Massimo Valenti | The Don’s Gift 🔗🖤

It happened quickly enough that there was barely time to understand what was happening. One moment, the evening was ordinary; the next, a dark vehicle stopped nearby and two men were moving with the kind of purpose that made panic arrive before explanation. A hand caught her arm, another covered her mouth, and despite the immediate struggle, she was pulled toward the open door while somebody cursed under his breath and told the others to hurry.

Then came the sharp sting against her arm.

The world didn’t disappear immediately. It softened around the edges first, streetlights stretching into blurred streaks while voices became distant and distorted, and somewhere between fighting to remain conscious and losing the argument entirely, she heard one of the men laugh.

“Valenti is going to fucking love her.”

When awareness returned, she was in the back of a moving SUV with her wrists secured in front of her and her head resting against cold glass. The drug still weighed heavily through her limbs, leaving every movement sluggish while the vehicle climbed a winding private road toward enormous iron gates. Beyond them stood an estate illuminated against the darkness, elegant enough to belong in another world entirely, and the man sitting opposite noticed her waking with obvious relief.

“Good timing. We’re almost there.”

She received no explanation beyond that. The SUV stopped beneath the lights, the door opened, and a hand closed around her upper arm before she had properly regained her balance. She was marched through an enormous marble foyer and along corridors where strangers moved aside without asking questions, until eventually the men stopped outside a pair of dark wooden doors.

One of them straightened his jacket, suddenly looking considerably more nervous than someone who had just abducted a woman off the street had any right to look.

“Tell Mr. Valenti I brought him a gift.”

The doors opened.

Massimo Valenti was behind his desk when they entered, sleeves rolled neatly over tattooed forearms while a glass sat untouched beside several open documents. He didn’t immediately look up, which somehow made the silence worse. The men who had dragged her across the city suddenly seemed reluctant to move farther into the room.

“Mr. Valenti.”

Massimo finished reading whatever was beneath his hand before lifting his eyes.

They landed on her.

Then on the man beside her.

“What is this?”

“A gift.”

Massimo stared at him.

“I know you’re still angry about what happened, and I wanted to make it right. I saw her tonight and remembered what you like, so I thought—”

“You thought you’d abduct a stranger and present her to me like a bottle of fucking wine.”

The man’s smile faltered.

“I thought you’d appreciate the gesture.”

Massimo leaned slowly back in his chair, studying him with an expression so devoid of amusement that the room seemed to become colder around it.

“You thought wrong.”

Whatever hope the man had carried into the room disappeared.

“Massimo, I—”

“Don’t.”

One word was enough.

Massimo rose and walked around the desk, ignoring the man entirely now as his attention returned to the woman standing several feet away. His gaze moved over the restraints around her wrists, the lingering unsteadiness left by whatever she’d been given, then finally her face.

He stopped.

For the first time since entering the room, something changed in his expression.

Not kindness.

Interest.

The man beside her noticed it too, because apparently stupidity hadn’t prevented him from recognizing opportunity.

“I told you. Exactly your type.”

Massimo’s eyes remained on her.

“You did.”

Relief flooded the man’s face.

“So we’re good?”

That finally made Massimo look at him.

“No.”

“But—”

“You seem confused.” Massimo’s voice remained perfectly calm. “You brought someone into my home without permission because you believed you could purchase my forgiveness. You cannot.”

The man’s face drained as Massimo glanced toward the guards waiting beside the doors.

“Remove him.”

“Wait—Massimo, come on. I brought her for you.”

“And I said remove him.”

The doors closed behind the man’s protests, leaving the study abruptly silent. One guard remained beside her, waiting for the instruction that seemed obvious.

“Should I have someone take her home?”

“No.”

There was no hesitation in Massimo’s answer.

The guard glanced toward her before looking back at him. “Boss, she was taken off the street. She doesn’t belong here.”

Massimo’s eyes lifted slowly.

“Neither did the man I just had removed, yet somehow everyone keeps bringing things into my fucking house without asking me.”

The guard wisely said nothing.

Massimo approached her, stopping directly in front of her as his attention settled on the restraints still circling her wrists.

“Cut those.”

The bindings fell away, but whatever relief that might have promised lasted only until Massimo spoke again.

“Lock the front gates. Nobody leaves the property without my authorization.”

The guard paused.

“Nobody?”

Massimo looked at him.

“Did that sound ambiguous?”

“No, boss.”

The guard glanced toward her again. “I’ll have one of the guest rooms prepared.”

“No.”

The guard stopped.

Massimo’s expression didn’t shift.

“She’ll sleep in my room.”

Silence.

Even the guard, a man apparently accustomed to following Massimo Valenti’s orders without question, hesitated for half a second too long.

“Your room?”

Massimo’s gaze sharpened.

“Do I suddenly need to explain where people sleep in my own fucking house?”

“No, boss.”

“Then don’t ask me again.”

The guard disappeared, leaving them alone.

Massimo remained exactly where he was, close enough that stepping backward would have been the natural response to the sheer amount of space he had deliberately taken from her. His gaze moved over her face again, slower now, no longer assessing the ridiculous offering somebody had dragged into his study but examining something he’d already decided he intended to keep.

Any demand to be taken home was met with nothing more than a slight tilt of his head.

“No.”

Simple. Immediate. Final.

Massimo reached out and caught her chin, turning her face toward the light despite whatever resistance met the gesture. His thumb moved once along her jaw while his expression remained infuriatingly composed.

“You’re going to learn something about me very quickly.”

His grip remained firm.

“When I want something, I don’t stand around asking whether I’m allowed to have it.”

His gaze dropped briefly before returning to her eyes.

“The idiot who brought you here thought you were exactly my type. He thought putting you in front of me would make me forgive him.”

A faint, humorless smile touched Massimo’s mouth.

“It didn’t.”

His fingers finally left her chin, but he made no attempt to give her back the distance he’d taken.

“He’ll still answer for what he did.”

Massimo leaned closer, his voice dropping until there was nothing loud or theatrical about the threat implicit in his certainty.

“But I’m keeping his fucking gift.”

He straightened and turned toward the desk, apparently satisfied that the matter had been settled.

Another refusal only made him glance back over his shoulder.

“You keep saying no as though I haven’t understood you.”

His dark eyes remained fixed on her.

“I understand perfectly.”

A beat passed.

“I just don’t fucking care.”