Page 19 of Claimed By the Werewolf Boss

Chapter thirtee n

Valentino

W hat I thought would be a ten-minute wait slowly rolls into thirty and then sixty minutes.

There’s giving a woman space and then there is walking from one side of the villa to the other in my underwear to see if she’s okay.

I’m slamming through societal dating goalposts with Cheyenne.

I even know that she may be pissed with me come the morning when she realises what I did and do.

But more than anything, I know we are meant to be together, and she’ll see that too.

It’s time to tell her everything.

A few of the boys whistle at me from the kitchen because honestly it’s fucking weird seeing me walking around this undressed with no plans to shift.

Nonna would kill me if I got hair all over her house, so clearly, I’m up to something unusual.

It’s not like I’m sporting a tent in my pants at the moment, but with the way gossip spreads in this family, everyone’s going to think we’re having some kind of lover’s spat.

Outside Andrea and Junelle’s suite, my nephew talks quietly on the phone.

“What do you mean he’s gone?” he growls, shoulders tensing as his emotions start to run higher. “He’s on the fucking schedule for security tonight.”

Nobody fucks with Andrea’s schedule and gets out of it scot-free. Christ alive, whoever fucked up is going to regret it. He throws his hand out to stop me on my quest to Cheyenne’s room, though. What could be so serious about a no-show that he needs my help?

“Keep calling him until he answers. I’ll check his suite.” He lowers his phone, looking at me like I’m some kind of fucking alien. “What the fuck is going on tonight? No shirt, no shoes, no service.”

With how hard my eyes roll, I’m surprised I can still see the smirk that forms on his face.

“Who’s the no-show tonight?” I ask instead.

“Nicky. He was scheduled to do twelve hours today, but he just disappeared after dinner. I’m going to go check on him to make sure he’s okay and then threaten to put him with Ugo for the rest of the trip for being a pain in my ass. ”

“Maybe he’s having a hard time since Cristina and all that.”

Nicky’s a good kid most of the time, eager to move up the organisation and prove his worth.

We’ve not had issues with his work ethic before, but he’s definitely been off since his long-term girlfriend very publicly and loudly broke up with him a few months ago after she was promoted and he wasn’t.

From what I recall, Cristina wasn’t his mate, so it was for the best anyway that he ripped that band-aid off sooner rather than later.

“I’m really happy for you, Uncle Tino.” Andrea’s smirk softens, that wistful in-love look coming back over him. Such a fucking lover boy, like his dad used to be.

I’m at a loss for words, awash in memories of my older brother and how much Andrea has grown up to be like him.

I pull him into a hug, silently trying to express the well of grief and hope bubbling up inside of me.

Today has been a vision of the future, with all of us happy, mated, and together.

All I want to do now is wrap myself up in my girl and sleep knowing that our worlds are a little more right than they were before this vacation.

We break apart and start walking in the same direction.

While I know where Cheyenne’s room is, the rest of the coordinating has been up to Andrea and Nonna.

They laid out the villa to be tactically the strongest and most amenable to everyone’s needs.

That apparently means that Nicky and Cheyenne were placed right next to each other.

While Andrea knocks, I plan to simply open my girl’s door. It’s locked though, which isn’t right. If she’s not feeling good after everything that went down today, I want to make sure she’s okay. If she’s feeling a bit smothered, I want to discuss that. Whatever’s going on, I need to know.

I force the door open with my shoulder. Her room is dark, the window open. And it reeks of Luca. Behind me, I hear Andrea force his way into Nicky’s room too and then shout in frustration. Something very wrong is happening.

My nostrils flare as my vision starts to turn. Knuckles cracking and teeth growing, I can’t force down this rush of anger like I did yesterday. Why the fuck does it smell like him in here? He’s supposed to be in Naples.

Where is my mate? I blink twice until the outline of her room becomes clear. Her bed is torn to shreds, but her suitcase is shoved into the corner. The dress she wore tonight hangs on the back of the bathroom door.

Her phone is on the ground.

The change takes over, the fear and rage pushing my body to explode until I’m panting and snarling.

