The Hitman's Mark

8. Fiancés and Frauds

VALENTINA

Val's evening had gone to hell, but she figured it couldn't get much worse. She was wrong. So, so wrong.

Like an idiot, she'd asked Matteo to accompany her to Lo Specchio that evening. Originally, she planned on sneaking out of the apartment without the hitman's knowledge, but once they spoke in the kitchen, guilt and worry began churning in the pit of her stomach. She knew that if she snuck to Lo Specchio without Matteo's knowledge, he would never trust her again... Strangely enough, she didn't want to risk that.

So she'd invited him to go to Lo Specchio with her and prayed that the booze and music and women would be enough to distract him. Of course, Val's father assigned her the one bodyguard in the entire Cosa Nostra that couldn't be swayed by women and alcohol.

Matteo didn't drink a single droplet of liquor from the moment they walked into the club. He didn't ask for a line of the white powder that the mafiosos passed around like the offertory at Mass. And, like a damned saint, he didn't even blink twice at the nearly nude models and dancers that strutted around.

Val only needed a single moment of Matteo's lapsed concentration to slip into the shadows of Lo Specchio. But his dark, penetrating eyes never strayed from the back of her head, ruining her plans.

When Matteo asked if she'd found anything in the files and records, Val lied and said no.

But really, she'd spent the last five days scouring every account and transaction linked to Lo Specchio, following a trail of missing cash. Hundreds of thousands of dollars of missing cash.

At first, Val thought that the account discrepancies in Lo Specchio's files could've been a mistake. Her father preferred to pay almost every business expense in cash, after all, which sometimes led to missing amounts.

After digging deeper, however, she discovered several years' worth of over-payments between her father's most notorious club and a beverage company that supplied the venue's liquor. The money leaving her father's accounts didn't coincide with the beverage invoices and inventory, so Val deduced that someone at Lo Specchio was stealing the extra cash and spending it elsewhere. Her father had lost two hundred thousand over the last three years.

Unfortunately, the paper trail only provided so much evidence, and Val didn't want to go to her father with the claim until she was absolutely certain of the offenses. So, she planned on visiting the club on a Saturday — the same night that the beverage company made their deliveries every two weeks.

Val planned on conveniently stumbling into the back offices of Lo Specchio at eleven o'clock sharp — the same time as the transactions — to collect proof of the perpetrator. Then, when she possessed concrete evidence of the theft, she'd approach her father with her findings. Foolproof.

Or, it would have been foolproof. Matteo's unwavering devotion to his guard-dog duties complicated matters.

He'd guessed her intentions to distract him easily enough, so Val conceded. She wouldn't have wanted to attend that seedy club on her own accord, so, without the prospect of uncovering her father's thief, there was no reason to stay.

And yet... Matteo touched her, and Val's traitorous body filled her mind with the idea that the night didn't need to be a complete waste.

His touch was firm, but not painful. Commanding, but not forceful. And his voice... It awakened something in Val that she hadn't experienced before. Desire.

Throughout her time at Oxford, Val flirted with plenty of young men. She enjoyed the game, but never allowed herself to reap the rewards. She feared her father might discover her impurity and never allow her to return from London. For that reason, the relationships never progressed past flirting. She wouldn't allow it.