Page 15 of Saint Of Envy (Tangled Hearts, Sinful Hands #2)
LUC
W hen I get back to the casino, Vincent is waiting for me in his corner booth.
I’d expected him to look more stressed or to have a pressing expression on his face since he made it sound like this meeting was urgent.
Instead, he’s sitting there with a drink in front of him and his eyes keenly focused on his phone screen until I walk over and sit down to join him.
“Luciano, thank you for coming,” he says as he looks up and puts his phone back in his pocket. “I'm sorry that I had to interrupt your accompanying Valentina to her doctor’s appointment.”
“It’s okay,” I say, even though I’m not at all thrilled to be missing it, especially since I’m going to be sending her away soon and was trying to spend as much precious time with her as possible first. Plus, impending fatherhood, even though it was an unexpected occurrence, isn’t somewhat that I want to miss out on any moments of.
“You said it was important,” I remind him. “Has something happened?”
“Not quite, but there is intel that suggests something is about to.”
That holds my attention now. Honestly, I want Leonardo to make his move, whatever it’s going to be. The sooner he acts, the sooner we can counteract and put him down, and that means the sooner Valentina can stay by my side so that we can move on with our lives and her pregnancy.
“People have seen Leonardo, Angelo Barone, and Valentina’s father together near the Vegas Strip during the last twenty-four hours,” he says.
“Giovanni Ricci?” I ask, surprised that he would still be in bed with the likes of men like Leonardo after what happened in Italy.
Leonardo Conti isn’t a very forgiving man.
Considering that Giovanni’s daughter made a fool of him in front of a crowded church audience, I’m surprised that Leonardo hasn’t had Giovanni killed, or at the very least, cut him out financially and made his life a living hell.
There’s only one reason Leonardo would still keep Valentina’s father around, and that is because he wants to use him for something.
“Has Valentina mentioned anything about her father contacting her?” Vincent asks.
“No, not at all.” I shake my head. “Actually, she mentioned how hurt she felt he hadn’t even bothered to contact her after the Italy fiasco.”
“Well, if there’s one thing that we both know, Leonardo is a master of, it’s manipulation.
He’s probably pulling Giovanni around on strings like a puppet,” he says.
“And I’m guessing that he’s going to use Giovanni to get to Valentina.
I’m just not sure how yet—maybe he’ll threaten her father in order to leverage her back or send Giovanni to talk some sense into her and ride her with guilt about breaking the arrangement. ”
“But what part do the Barones have to play in all of this, then?” I ask.
“Angelo Barone and his crew are the muscle. Leonardo has all the resources, Giovanni Ricci has the familial leverage, but if those things don’t work to both return Valentina to him and achieve the vengeance that he wants, then Leonardo will try to use Angelo Barone and his might to finish the job,” he explains.
“That simply means the stakes are higher. I know you don’t want Valentina caught up in the middle between her father and whatever Leonardo has planned, so you really need to get her on the next flight out of the city. ”
I nod in agreement, even though I had hoped to spend one more night with her before having to send her away. “I’ll put her on the next flight out of town as soon as her doctor clears her for travel.”
“Good. That should also free up some of your headspace to focus on handling things here. The sooner we take care of business, the sooner Valentina can return and be with you again.”
As Vincent sips his drink, I take a moment to consider thoughtfully all his current efforts to help me.
He could still be angry about the trouble that I’ve caused him.
He could honestly demote or punish me for acting against my consigliere duties, prioritizing Valentina over my family responsibilities.
Instead, he’s having this impactful strategic planning discussion with me as if everything that I did is now just water under the bridge.
It’s big of him to act this way, and I respect him even more for it.
I also feel even more guilty for having ever planned on trying to overthrow his leadership position inside the family. So guilty that I need to fess up.
“Thank you for doing all of this to help me, Vincent. I know that part of this has now bled over into your businesses and into the family itself, and for that, I am sorry. But you are doing more than just looking out for the Moretti family’s interests.
You’re helping me to keep Valentina protected and to resolve this quickly so that we can be together.
You don’t need to do all of that, and yet, you are. ”
“I understand the sacrifices that you’ve had to make in order to serve as consigliere, Luciano,” he says as he reaches out to pat the side of my arm.
