Chapter 123 The End of a Name
Matteo
The sound still echoed in my skull.
One shot.
Clean. Final. Echoing off the stone walls like judgment.
Valentina didn’t flinch.
She stood over his body, eyes locked on the hole she’d carved through the space where his soul used to be, the barrel still hot in her hand. Her arm didn’t shake. Her breathing was shallow, steady, like she’d just stepped out of a dream and was still deciding if she wanted to wake up.
I didn’t move either.
Because if I so much as blinked, I might lose that exact second—her profile in the harsh overhead light, jaw tight, eyes blank, beauty soaked in something darker than blood.
She didn’t just kill a man. She killed her father. She killed the ghost that built her.
And I swear I saw a flicker of peace.
I stepped forward slowly.
She didn’t react until I reached out and took the gun from her hand. She let it go without resistance. Her fingers were stiff, curled like they didn’t know how to relax.
I slid the weapon back into my waistband and turned her to face me.
Her eyes were wet—but she wasn’t crying. That would’ve been easier.
This wasn’t grief. This was the void that comes after a reckoning.
“You okay?” I asked quietly.
Her throat bobbed with a swallow. “I don’t know.”
I cupped her jaw. “You will be.”
She looked up at me then, and fuck if the weight in her stare didn’t crush something inside me.
“You didn’t try to stop me,” she whispered.
“No,” I said. “Because I knew you had to do it.”
“And if I hadn’t?”
“Then I would’ve done it for you.”
She stared at me a second longer. And then she stepped into my chest. No sobbing. No shaking. Just a woman finally letting go.
I wrapped my arms around her and held her there, surrounded by the stink of death and mildew, her father’s corpse cooling just feet away—and I didn’t care. Because this wasn’t about him.
It was about her. About what she chose. About who she’d become.
When she finally pulled back, her voice was rough. “We’re not burying him, are we?”
“Not unless you want to.”
She shook her head.
“Good,” I said. “By morning he will be a pile of ash.”
Her lips twitched. Not quite a smile. More like a scar forming in real time.
“Let’s go,” she said. “I don’t want to breathe the same air as him anymore.”
I nodded and took her hand. She didn’t just hold it. She clung.
And I didn’t say a word—just led her out of that hell, step by step, knowing this wouldn’t be the last ghost we’d face…
…but it damn sure was the first one we’d finally put down.
I didn’t let go of her hand the entire way up the stairs. Her grip stayed strong. Desperate. Like if she let go, the moment might unravel and take her with it.
We reached her room. I didn’t ask. I walked her straight to the bathroom and turned on the shower.
She didn’t argue.
She peeled her clothes off slowly, methodically, like she wasn’t sure they were hers. Like every motion required permission.
I stripped down with her and stepped in first, pulling her under the hot stream with me.
The water hit her back. She shivered.
“I can still smell him,” she whispered.
I reached for the shampoo without a word.
She stood still while I worked it through her hair, massaging her scalp gently, the lather turning pink at the edges with dried sweat and ghosted grime. I rinsed, then did it again, not stopping until the scent of antiseptic and cell rot was gone.
Her head tilted back.
Eyes closed.
Lips parted.
The image burned itself into my brain.
I don’t know when she moved.
One moment my hands were in her hair.
The next, her mouth was on mine.
Soft. Searching. Trembling.
I didn’t kiss her back right away.
I should’ve pulled away.
I should’ve said something about betrayal. About how we weren’t fixed. About how there was still a grave between us, and it had my family’s name on the stone.
But none of that came out.
Because when she kissed me again—deeper this time, fuller—I felt it.
She wasn’t asking for forgiveness.
She was giving herself to me again. Silently. Completely.
The kiss burned through hesitation.
I grabbed her waist, backed her into the wall, let the tile steal her breath for a second as her back hit it.
Her gasp was mine.
I pressed into her, hands sliding to her hips, then lower—curling under the soft curve of her ass, fingers gripping firm.
She wrapped her legs around me without hesitation.
Like instinct.
Like she’d done it a thousand times in her dreams.
I hoisted her up with a growl, locking her against me, water pouring down our skin, steam fogging every inch of glass.
Our mouths collided again.
Hot. Starved. Familiar.
Her fingers curled around my neck, nails biting. My hands flexed under her thighs, anchoring her like she was the only thing tethering me to the earth.
And maybe she was.
Because despite everything…
Despite every secret. Every lie. Every fucking knife that had been hidden behind her teeth…
She chose me today.
She pulled the trigger. On her past. On her father. On the chain that once held her by the throat.
For me.
With me.
And in that moment—water cascading over us, her lips whispering against mine—I knew something I wasn’t ready to admit aloud.
I trusted her.
God help me, I trusted her more than anyone else I had left.
I broke the kiss, put her back on her feet and shut off the water.
“Come on,” I said, “I need the bed for what I have planned for you.”