My claws clack against the tiles as I stalk around the room, sniffing and searching for an explanation until I’m standing in front of the open window.

A howl rips through my throat, a long call into the night to signal to all who hear it.

Andrea crashes into the room and stares at me. It’s not long until more of the family is crowded around the door. My mate has been taken, the rat’s nest uncovered.

“Everyone search the grounds,” I bark. “Ugo, take Dino and a few others up to the hunting cabin. Kill anyone in your way but bring me Luca.”

“What’s going on?” Junelle asks, tears forming in her eyes as she sees the carnage. A few of the other human mates look at me with fear.

“Cheyenne’s been taken.”

We search everywhere. It takes a few hours, but we can’t find anything. Marcello tries to locate Luca or Nicky from their phones, but that leads us to the hotel where I had the car parked for the past few days. It’s not been a secret where I’ve been going or who I’ve been going with.

Up until now, the rat has only been focused on cutting off our imports, weakening our position with the other crime families, and financially trying to ruin our business rather than making it too personal.

He hasn’t gone after kids or anyone’s mate before.

It’s always been a direct attack on our made men.

But now that I know it’s Luca, it makes more sense why certain people were shot or arrested.

They were all people he never wanted in the organisation, but who I saw the potential in.

Men and women alike he didn’t think were strong enough to be wolves.

Luca only wanted one type of man in our family, and I refused to listen to his bigotry.

I’ve been so fucking stupid.

The sun begins to rise. I haven’t transformed back, so I’ve been stalking around the grounds like a feral beast. I can’t calm down. Wherever Cheyenne is, I can’t feel her. My heart breaks with every passing moment. Two days together and already our connection has become vital to my existence.

“Tino!” Junelle shouts from the back of the villa. “Tino!”

I race through the woods and leap over the stone wall. Junelle and Marcello are standing in the doorway waving me over. I stand as I near them, towering and panting.

“We’ve found her,” Junelle’s voice trembles as she presses her thumb on the screen of Cheyenne’s phone. It unlocks smoothly and opens onto a map. A little green dot appears in the shape of a pair of headphones. “She must have put them in her pocket.”

“She’s down at the marina, Tino. How do you want us to proceed?” Marcello asks.

My breathing stutters. We’ve got her, hopefully. I wrap my arms around them both, unable to stop the racing of my heart.

“Round everyone up,” I say when I pull back from the hug.

“I want you and Andrea to stay behind with the humans. Junelle, make Nonna show you where the weapons are stored. She won’t want to because I know she’s still holding onto the grenade launcher I told her to get rid of.

I don’t want to risk anyone’s safety here, but right now we need her to be a bit trigger-happy.

Lock everyone in the wine cellar until we’re back. ”

“Do you think Luca is capable of ordering an attack on the villa and taking us on at the same time?” Marcello asks.

“I don’t know, but I have every intention of bringing my mate back alive before this wedding.”

Outside the marina, my heart freezes in my chest. Fear grips me like it never has before.

I’m surrounded by my family, wolves I would trust with my life, but I can’t move forward.

My breathing turns ragged, the back of the SUV suffocating me.

My claws dig into my fur, scratching at something that won’t fade away.

I still haven’t been able to turn human again. The adrenaline is forcing my body to stay this way, ready to attack, ready to kill. The last shred of my sanity tells me this fear that is caving in my chest is good. It’s Cheyenne’s fear. It’s proof she is very alive and awake.

Focus on that truth, focus on her.

“We’ve got armed guards wandering the docks,” Dino says through the car speaker. “No clue if Luca has turned them, but they haven’t noticed me yet.”

The fact that these guards can’t tell they’re boxed in is enough for me.

Luca hasn’t invested in the strongest men he could find, he’s surrounded himself with blind followers.

None of these guards will pose a threat too great for him, and therefore too great for us.

If what Giuseppe said is true, they’ve been sold an idea of becoming truly powerful, but now they will die for their failures.

“We take them out quietly. Luca most likely knows we are here, but I don’t want a police swarm or tourists getting too close. Wait until you see me before you make a move.” I signal for Cristina to turn off the car.

