I hate you Mr mafia

Chapter 4

The heavy cedar door of the master suite clicked shut, locking Isadora into her velvet-lined prison, but the echo of her quiet, broken sobbing seemed to bleed through the thick wood.

​Down the dimly lit corridor, Balthazar Valiente stood like a statue carved from shadow. His hands were buried deep in the pockets of his trousers, his shoulders broad and rigid. He didn’t move. He simply stared at the floor, his icy grey eyes dark with a calculating intensity that few in the Valiente empire could decipher.

​"You know, for a man who just claimed his crown and kidnapped a wife, you look remarkably like a ghost," a voice drawled from the shadows of the intersecting hallway.

​Caspian stepped into the amber glow of the sconces, swirling the remaining amber liquid in his crystal glass. The younger brother’s tie was completely undone now, hanging loosely around his neck, and his dark curls were a messy crown. But beneath his trademark roguish smirk, his eyes were sharp, probing, and entirely unsettled.

​Balthazar didn’t look up. "Go to bed, Caspian. It’s been a long night."

​"Oh, I don't think so," Caspian said, leaning his shoulder against the stone archway, blocking the path toward the grand staircase. "I can’t sleep. Not when my older brother, the cold, calculating blade of the family, just risked a civil war with the Council of Sovereigns for a girl who smells like vanilla extract. We need to talk."

​Balthazar finally raised his head, his face an unreadable mask of stone. "There is nothing to discuss. The decision is made. The Council will fall into line, or they will bleed. It is that simple."

​"It’s not that simple, Balthazar, and you know it," Caspian said, his tone dropping its playful edge, shifting into something rare for him—deadly serious. He took a step closer, pointing his glass toward the locked doors of the master suite. "Let’s talk about her. Isadora."

​"What about her?"

​"The story doesn’t add up," Caspian said, his eyes narrowing as he watched his brother's reaction. "You told the Council you chose her because she’s a nonentity. A nobody from outside our world who strips them of their political leverage. You told them you watched her for three months because she had 'fire' when arguing with a supplier. It’s a brilliant narrative. It makes you look arrogant, untouchable, and fiercely independent. The Council bought it because it sounds exactly like something a proud, stubborn Valiente would do."

​Caspian took a slow sip of his whiskey, his gaze never leaving Balthazar’s face. "But I know you. You don’t do anything out of pride or impulse. Every bullet you fire, every contract you sign, every breath you take is part of a grander chessboard. You don’t just happen upon a nineteen-year-old baker in a tucked-away corner of Granada and decide to make her the Queen of the Spanish underworld. It’s too messy. Too reckless. It leaves too many variables."

​Balthazar remained silent, his jaw tightening slightly—the only tell that Caspian’s words had struck a nerve.

​"I did some digging while we were driving back from the docks earlier tonight," Caspian continued, his voice dropping to a low whisper that barely carried in the vaulted hallway. "I had my boys run a background check on Isadora. And do you know what they found? Nothing. Absolutely nothing out of the ordinary. She took over La Luna de Azúcar after her parents died in a tragic car accident on the mountain roads three years ago. She pays her taxes. She buys flour. She has no criminal record, no wealthy relatives, no secret ties to the Russian or Italian syndicates. She is exactly who she says she is."

​Caspian stepped directly into Balthazar’s personal space, his eyes burning with suspicion. "And that is exactly why I don't believe it. A man like you does not bring a genuinely innocent girl into a house of vipers unless she serves a specific, hidden purpose. You are hiding something, Balthazar. What is the real reason you kidnapped Isadora?"

​The silence that followed was suffocating, heavy with the weight of brothers who had survived a lifetime of betrayal by relying only on each other. Balthazar didn't move. He didn't blink. The icy grey of his eyes seemed to absorb the dim light of the corridor, turning into twin pools of absolute zero.

​"You're overthinking it, little brother," Balthazar said, his voice smooth, cold, and entirely dismissive. "She is the anchor the Code required. Nothing more."

​"Don't lie to me!" Caspian hissed, slamming his glass against the stone wall. The crystal shattered, sending shards of glass and amber whiskey raining down onto the marble floor. "Aunt Catalina is going to try to break her tomorrow. Faustus is already whispering to the northern borders about a coup. The Colombo family in Milan feels insulted, and the Romanovs are looking for an excuse to push into our ports. You are risking the entire empire for this girl, and you're telling me it's just because she's a convenient loophole in the family bylaws? I’ve bled for you, Balthazar. I’ve killed for you. Don't play me for a fool."

​Balthazar looked down at the shattered glass at his feet, then slowly brought his eyes back up to meet Caspian's furious glare. For a split second, a shadow of something ancient and dark crossed Balthazar's face—a flicker of a secret so heavy it threatened to crush them both.

