Chapter Twelve

NOORIA

“Sit the fuck down and have your meal, before I bend you over this table and teach you why you shouldn't be late for breakfast."

Valentino’s cold voice yanks me out of my own world as I stand frozen in the middle of the dining room. I don't know how long I stood there, but the picture of a young Valentino and a woman I assume to be his mother captured my attention the moment I step into the room.

" Didn't you hear me, Amor?” He growls when I'm still standing despite his demand.

I fight the urge to roll my eyes as I make my way to the table and take a seat opposite him.

There goes the gentle person from yesterday. It is indeed true that good things never last.

I make myself a toast and pour myself a glass of milk, surprised it's even at the table. My husband doesn't look like the type. “Didn't know you drank milk," I murmur.

“I don't. You do."

Oh! I didn't know he knew that.

As I bite into my toast, my eyes find it's way to the photo on the wall and it's really difficult to tear my eyes from it. Her eyes, her dark hair that falls to her face like a soft cloud, her pretty smile.

“Is she your mother?" I blurt out without a second thought.

Valentino doesn’t even glance up from his plate. He keeps cutting into his steak with precise, controlled movements, the knife scraping softly against the porcelain like a warning. The silence stretches between us, thick and heavy. I wait, fork hovering over my toast, but he acts as if I never spoke.

I swallow the sudden lump in my throat and try again, softer this time. “Valentino… is that your mother in the picture?”

Still nothing.

He spears a piece of meat, brings it to his mouth, and chews slowly. The only sound in the vast dining room is the faint clink of silverware and the distant hum of the mansion’s staff moving somewhere far down the hall.

My fingers tighten around the edge of the table. Yesterday he had been so gentle, washing my hair, whispering praises while he moved inside me like I was something precious. Today that man is gone, replaced by the cold, untouchable mafia boss who looks at me like I’m an inconvenience he’s forced to tolerate.

“I asked you a question,” I say, voice wavering but determined. “Is she your mother? She looks… kind. Beautiful.”

Valentino sets his knife and fork down with deliberate care. The sound is loud in the quiet room. He finally lifts his gaze, storm-gray eyes locking onto mine with the kind of intensity that makes my pulse spike.

“Focus on your meal, Nooria.”

The command is flat. Ice-cold. No room for discussion. He picks up his utensils again and returns to cutting his steak as if the conversation is already over.

But I can’t let it go. Something about that photograph — the woman’s soft smile, the way young Valentino looks up at her with something almost like adoration — pulls at a part of me I don’t understand. Maybe it’s because I’ve never seen him look vulnerable before.

I know this is a sore subject, his reaction alone tells that, but still I need to know.

“I just want to know,” I press, leaning forward slightly. “She’s your mother, isn’t she? What happened to her? Why do you keep her picture here if…”

“Enough!”

The single word cracks through the air like a whip. Valentino’s chair scrapes back as he stands abruptly. His full height towers over the table, shoulders rigid, jaw clenched so tight a muscle jumps in his cheek. The gentleness from last night is completely gone. In its place is the monster I met that first night, cold, lethal, and barely leashed.

“I said focus on your fucking meal.” His voice is low, dangerous, each word carved from ice. “You do not ask about her. You do not speak about her. You do not even look at that picture again. Do you understand me?”

I shrink back in my seat, heart hammering. “I was only…”

“Never mention her again,” he cuts me off, the warning so sharp it feels like a blade pressed to my throat. “Not to me. Not to the staff. Not even to yourself. She is dead to this house, she is dead to me, and if you disobey me on this, Nooria, I will make sure you regret it in ways you can’t even imagine. DO NOT FUCKING TEST ME!”

The air feels too thin, and suddenly, I can’t breathe.

Valentino turns sharply toward the open archway that leads to the kitchen. “Ophelia!”

The housekeeper appears almost instantly, wiping her hands on her apron, her face carefully blank. She’s been with him for years, I can tell by the way she doesn’t flinch at his tone.

“Get rid of that picture,” he orders, jerking his chin toward the wall. “Take it down. Burn it. I don’t care what you do with it, just make sure it’s gone by the time I return to this room.”

Ophelia’s eyes flick to the photograph for the briefest second, then back to him. “Yes, sir.”

Valentino doesn’t wait for her to move. He storms out of the dining room without another glance at me, his footsteps echoing down the marble hallway like gunshots. The door to his office slams shut somewhere in the distance, the sound reverberating through the entire mansion.

I sit frozen, toast turning to ash in my mouth. My hands are shaking so badly I have to set the glass of milk down before I spill it. The photograph stares back at me from the wall, the woman’s gentle smile, young Valentino’s trusting eyes.

Ophelia moves quietly to the wall, lifting the frame down with careful hands. She doesn’t look at me, neither does she say a word. She simply carries the picture away like it’s nothing more than an old decoration.

I would ask her, but she'll just ignore me so it's really no use.

I just hope I'm getting everything wrong, and my brain has the wrong person.

~~~

“Earth to Nooria!" Mikky snaps her fingers in front of me, startling me out of whatever world I was into. " Did you even hear a word we said?”

I shake my hand truthfully and resume typing on my laptop, continuing the work I was doing before I zoned out.

" If your brother wants you to get married, I don't think there's much you can do about it,” I tell her. I wasn't focused on their conversation, but I know why she's seated in my office looking like the world is ganging up on her.

She makes a disgusted face. " I'll die before I marry that asshole. If my brother is a monster, he's the devil that created him.”

Fi laughs and says something I don't quite catch, because once more I'm sucked into the vacuum of thoughts that keeps dragging me down ever since I saw that picture.

This is really the time I wished I could reverse time and go back to the past and change things. Even if it's just once.

" Hey, Mikky,” I call out, interrupting whatever she was going to say to Fi. She narrows her eyes at me, but if there's anyone who has answers, it's her. " Do you know Valentino's mother? What she looked like and what happened to her?"

She's silent for a while, that I almost think I won't get a response. Then she sighs, “Maria–Rosa Delucca was the most beautiful and kind person I know. My brother used to bring me to the summits which are always hosted in the Delucca mansion. Aunt Maria would always take me and look after me till my brother was done with his meetings. Until she disappeared."

“Disappeared?" It's Fi who asks. I'm in too much of a shock to think straight, not to mention form a response.

Mikky nodded. “May 14th 2010. Valentino and his dad were out that day. When they returned she was gone.”

" Gone?” Still Fi.

" Yes. No one saw her leave the house. The maids and guards didn't see her leave, and the security cameras didn't catch anything. One moment she was in her bedroom and the next, she's gone. No one's seen or heard of her since.”

Fi asks Mikky lots of questions about the disappearance, but I don't hear a word of it.

My lungs constrict and I can't breathe no matter how hard I try. I gasp for air, clawing at my neck as my vision begins to blur.

I hear my friends shouting my name but I can't make one which is which. My mind is so unfocused.

The last thing I see as darkness takes over is Valentino pointing a gun at me and pulling the trigger.