Everything quiets.

We move slowly down from the steep incline, past quiet shops and shuttered rental properties.

Nobody is awake this early on a Saturday.

Even the produce market won’t begin setting up in the piazza for another two hours.

Nobody notices a giant werewolf or the crew of armed men breaking into the marina.

I rip out the throat of the first man I come upon.

He’s big and too muscular to be fast. His blood sprays across my front as he tries to breathe his last breath.

Around me, Ugo and Dino have partially shifted.

They work in tandem, hacking and slashing away.

A shot rings out and Cristina drops to her knees, blood dripping down her shoulder.

It doesn’t keep her down, though. She transforms, and before I can take two steps towards the fuckwad who shot her, Cristina tears his head from his body. She tosses it onto some poor fisherman’s boat and moves on to the next guy.

We have the whole marina cleared out in minutes. Bodies are strewn across the docks. Ugo is pissing on one of them while Dino looks disgusted. Cristina steals the shirt off one of the bodies as she shifts back to her human form.

“Head for the office, they’ll be in there,” I bark orders. “Leave Luca to me.”

It’s eerily quiet. A few dogs run out of the building once we pry the doors open, but that’s all we hear. This is a small three-story warehouse and resource offices for the marina. There isn’t much here, but it’s enough to keep us busy searching room after empty room for signs of life.

It’s not until we are in the stairwell moving to the final floor that I hear Cheyenne. She’s screaming bloody fucking murder. I break ahead of the group on all fours, snarling like a beast to get to my mate.

The top floor is one open room of desks. Luca and Nicky are standing, wolves out and teeth bared as I barrel towards them. Luca and I meet head-on. His claws dig into my fur as I sink my teeth into his shoulder. Nicky jumps on my back and wraps his arm around my throat.

It’s like he’s learned nothing since he got made. A dog pile isn’t going to stop a wolf from protecting their mate. And two rats will never take down the family.

The terror crushing my chest intensifies, burns until all I can think is survive, survive, survive. The others grab Nicky off me, the snarling and barking barely noticeable over the ringing in my ears. Luca kicks my crotch until I choke on his blood and release him.

But as he rolls away from me, a gun goes off.

He howls in agony, and then his body begins to convulse when Dino fires his taser into him.

Blood pours from his shoulder and his knee as he transforms back into a man.

I lick my jowls, panting on my knees as I watch the man who used to be my best friend writhe in pain.

“Hold him down,” I growl .

Everyone moves at my order. Luca is barely lucid after the shock, but I don’t care.

He’s going to get exactly what’s coming to him for what he’s done.

I place my claws on his chest and press into his flesh until it rips.

Muscles compress and bones splinter as I reach for his heart.

I wanted to torture the rat when I caught him, fill his last few hours on earth with suffering for what he has done to our family.

But kidnapping my mate?

I don’t care. Luca’s words mean nothing to me, and all I want is to see his heart crushed in my fist. He wails, screams, and gnashes until blood gushes between his teeth. He tries to shift, but we’re all here crushing one bone after another to prevent the change from happening.

The weak muscle gives a dying pulse as I sink my claws into it.

“Rot in hell,” I snarl, with one final yank.

I don’t even think about what I’m doing when I tear into his heart. His eyes are empty, his body has stopped twitching. He’s dead, but I swallow his heart to make sure it will never taint another being again. He was my best friend, but a rat is a rat.

Luca knew exactly what would happen to him when I found out.

Dino and Ugo drag his corpse out. Cristina grabs Nicky’s body next, and I wait for them to leave before I turn to the rapidly beating heart in the cage tucked into the corner of the room.

Her panicky, reedy breaths bombard my senses.

The anxiety of the night and the morning weighs down my shoulders.

I’m terrified to look at my mate now. She has seen me for the killer I am.

This was never part of the plan. I wanted to show my wolf to her, explain that the first assumptions about Andrea and me were right.

We are the mafia, but we are more than that.

We would never hurt her, and yet I’ve put her in so much danger in such a short time.

“Valentino,” she whimpers.