The Ballroom Of Blood
1816 Words
Roman led Valentina into the hallway without releasing her hand.
His palm was warm.
Steady.
Completely unbothered by the blood coating her fingers.
Valentina followed because standing still would have meant thinking about Matteo’s body cooling behind her. It would have meant remembering the sound the knife made when it scraped beneath his jaw.
So she focused on Roman instead.
His black suit fit him too perfectly for a man who had apparently stormed a fortified estate in the middle of an engagement party. A pistol rested in one hand. Blood stained one cuff, and a thin red line marked his cheek, but he moved with the cold certainty of someone walking through a building he already owned.
The corridor outside her dressing room was littered with broken glass and abandoned weapons.
Dominic sat slumped against the wall, one hand pressed over the bullet wound in his shoulder.
His eyes lifted when Valentina passed.
“You ungrateful little bitch.”
Roman stopped.
Valentina felt the change in him before she saw it.
His fingers tightened around hers.
Dominic seemed to realize his mistake.
“Boss,” one of Roman’s men warned quietly.
Roman turned.
Dominic tried to raise his pistol with his uninjured arm.
Roman fired once.
The bullet entered Dominic’s forehead.
His head struck the wall with a dull crack before his body folded sideways.
Valentina stared at him.
Roman lowered the gun.
“You said you didn’t need me to avenge you,” he said.
“I didn’t.”
“No.” His gaze settled on the bruises covering her throat. “But I wanted to.”
He continued walking.
Valentina stepped over Dominic’s outstretched leg and followed.
The grand staircase overlooked the estate’s ballroom. An hour earlier, it had been filled with champagne, string music, and women dripping in diamonds.
Now it looked like a battlefield.
Tables had been overturned to create barricades. Crystal glasses lay shattered across the marble floor. Bullet holes marked the walls, and one of the chandeliers hung crooked from the ceiling.
Guests crowded near the eastern exit beneath the watch of Roman’s soldiers.
Some cried.
Others stared upward as Valentina appeared at the top of the stairs beside the most feared man in Chicago.
Her torn white dress dragged behind her.
Blood covered nearly all of it.
A woman screamed when she saw her.
Valentina recognized her father’s sister among the crowd. Aunt Bianca pressed both hands over her mouth while her husband stared at Valentina as though she had risen from the dead.
Maybe she had.
The obedient daughter they knew would never have walked downstairs holding Roman DeLuca’s hand.
That woman had died upstairs beside Matteo.
Roman guided Valentina down the staircase.
Every face turned toward them.
The whispers began immediately.
“Matteo—”
“Is she hurt?”
“That’s DeLuca.”
“What did she do?”
Valentina lifted her chin.
She would not hide from them.
Not now.
Roman’s thumb brushed across her knuckles.
The gesture was almost intimate.
The pistol in his other hand made it a threat.
At the bottom of the stairs, three DeLuca soldiers forced a man onto his knees.
Salvatore Russo.
Valentina’s father still wore the charcoal suit she had selected for him earlier that week. His silver hair remained neatly combed, but blood ran from a split above his eyebrow.
His hands had been bound behind his back.
Rage burned in his eyes.
Not fear.
Salvatore Russo had spent too many years believing himself untouchable to understand what kneeling meant.
His gaze moved over Valentina’s dress.
Then he saw Roman holding her hand.
“You stupid girl.”
Valentina stopped several feet away.
Roman raised his gun.
She touched his wrist.
“Not yet.”
Roman glanced at her.
Something almost like approval flickered in his eyes.
Salvatore laughed bitterly.
“You think he saved you?”
“No,” Valentina said. “I saved myself.”
“Where is Matteo?”
She looked toward the staircase.
“Upstairs.”
Her father’s expression hardened.
“What did you do?”
“What he deserved.”
The ballroom went silent.
Salvatore stared at the blood on her hands.
For the first time, uncertainty appeared in his face.
“You killed him?”
Valentina thought of Matteo’s hands around her throat.
“Yes.”
Her father’s lips pulled back from his teeth.
“You have ruined everything.”
“No. I interrupted your plans.”
“You don’t know what you’ve done.”
“I know exactly what you were going to do tomorrow.”
Salvatore’s gaze shifted toward the watching guests.
“Send them away.”
Roman gave a small nod.
His soldiers opened the eastern doors and ordered the guests outside. People moved quickly, abandoning coats, purses, and family members in their desperation to escape.
Aunt Bianca hesitated.
Salvatore snapped, “Go.”
She hurried after the others.
Within minutes, only the Russo and DeLuca soldiers remained.
Most of the Russo men were dead or disarmed.
Roman’s army surrounded the ballroom.
Valentina’s father was alone.
“You found the apartment,” Valentina said.
Salvatore’s expression did not change.
“Matteo found it.”
“Did you send men there?”
“He was supposed to handle it after the engagement.”
Valentina’s stomach twisted.
