novelraw Chapter 173: Shock
Chapter 173: Shock
Chapter 173
ROMEO POV
"What’s this, babe?" Marina asked, her fingers hovering over the thick leather folder i had placed on the desk, Antonio forgotten in the background.
"You’ve been staring at it like it’s the Holy Grail." I leaned back, letting one hand rest idly on her waist.
"It’s our future, Marina," I said, my voice perfected in manipulation. The leather folder on my desk looked innocent enough
To the untrained eye, it was a standard pre-marital asset agreement—a boring, bureaucratic necessity of joining two Great Houses.
I’d had the original Valeros cover closed with a plain, slate-grey binding. The true document, bearing the ancient red wax seal of her father’s sovereignty, was hidden beneath the second page of mundane clauses.
Marina didn’t even look at the fine print. She was too busy looking at me. She shifted on my lap, her silk robe sliding provocatively against my trousers.
"Is the big, bad Don actually nervous about a our future?" she whispered, her fingers tracing the line of my jaw.
I nudged the folder toward her. "Your father is a cautious man. Too cautious. He has assets tied up in trusts that even you can’t touch without his permission. It’s an insult to you."
Her eyes sharpened. "He says it’s for my protection."
"Protection is just another word for control," I countered, watching her carefully. I saw the spark of resentment in her eyes.
"This is the final step. It’s a formal integration of the household staff and the East Wing properties. By signing this, you aren’t just my fiancée. You’re the administrative head of the Salvatore estate but" I lied with the ease of a man breathing.
"This document is also a merger. An integration of our houses. By signing this, you aren’t just becoming my wife—you’re becoming my partner. It bypasses the old guard. It puts the Valeros strength directly into your hands. And mine."
I was lying through my teeth. It put the strength into my hands. It made her a figurehead, a beautiful seal on a death warrant for her father’s autonomy.
Marina eyes held mine, she was hesitant. She wasn’t a fool; she knew that once ink hit the paper, things changed but she doesn’t know what.
"My father told me never to sign anything without his lawyer."
"Your father’s lawyer is loyal to your father, not to the future Donna Salvatore," I whispered, leaning in until my lips were inches from her ear.
I felt her shiver. "Do you want to be a daughter forever, Marina? Or do you want to be the woman who finally united the two most powerful families in the country?"
I reached for the fountain pen on the desk, the gold nib glinting under the office lights. I held it out to her.
"Sign it, and you move into the Donna’s suite tonight," I added, the ultimate bait. "No more guest wings. No more standing in the shadows of my grandmother. You’ll be the mistress of this house. Legally. Formally."
That was the hook. I saw the moment the hunger for status outweighed her survival instinct.
She wanted that room. She wanted the title. She wanted to stand over Katya and Nonna and watch them bleed.
She took the pen. "You promise?" she murmured, looking at me with a desperate kind of hope. "No more secrets? No more... distractions?"
"No more distractions," I promised. I meant it. Once I had her signature, Katya wouldn’t be a distraction anymore. She would be a liability I had to bury.
Marina leaned into me, lips moving towards me. I knew what she wanted and I had to do it. I couldn’t back down now because of a flimsy kiss.
Her lips hits mine, tongue instantly breaching into my mouth. This girl was really desperate. The old man with us in the room let out a breath, more like a cough to show he was still here.
"There," Marina said, signing before tossing the pen aside and standing up, her silk robe fluttering.
She looked revitalized, empowered by a document that had just stripped her of everything.
"Now, let’s go. I want to see my new room. I told Gina to have it ready." I stood up, adjusting my cuffs.
My heart was a block of ice. I had the signature. The play was complete. The Valeros empire had just been handed over in a quiet office over a lap-dance.
"Antonio, take the folder to the vault. We’re going."
"Yes, Don." Marina grabbed my arm, leaning her weight against me. "Come on, babe. Don’t be a bore."
I allowed her to lead me door. My mind was already calculating the fallout of the Valeros merger, the way I would dismantle their ports by morning. I had what I wanted.
The girl was a means to an end, and that end was finally within reach. I can’t wait to finish her off.
The doors slid open. I expected the quiet hallway of my floor but instead, I stepped out and my heart, which I thought I had frozen solid in the office, skipped a beat.
The hallway was a wreckage of white porcelain and red smears. And there, pinned against the marble wall, was a maid. She was screaming, a high-pitched, gurgling sound.
On top of her was Katya. She looked like something dragged out of a nightmare—covered in blood, her eyes wide and vibrating with a terrifying, rhythmic madness.
She held a jagged piece of the vase like a holy relic, her knuckles white, her body shaking with a primal energy.
"Die," Katya hissed, her laughter sounding like glass breaking in a dark room. "Die. Die. Die."
What the fuck?!
For a fraction of a second, my brain refused to process what my eyes were seeing.
The hallway—my floor—was chaos. Shattered porcelain across the marble. Blood smeared in uneven arcs that didn’t belong in a house like this.
And Katya?
On top of a maid?
Not crying. Not begging. Not breaking like how she used too. No! She looked feral.
Her body was shaking, with something unleashed. Her eyes weren’t wide with fear—they were locked, focused, empty of anything human.
The shard in her hand caught the light as she moved, her voice low, fractured, repeating one word like it was all she knew anymore.
Die. My breath left me. I was knocked out of it because for the first time in years—years—I didn’t know what to do.
This wasn’t the Katya who flinched when someone raised their voice. This wasn’t the girl who curled inward and disappeared.
This was something else. Something broken open. Something I recognized far too well.
A flash slammed into me without warning—another hallway, years ago. Different marble. Different blood.
My own hands shaking the same way. The same ringing in my ears. The same moment where something inside me had snapped clean in two and never gone back.
I had worn that look once. When mercy finally died.
"Katya—" She didn’t hear me. Or she did—and didn’t care.
The maid was choking, a sound that scraped against my skull, her hands clawing uselessly as Katya pressed her weight forward like she meant to erase her.
Ding. The elevator doors slid open behind me. The sound cut through everything.
I turned just as Nonna rolled forward, her chair gliding out onto the ruined floor.
She saw it all in one glance, making her freeze just like me. Her hand tightened on the armrest, knuckles whitening. "Mia cara?..." she whispered, the word barely sound.
Katya’s head snapped toward the sound. For half a second—just half—something flickered across her face.
Recognition, confusion, then pain. And then her grip faltered, her eyes going to the maid who now lays trembling.
†††
Well well well, what would be Marina’s faith and Gina’s faith.