Page 67 of My Solemn Vow (The Mafia Arrangement #1)

VALOR

THE TRAITOR, THE WOLF, THE REMORSE

Neil is securely chained to a wall. Dad is tracking Royal and scrambling all the guards we know we can trust. I lock down my home into an impenetrable fortress. Kerrianne is visible on the monitor, but it doesn’t stop my fears.

Antonella is covered in blood. It coats the chair and the floor beneath. The mess from the knife piercing her side. It shouldn’t have hit anything major. But ‘shouldn’t’ and ‘didn’t’ are two different things. Not to mention the cuts to her jaw and throat. She’s lost a lot of blood.

I dart to her chair and press my fingers to the wound on her stomach, trying to feel for bleeding. I strain to hear what my ears are telling me. Her heartbeat is far too slow. Her breathing is practically nonexistent. I let go of the wound in her stomach, and my hands are slick with her blood.

“Antonella.” I start releasing the binds on one side of the chair.

Dad is at my side, unstrapping her other arm, her leg, her neck. “We don’t have time, Valor. She won’t survive this. You need to give her a wolf. ”

The noise that comes next, I’ll never forget. It’s almost like a death rattle, but she’s fighting.

My wolf is nowhere to be found.

Dad’s right. She’s not going to survive.

I look for the monster inside me. But he retreated deep in my mind as the evidence was presented against her. And he didn’t resurface as we learned more. As she poked holes into what Neil was saying.

I’m afraid, lost, and looking for him.

Dad pulls Antonella from the chair, and blood stains her blouse on the back from the spikes cutting into her shoulders. He sets her on the stainless-steel table I had her over not that long ago.

“Valor!” my dad shouts, and his alpha command presses through the air. “Shift.”

It awakens my wolf, and he whines. I force it, pushing myself to shift.

This isn’t how it should be. This isn’t how any of this should be.

I find my four feet and approach her. She smells like death, the literal life force seeping from her.

The wolf knows what needs doing. Lifting his paws onto the table, he opens his mouth and digs our teeth into her flesh, tearing through the fabric of her shirt and straight to the bone.

Some ask if wolves are venomous. The truth is no one knows what magic is at work here. But a bite, bone deep, to a human on the edge of death, is all it should take.

I let her go carefully. Lowering myself to the floor, I press my nose against her head and gently lap her neck, cleaning the bite.

You can’t die, Antonella. Princess, until death do we part shouldn’t be so soon. It shouldn’t be like this. I whine, thinking about all the things I said and did incorrectly.

“There’s nothing you can do for her right now, Valor. Let the magic of it work. We need to find Royal.” Dad tries to pull me away from her, but it’s like standing and seeing her body in the morgue.

The stainless-steel table and sterile room. I can’t tear myself away from this spot. I’ll have to burn this house to the ground because I’ll never be able to forgive myself.

“Valor!” Dad commands again, but he turns soft. “Let her rest. Your mother is on the way. We need to find Royal.”

I groan, forcing myself away from her. Her heart is still beating, and her chest rises and falls. She isn’t dead. If she’s dying, she’d be dead.

Shifting back is agonizingly painful. Torn between wanting to stay and needing to go, picking a form between wolf and man is a battle of will. Until finally I’m naked and standing on two feet.

I can’t keep my eyes off her, keeping her in my peripheral vision.

My wolf is hyperfixated on her, demanding I make glances between pulling up memories of us together.

Every time my phone hits Royal’s voicemail, I call again.

Jack comes hobbling in through the underground garage, practically carrying Declan with him. He leaves him to slump against the wall before running out the back doors again. My father follows Jack back out to help.

I go back to searching for Royal, using my credentials to patch into my parents’ security camera feeds. There’s just too much footage for me to sort through on my own, even with six tiny screens at a time on my tablet.

“What did you do to Royal?!” I snarl, forcing myself to look at Neil.

He’s been quiet for a while. Unlike most people in my basement, he’s standing, not trying for any sort of relief, and then this fuckin’ asshole shrugs.

I’m torn between torturing it out of him and just killing him. But killing him would leave me trying to figure out the pieces from the cyber trail, and that’s usually something Royal does. He’s better at it. I sit atop a throne of a tech empire, but it’s always been his domain.

I keep watching the screen.

Declan writhes on the ground before sputtering, “Fuckin’ hell. Get the goddamn bullet out.”

“Just a minute. Quit your belly achin’. No one wants to hear it.

” Jack scolds him as they drop a very bloody and broken Samuel, Neil’s eldest son, and prop him up against a wall next to his father.

He’s in and out of consciousness. Jack nudges his thigh with his shoe. “Tell the alpha what you told me.”

Samuel rocks his head back and forth on the wall. “Dad’ll kill me.”

“Don’t say anything,” Neil growls, and his teeth click with a snap.

“Dad’ll kill me but they’re —” He turns his head to the side and vomits bile and blood onto the floor. “They don’t want anyone to find him. Not until it’s too late. Took him out to the nature preserve.”

“Tell me which one,” my dad snarls.

The command is evident, and it’ll have to be followed, but Dad wraps his fingers around Samuel’s throat for good measure.

I search through more footage of my parents’ driveway, finally finding what I’m looking for. A vehicle pulls up and Royal comes out of the house. He suspected something because he has a gun tucked in the back of his pants.

I fast-forward through the struggle. I don’t need to watch him lose, knowing that what’s done is done. I can kick his ass in training if we get him back. Finally, the van moves, and the idiots Neil used were incompetent. The license plate is still on and clearly visible.

“Got the plate,” I mutter and quickly start using the automated link Royal hooked into the city’s traffic cameras .

My phone rings, and Royal’s name flashes across the screen. Hesitantly, I answer. “Valor.”

“Fuckin’ hell. It’s not Antonella. Don’t hurt her. I couldn’t get the damn thing to call out or answer. They shattered the damn screen. It’s not Antonella.” Royal is gasping for air.

“You’re okay?” She’s well past the point of hurt, but there’s no point in telling him now.

“Neil and fuckin’ Samuel are trying some shit. They’re —” His phone cuts out a little bit. “God fuckin’ damn it. What good is a fuckin’ indestructible case if it breaks and destroys the phone? Can you hear me?”

“Yes, I can hear you. Can you get here?” I don’t bother telling him everything we already know. Information only slows us down at this phase.

“Yeah. I’m on my way as soon as I fuckin’ find the goddamn keys. Fuck it, faster if I hot-wire it. I’m on my way. Don’t hurt Antonella.”

It’s too late. I hurt her and then let her die. I try not to look at her. To not confirm she’s dead.

My wolf forces my attention back to her, where I’m sure to see her lifeless. But she’s still hanging on. Antonella’s chest rises and falls. It’s shallow, but she’s still there.

Mate is strong. She’ll fight. She’ll heal. He assures me. She’ll be wolf.

Maybe I’d believe that if blood wasn’t pooled all around her on my table like the rest on the floor by the chair.