes moved over me with a slowness that made my stomach turn. Then he threw his free hand in the air. “You fuckin’ bitch! You’ve been here the whole time while the entire Uno conglomerate’s been looking for you.”
He started moving around me and I moved with him, keeping distance, and then he lunged and the distance vanished.
His hands found me before I could react, spinning me toward the bed. I fell flat on my stomach and could feel him behind me. His knees pressing against the back of mine, while his hand pressing my chest against the bed to keep me in place.
“Get off—” I yelled but he remained unmoving.
“I’ve been patient.” His voice dropped into something ugly and private. “Very patient. And Vincent’s going to kill you when he finds out the truth anyway.” His grip tightened. “Might as well take something for the trouble.”
He was going to force himself on me. The thought dawned on me the moment I heard him undoing his belt.
Panic hit me at once, and my hands pushed to the other end of the bed, grabbing Kael’s gun that was on it, and without letting another second pass, I twisted my arm around to face Ronan and pulled the trigger, blowing his head right off.
His grip on me vanished and I watched as his body fell to the ground, blood pooling on the rug.
I killed him.
I fucking killed him
I didn’t stop to think about what I had just done or feel guilt. Truthfully, Ronan didn’t deserve my guilt. So, I got up and headed straight for the door.
However, before I got out the door, I stopped, Kael’s glistening watch catching my eye. It looked expensive. Certainly made out of diamonds, and I took it.
With everything that had just gone down, Ava and I had to leave to somewhere far away, another country if we wanted any chance of being safe. We had to get away from Vincent, away from Theodore, and most of all, away from Kael Moretti.