The Butcher’s Offer
746 Words
A man stepped through it.
He wore a black suit without a tie. Blood dotted the collar of his white shirt, but none of it appeared to be his.
He was tall, broad-shouldered, and terrifyingly calm.
Roman DeLuca.
Valentina recognized him immediately.
Everyone in Chicago knew the Butcher.
He had inherited the DeLuca organization at thirty after his father and two older brothers died within the same week. Rumors claimed Roman had ordered the murders himself.
Other rumors were worse.
Roman surveyed the ruined room.
His dark gaze moved over Dominic bleeding in the hallway, the dead guard sprawled across Valentina, and Matteo lying in the widening pool beside the vanity.
Finally, he looked at her.
Valentina sat against the chaise in a torn white dress, her skin painted with the blood of three different men.
Roman’s expression did not change.
He walked toward her.
Behind him, armed DeLuca soldiers flooded the hallway and finished disarming the remaining guards.
Roman stopped beside Matteo’s body.
He looked down at the wound beneath the dead man’s jaw.
Then his attention shifted to the bloodied cake knife on the carpet.
“You did this?”
Valentina shoved the dead guard’s body from her legs and forced herself to stand.
Her knees threatened to collapse, but she would not meet Roman DeLuca from the floor.
“He tried to kill me.”
Roman studied her bruised throat.
Something cold passed across his face.
Not sympathy.
Something far more dangerous.
“Did he succeed?”
Valentina stared at him.
Roman stepped closer.
The room smelled of smoke, gunpowder, and blood. Somewhere downstairs, a man begged for his life.
Roman did not seem to hear him.
“No,” Valentina answered.
The corner of his mouth lifted.
It was not a kind smile.
“Good.”
He reached out and wiped a streak of Matteo’s blood from her cheek with his thumb.
Valentina flinched.
Roman’s hand closed around her chin.
Not painfully.
Not gently either.
He turned her face toward the light, examining the bruise blooming along her cheekbone and the marks around her throat.
“Who else touched you tonight?”
Her heart pounded.
“Why?”
“So I know how many bodies to leave your father.”
Valentina pulled her face from his grasp.
“I don’t need you to avenge me.”
Roman glanced at Matteo.
“No,” he said. “Apparently you don’t.”
One of Roman’s men appeared in the doorway.
“Boss, Russo’s barricaded in the ballroom. He has twelve men and at least forty civilians.”
Roman did not look away from Valentina.
“Kill the men. Let the guests run.”
“And Russo?”
Roman’s gaze dropped to the knife lying between them.
“Bring him to his daughter.”
The soldier disappeared.
Valentina’s breath caught.
“You came here to kill my father.”
“I came here to erase your entire family.”
The words were delivered with the calmness of a dinner invitation.
Valentina tightened her fists.
Roman looked at her white dress, now almost completely red.
“I may be willing to revise the plan.”
“Why?”
“Because you just murdered the man I intended to kill first.”
He stepped close enough that she could feel the heat coming from his body.
“And because I have never seen anything as beautiful as you standing in his blood.”
Valentina should have been afraid.
She was afraid.
But beneath the fear, something darker stirred.
A possibility.
Roman had soldiers.
Weapons.
Enough power to break through her father’s guards in minutes.
He was a monster, but monsters could be pointed toward other monsters.
“What do you want?” she asked.
Roman’s eyes settled on hers.
“You.”
A scream echoed from downstairs.
Valentina did not look away.
Roman extended his hand.
“Come with me, Valentina.”
“That is not an answer.”
“It is the only answer that matters tonight.”
“And when tonight is over?”
Roman’s expression turned possessive and absolute.
“Then you marry me.”
Valentina stared at his outstretched hand.
Her fiancé’s blood dripped from her fingertips.
Her father waited below.
The women she had hidden were running out of time.
Roman DeLuca was offering her an army.
All he wanted in return was everything.
Valentina placed her blood-covered hand in his.
Roman’s fingers closed around hers.
Downstairs, another man began to scream.
- Writer
