Page 29 of Bulletproof Baby

"Valley!" someone shouts as the lights in my bedroom flash on. It's a mess. My bedroom door is leaning against the wall, barely clinging to the bottom hinge. A small rug sits in a pile of folds beside my bed that's tilting at the corner, obliterated by Valentino and the intruder crashing into it.

Valentino is breathing hard, his chest rising and falling as he stands in his trousers, still shirtless. Evidence of our sexual escapades mar his tattoo, while the results of him defending me against three intruders litter his torso with splotches of reddening skin.

"In here," Valentino replies, as he peers around the room before his gaze lands on me. He rushes over, taking me in his arms. "Lia. Are you okay?"

Valentino doesn't give me time to answer as he moves my body and hands around, checking me for injuries. I have to stop him, taking his face into my hands.

"I'm fine. Look at your face." I gently touch the area beside his eye. There's a puffiness surrounding it that's likely to be black by morning. His lip is split and I’m not sure if that’s all me or if the fight helped it swell. It makes me forget the bright red lines scoring his back. Valentino sorts among the chaos to find his shirt, putting it back on just as I hear more people coming into my apartment.

Fear wraps around me, wondering if there are more men coming in to fight. However, it's five large men, all donning tactical gear. They look like police officers, but there isn't any identifying information on their clothes.

"Who are they? What's happening?" I ask Valentino, who's clearly not fearful of them, which allows me to calm down.

"I'm going to take care of this," Valentino says. His demeanor shifts from worried lover to the man in charge. He barks orders. "There's one in the bathroom. I think that little one is the driver."

Armande steps in a few moments later with his phone to his ear. He surveys the room, looks Val and me up and down, and nods. Armande ends his call with a few hushed words and slips his phone into his pocket. He steps over the bodies that are being taken from my apartment.

"NYPD is on ice for now. I got the landlord and tenant statements as an investigator. What happened, Valley?" Armande asks, his gaze shifting between the both of us.

Valentino shrugs. "Let's bring these three to the Icebox to get some answers. I'm going to put her up somewhere safe. I'll meet you there. Clean up the street. Don't forget the doorbell cameras, too. Get Lou and his team down here to fix up the place."

"You got it, Val," Armande says, stepping away from us to take over.

Valentino turns to me. "Lia, grab some clothes, whatever's not trashed, and throw it in a bag. I'm going to take you with me."

I cut him off. "I want to call the police. We need to call the police. Why aren't we calling the police? I shouldn't have to leave my house."

"Lia, if those men were here to take you, the chances are that they'll try again since this time was unsuccessful. If you were an ordinary citizen, I would call the police in a heartbeat. But knowing that your family's entangled with Saul Caputo, I don't know which cops are going to show up here."

"What is that supposed to mean?" I ask Valentino.

"Payroll," Armande interjects as he walks around the room taking pictures of the damage.

"What?" My confusion shifts back to Valentino.

Val elaborates on Armande's answer, telling me, "If some of the police officers that work for Caputo show up, you might end up disappearing. We have to find out why these guys came here tonight. Once I know what's going on, I'll do my best to get your life back to normal."

Back to normal?

When I take a moment to think of my life as normal, all I can come up with is a sad excuse for living. I go to work at a Bonetti Brother's construction site, slave away for twelve hours a day, and go home alone. The men hit on me, but we all know it's not going anywhere. I have dinner with my parents every Sunday. Occasionally, I get together with Frankie for a night out, but he parties too hard for me on most nights.

Valentino pulls me into his arms while a group of guys maneuver around my bedroom. They haul the intruders out one by one. While I want to stay, there's something so invasive taking over. Strangers in my home and I don't know why.

"I'm taking you—" Valentino says, but I cut him off.

"Take me to Frankie's place."

Valentino shakes his head. "That's not a good idea, Lia. I want you at my house, where I have security in place to protect you."

I can barely stomach the fragments of chaos lingering around my home. The string of sentences forming in my head doesn't come out as eloquent. "I want to be somewhere comfortable. Home. Here. There were people here, to do what? Take me? Where would they take me? I don't want to be locked away in some strange house. Why is this happening?"

The hardest part about tonight is making sense of it all. I can feel the mixture of adrenaline, shock, and fear crashing over me like a tidal wave. I can't stop looking over every inch of my bedroom. The voices of Valentino's men are distant as they move out of my apartment.

"I'm going to figure that out, Lia. I swear." Valentino's sharp blue eyes burrow into mine with an overwhelming sense of sincerity emanating from them. I want to believe him, and he's keeping me safe. It's exactly what I want him to do. But all of this is out of my depth. This isn't what I imagined protecting me from Saul Caputo looked like. I just didn't want the creep to steal my virginity or force my parents into an impossible situation.

Valentino waits patiently for me to gather a few of my things before driving me to Frankie's apartment. It's not lost on me that it's nearly three in the morning. I don't want to call at this hour, but I don't want to show up unannounced either. The smart decision is to stay wherever Valentino tells me, but everything's still so new between us. I want to feel safe, but also be in a familiar space. I just want the comfort of being around family; family that hasn't agreed to leverage my time with mobsters.

When we step into the chilly night, Valentino signals to the men who belong to his business or family like it's a movie. They rush into position before Valentino's energy encourages me to walk with him. The way his arm hovers across my lower back as he ushers me toward a hulking black SUV makes me feel like the Secret Service is moving the president. After slipping into the back seat, he shuts the door, but I can still hear him speaking.