Chapter Eight

NOORIA

My phone dings in my lap.

I glance down, expecting another missed call from Baba or maybe Fiona checking if I’m okay. The screen lights up with an unknown number. A photo attachment.

I tap it open.

The image fills the screen.

A severed hand; pale, fingers curled in agony, the wrist hacked clean with jagged bone and tendon visible. Blood pools around it on what looks like concrete. The photo is close, clinical, like it was taken for evidence. Or a warning.

Underneath it, the message:

“How long do you think it’ll take you to bleed out if I slit your throat. Tick tock, dead girl.”

A scream rips out of me before I can stop it. Raw, high, and terrified. My fingers go numb and the phone slips, clattering to the floor of the SUV. I press both hands over my mouth, eyes wide, and chest heaving like I can’t get enough air.

Valentino’s hand tightens on my thigh hard enough to bruise. “Nooria.”

I can’t speak. I just shake my head, pointing at the phone on the carpet like it’s a live snake.

He leans down, picks it up with two fingers, and opens the screen. His expression doesn’t change, only his jaw flexes once, sharp as a blade. He reads the message in silence, thumb scrolling once like he’s memorizing the number.

Then he dials.

“Hey!" A cheerful voice comes from the other end of the line. “What's up, man."

“Carlos, I don't have time for your bullshit” he says instead, voice calm and ice-cold. “Unknown number I’m sending you now. Trace the address. I want it in ten minutes.”

He hangs up without waiting for a reply, forwards the number, then drops the phone into his jacket pocket like it’s contaminated.

I’m still shaking. My breaths come too fast, too shallow. The severed hand is burned behind my eyelids. Who would send that? Why me? Is this because of Marcus? Because of Valentino? Because of the scandal?

I can't really tell. I've never really had any enemies apart from school rivalries. But that was that.

Valentino turns to me fully. His hand leaves my thigh and cups the side of my face instead, thumb brushing my cheekbone with surprising gentleness. “Breathe, Nooria. Slow. In through your nose, out through your mouth. That’s it.”

I try. The air rattles in my lungs.

“Has this ever happened before?” he asks quietly. “Threats? Photos? Anything like this?”

I shake my head hard. “N-no…never…I’m a nobody. I’m just… me….an engineer, a daughter. I don’t have enemies. I don’t…”

“You do now,” he says, but there’s no cruelty in it. Just a fact. “Because you’re mine. And some people are stupid enough to think they can scare me by scaring you.”

The car pulls through the mansion gates. The fortress of glass and steel rises up, lights already blazing like it knew we were coming. Valentino doesn’t wait for the driver. He opens my door, helps me out because my legs won’t stop trembling, then scoops me up bridal-style like I weigh nothing. I don’t protest. I bury my face in his neck, breathing in the scent of his cologne and cigarette smoke and something darker that’s just him.

Inside, the mansion is quiet except for the low hum of security moving in the background. He carries me up the wide staircase, past the master suite, and straight into the bedroom we now share. The black silk sheets are turned down. A single lamp casts a soft glow. He sets me on the edge of the bed, kneels in front of me, and starts unbuttoning my blouse with careful fingers.

“Not for that,” he murmurs when I flinch. “You’re in shock, and I don't want you passing out on my cock. I’m getting you out of these clothes, because they smell like blood.”

He strips me down to my underwear, then pulls one of his own black dress shirts from the closet and slides it over my shoulders. It swallows me, the hem hitting mid-thigh, sleeves hanging past my hands. He rolls them up for me, one at a time, like I’m a child.

“Lie down.”

I crawl into the middle of the massive bed. He follows, stretching out beside me fully clothed, and pulls me against his chest. One arm bands around my waist. The other strokes my hair in slow, steady passes.

“You’re safe here,” he says against the top of my head. “No one gets past my gates. No one touches you. That message was a mistake, and Carlos will handle it. And when I find whoever sent it, they’ll wish they’d never learned how to type.”

I nod against his shirt, but the fear is still coiled tight in my stomach. The image of the severed hand keeps flashing behind my eyes.

Tick tock. Dead girl.

Valentino keeps stroking my hair until my breathing evens out. He doesn’t speak again. Just holds me. The monster who shot a man in my office this afternoon is now the only thing keeping the panic at bay.

After a long while he shifts, pressing a kiss to my forehead. “Sleep. I have calls to make. I’ll be back before you wake up.”

He slides out of bed. The mattress dips, then settles. I hear the soft click of the door closing behind him.

The room is quiet. Too quiet. The silk sheets are cool against my bare legs. I pull the duvet higher, curl onto my side, and try to let exhaustion pull me under. My body aches from the day; shopping, fear, the weight of everything. I close my eyes and focus on the faint scent of Valentino still on the pillow.

Just as sleep starts to brush against me, my phone rings on the nightstand.

I jolt, heart slamming back into high gear. The screen lights up with Baba’s name.

I stare at it for two rings, three. Then I reach out with a trembling hand and answer.

His voice comes through immediately, sharp and furious, cutting through the quiet like another gunshot.

“Come home, Now!”

Fuck me!