​But as quickly as it appeared, the shadow vanished, replaced by the impenetrable armor of the future Rey.

​"If you trust me, Caspian, you will stop digging," Balthazar said, his voice dropping into a register that was no longer just a brother speaking to a brother, but a king issuing an absolute decree. "Protect the perimeter. Watch Faustus. Keep your eyes on the northern borders. Let me handle the girl."

​Caspian stared at him, his chest heaving with frustration. He searched Balthazar's face for answers, but found only the cold, unyielding stone of the Valiente fortress. Finally, Caspian let out a harsh, bitter laugh, shaking his head.

​"Fine," Caspian spat, stepping back and wiping a stray drop of whiskey from his cuff. "Keep your secrets, brother. But remember this: in our world, the secrets we keep are usually the things that end up burying us. I hope whatever she is to you, she’s worth the blood that’s about to flow."

​Without another word, Caspian turned on his heel and strode down the hallway, his boots clicking sharply against the marble until the sound faded into the distant depths of the mansion.

​Left alone once more in the wreckage of the shattered glass, Balthazar finally let his shoulders drop. The mask of the ruthless mafia don cracked, just a fraction, revealing a profound, exhausting gravity.

​He reached into the inner pocket of his midnight-blue suit jacket. His fingers closed around a small, weathered object. He pulled it out, holding it under the dim amber light of the sconce.

​It was a silver locket, tarnished by time and stained with a dark, dried residue that had turned brown over the years. Blood.

​Balthazar pressed the small latch on the side, and the locket clicked open. Inside was not a photo of Isadora, but an old, faded newspaper clipping from twelve years ago. The headline read: Tragedy in Granada: Prominent Accountant and Wife Murdered in Apparent Robbery Gone Wrong; Young Daughter Survives.

​Beneath the headline was a photograph of a seven-year-old girl with big, sorrowful amber eyes, holding the hand of a woman.

​Balthazar’s thumb brushed against the tiny, faded face of the girl in the photograph. His expression wasn't one of malice or cold political calculation. It was something far deeper, laced with a grim, righteous vengeance that had been simmering in his chest for over a decade.

​Caspian’s background check had been thorough, but it had only scratched the surface of the life Isadora thought she knew. Her parents hadn't died in a simple car accident three years ago. That had been the second cover-up. The truth went back much further, to a night twelve years ago when a young Balthazar, only eighteen at the time, had been sent on his very first assignment by his father, Maximilian.

​He had been sent to eliminate a man who had stolen millions from the Valiente coffers—an accountant named Mateo. Balthazar had executed the order with the cold efficiency expected of him. He had walked into that quiet Granada home, pulled the trigger, and eradicated the threat to his family's empire.

​But as he had turned to leave the blood-soaked room, he had heard a soft, terrified whimper coming from the closet. He had pulled the door open, his gun raised, ready to eliminate any witnesses.

​There, hiding behind a row of coats, was a little girl with amber honey eyes, clutching a silver locket to her chest, trembling so violently she couldn't even scream.

​Balthazar had stared into those eyes, and for the first time in his life, his finger had frozen on the trigger. He couldn't do it. He couldn't kill the child. Instead, he had closed the closet door, wiped his prints, and lied to his father, claiming the accountant and his wife had been alone.

​For twelve years, Balthazar had carried the weight of that spared life. He had watched from afar as the girl was placed in foster care, as she eventually grew up, changed her name to Isadora, and opened a quiet bakery in the heart of Granada, entirely oblivious to the fact that the man who had ordered her parents' execution was the very same man who ruled the country from the shadows.

​And now, the Council of Sovereigns had demanded an anchor. They had demanded a wife to secure his loyalty to the crown.

​Balthazar snapped the locket shut, the sharp click echoing like a gunshot in the empty corridor.

​He hadn't chosen Isadora out of a whim, nor had he chosen her out of simple lust or a desire to provoke the secondary families. He had chosen her because she was his ultimate sin, his only act of mercy in a life defined by cruelty. By bringing her into this fortress, by putting the Valiente crown on her head, he wasn't just taking a wife—he was executing the final phase of a decades-long penance. He would make her a Queen, provide her with the absolute power of the empire that had destroyed her family, and keep her safe from the wolves who would use her past to destroy him.

​She would hate him when she learned the truth—and she would learn it eventually. But until then, he would play the monster she thought he was, because a monster was the only thing powerful enough to keep her alive in a world made of blood.

​Balthazar slipped the silver locket back into his pocket, his face hardening once more into the impenetrable mask of the Rey. He turned toward the double doors of his suite, his boots crunching lightly over the shattered shards of Caspian's glass, stepping back into the dark game he had spent his entire life preparing to win.