“Where are they?”
“Who?”
She crossed the space between them and slapped him.
The sound echoed through the ballroom.
Her father’s head turned with the force of the blow.
Roman smiled.
Valentina’s palm stung.
“You know exactly who I mean.”
Salvatore slowly looked back at her.
“The whores you stole from me?”
Roman’s men shifted.
Valentina struck him again.
This time her father laughed.
“You think hiding them made you a hero? They belonged to people more powerful than you understand.”
“They belonged to themselves.”
“Spare me your childish morality.”
“They were prisoners.”
“They were profitable.”
The rage inside Valentina became something sharp and clean.
For years, she had lowered her eyes while her father spoke.
She had endured his insults, his commands, and his certainty that she existed only to strengthen the family.
Now he knelt in front of her with his hands tied.
And she finally saw him clearly.
Not as her father.
Not as a powerful man.
As a parasite who had survived because everyone around him was too frightened to crush him.
Valentina crouched until they were eye level.
“Where are the women?”
“Safe from you.”
Her breath caught.
Roman stepped behind Salvatore and pressed the muzzle of his pistol against the back of his head.
“Answer your daughter.”
Salvatore’s jaw tightened.
“You slaughter my men, invade my home, and now you pretend this is about saving women?”
Roman’s expression remained calm.
“I don’t pretend to be a good man.”
“Then why do you care?”
“I don’t.”
The pistol pressed harder against Salvatore’s skull.
“But she does.”
Valentina looked at Roman.
He was not offering comfort.
He was offering violence.
For her.
Salvatore saw it too.
His gaze moved between them.
“You have known her for ten minutes.”
“Long enough.”
“She will betray you.”
“Then I’ll enjoy watching her try.”
Valentina stood.
“Where are they?”
Her father smiled.
“Ask your brother.”
The words struck harder than Matteo’s fist.
Valentina stepped back.
“Luca?”
Salvatore’s smile widened.
“He followed you three weeks ago. Watched you enter the building. Watched you leave with one of my drivers.”
Her pulse thundered.
Luca had known.
Her younger brother had sat beside her at breakfast every morning and joked about wedding preparations.
He had known.
“Where is he?” she demanded.
Salvatore looked toward the western doors.
A gunshot sounded somewhere outside.
Then another.
Roman lifted his head.
One of his soldiers pressed a hand to the receiver in his ear.
“Boss, we’ve got movement near the garage.”
“How many?”
“Four vehicles. Russo men.”
Valentina grabbed her father by the front of his shirt.
“Did Luca take them?”
Salvatore’s eyes gleamed.
“You should have stayed obedient.”
She pulled him forward.
“Where did he take them?”
“To the river.”
Ice flooded her veins.
The riverfront warehouses.
Her father owned six properties along the southern docks. Most had been empty for years.
Except the third warehouse.
Valentina had seen its records hidden inside one of the ledgers.
Private auctions.
Foreign buyers.
Women transported through shipping containers.
“No,” she whispered.
Salvatore’s smile became triumphant.
“You wanted to steal from me. Now you can watch them pay for it.”
Valentina released him.
Roman caught her arm before she could stumble.
“We need to go.”
His grip tightened.
“My men will handle it.”
“No.”
“Valentina.”
“I know the warehouse.”
“So do my soldiers.”
“You don’t know the tunnels.”
Roman’s eyes narrowed.
She forced herself to breathe.
“There are old service tunnels beneath the southern properties. My grandfather used them during Prohibition. If Luca sees your men approaching, he’ll move the women underground.”
Roman studied her face.
“You’re injured.”
“I’m going.”
“That was not a question.”
“Neither was my answer.”
For several seconds, they stared at each other.
The men around them remained silent.
Roman was not accustomed to being challenged.
Valentina was no longer accustomed to obeying.
Finally, Roman handed his pistol to one of his soldiers.
Then he reached inside his jacket and removed a smaller gun.
He offered it to her.
Valentina took it.
The metal felt cold against her palm.
“Stay beside me,” he said.
“I don’t take orders from you.”
“You agreed to marry me.”
“I took your hand.”
“In my world, that is more binding than a signature.”
Her father laughed from the floor.
“You’re both insane.”
Roman looked down at him.
“Bring Russo.”
Two soldiers hauled Salvatore upright.
Valentina checked the gun’s magazine.
Full.
Roman watched her do it.
“Can you shoot?”
“She shot Dominic.”
A voice came from the staircase.
Valentina turned.
Matteo stood at the top.
Blood soaked the front of his shirt. One hand clutched the banister while the other pressed a towel beneath his jaw.
He should have been dead.
He looked dead.
But his eyes were open.
And they were fixed on Valentina.
Roman’s expression went completely still.
Matteo raised a pistol with a shaking hand.
“You should have made sure.”
He pulled the trigger.
- Writer
- chap_listContents
- likeADD