Valentina's POV
The door didn't just open; it was kicked inward, the handle slamming into the plaster wall with a violence that made the entire apartment shudder.
I was on my feet before I even registered who it was, instinct screaming at me to run, to hide, to grab the knife from the block on the counter.
But there was nowhere to go.
The studio was too small, too open, and Massimo was already inside.
He didn't look like the man who had left here an hour ago. The arrogance was gone, incinerated by a rage so pure it distorted his features.
His lip was split, swollen and angry, a vivid red line against the pallor of his skin. There was dried blood crusted around his nostril and on his collar.
But it was his eyes, wild and bloodshot, that terrified me the most.
He wasn't looking at me.
He was looking at a reflection of his own humiliation.
He didn't speak. There was no preamble, no accusations hurled across the room to justify what was coming.