“And I fully grasp the love that you have for Valentina. Yes, I was angry at first, as any man would have been. Isla’s wise counsel reminded me I would have done the same thing if it were her in Valentina’s place. ”
I let out a small laugh to ease my nerves before I tell Vincent the truth of things. “Maybe Isla should be your consigliere,” I joke. “She sounds like a much better advisor to the Don these days.”
Vincent chuckles, ready to get back to planning how we are going to figure out what Leonardo’s plans are and how to stop him, but I have to interrupt because I need to tell him the truth.
“Vincent, I need to confess something to you.”
“Ha! You really are the Saint, aren’t you?” he laughs. “You don’t need to confess anything to me, cousin. I’m the Devil, remember? I can’t absolve you of your sins.”
“This one pertains to you,” I say regretfully. “Because I am The Saint.”
It takes Vincent only a moment before he understands what I’m saying. And for a second, he looks disappointed. That look is even worse than the look of anger.
“You know,” he sighs as he leans back in his seat.
“I think I already suspected that. All the joking references that were made both to you and about you being so “saintly” and being a “saint”. Yet I just couldn’t fathom how you could be the Saint, because that would have meant working against your own family, and against me. ”
“I’m not proud of it,” I say, taking full ownership of the nagging guilt that has been eating me from the inside out ever since I changed my mind about wanting to topple my cousin’s position in the hierarchy.
“I thought I wanted your power. I thought that if I had it, then I could stop Valentina’s wedding to Leonardo Conti even before the day of the ceremony arrived.
I wrestled with it even as I sat there in the church pew as the music played.
But then, as fate would have it, things turned out differently.
And once I was with Valentina for more than just a passing night, I realized I didn’t really want the power of a Don after all. All I truly want is to be with her.”
Vincent sighs, and I wait for the verbal scolding that I can only imagine he’s been holding in, but it never comes.
“I understand,” he says.
“Wait, that’s it? You’re just okay with what I told you?” I ask in disbelief. “I was the one who started the rumors about The Saint coming to Vegas. I orchestrated the whole mirage in order to usurp your position. Aren’t you even angry about that?”
“Sure,” he nods. “But you just said yourself that you don’t want that path anymore.
Trust me, Luc,” he says with a wise look in his eyes.
“I’ve walked in your shoes and learned these lessons the hard way myself.
I know exactly what it feels like to do anything and everything in the name of love.
And all that I can say to you is that these women that we’ve found—they are worth every second, every mistake, every transgression, and every ounce of knowing better.
They make us whole and teach us to be better men, and I think Valentina is doing the same for you that Isla did for me.
In my book, that simply means that we’re both flawed and human, and that we are lucky to have found women who love us so purely. ”
No one ever spoke truer words. Now that I have come clean, and Vincent and I have made amends, I feel as though I can finally focus clearly on putting Leonardo Conti back in his place.
It’ll be difficult now that we are facing two adversaries instead of one, but difficult doesn’t mean impossible.
Besides, Vincent and I both have something worth fighting for—love.
It’s not just our own Moretti crime family that we have to protect now, but also our own families that we are creating with the women we love.
That fuels the need to ensure that no one— not the Barones, the Conti family, or any rival that might rear its ugly head— will topple us.
But just as Vincent and I are getting ready to craft a new plan, Alonzo rushes into the casino and makes a direct path toward our table.
At first, he looks like he’s coming to deliver dire news to Vincent, but then, upon seeing me here too, he stalls for a brief second.
He looks between the two of us, as if trying to decide who to address first, and to my surprise—he chooses me.
“Luciano,” he says with a visibly pronounced gulp. “Valentina is gone.”
It doesn’t even compute with me at first. After all, how could she be gone when she was just at the doctor’s office with a bodyguard?
“The guard can’t find her,” Alonzo continues when he gauges my visual disbelief. “He said he hadn’t laid eyes on her since she went inside the building. Her appointment was over thirty minutes ago, so he checked on things and the nurse told him that Valentina wasn’t there.”
I feel as though my head is in an echo chamber as I listen to Vincent ask him several follow up questions and directs more men to the clinic to look for traces of where she could have gone.
But I already know exactly who took her—Leonardo.
I just don’t know where or how he got her out of that clinic without our man seeing it.
“We have to find her,” I say as I slam my fist against the top of the table and abruptly get to my feet.
“Agreed,” Vincent says as he joins me. “But in order to do that, we’re going to need some help.”