Chapter 2 Matteo
Matteo
Metal clangs against the imported Italian tile.
The ash wood bat rolls away from her boots, spinning to a stop against the baseboards.
I drop my hand. Muscle fibers twitch in my forearm.
The sheer force it took to stop myself from snapping the bat in half vibrates straight up into my heavy shoulder.
She stands there. Defiant. Furious. Beautiful.
Her curves are pressed flush against the black marble island of the Il Corvo penthouse kitchen. Softness colliding with cold stone. My mind spirals. The war room in my head violently shifts focus. Twenty years of calculated mafia strategy evaporates in a single second.
Mine.
She belongs to me.
The scent hits me. Chalkboard dust and fresh linen.
It cuts through the sterile, expensive air of the penthouse.
It smells like a normal life. It smells like third-grade classrooms and Sunday mornings.
It has absolutely no business being inside a fortified mob safe house in the West Loop of Chicago.
"You think you can just buy a person?" Her voice shakes. She tries to hide the tremor with rage. She fails. Sassy. Sharp. Terrified.
"I can do whatever I want." My voice comes out rough. Coarse. It scratches my throat on the way out. "And I want you exactly where you are."
I take a single step back. I need space before I do something stupid.
Before I put my hands on her waist and drag her against my chest. The size difference between us is almost comical.
I am a brutally heavy man. Built for violence.
Built for taking hits and giving them back ten times harder.
She is soft. Round in all the right places.
The kind of woman a man ruins himself for.
I turn away from the island. The heavy gold chain around my neck swings, clinking softly against my collarbone. I walk toward the wet bar on the far side of the massive living area.
"Do not turn your back on me!" Clara snaps.
"You don't have the bat anymore." I pick up the heavy glass tumbler I poured earlier, the amber liquid swirling against the crystal. "You're not a threat to me, Clara. You never were."
"I will find a knife." Her boots slap against the hardwood. She is following me. Good. Let her follow. "I will find a knife and I will use it while you sleep."
"I don't sleep." I lift the glass. The scotch burns a clean trail down my throat. "And there are no knives in this penthouse. I had my men clear the kitchen before you arrived. You'll find spoons. Whisks. Flour. Sugar. No blades."
She stops dead in the middle of the Persian rug. Her chest heaves under her fitted sweater. She crosses her arms, pushing up curves that make my jaw lock. Heat crawls up my neck. I take another drink just to cool the feral possessiveness burning in my veins.
"You're insane." She shakes her head. Wild curls bounce around her shoulders. "My father wouldn't do this. He wouldn't hand me over to a mob boss."
"I'm the underboss." I correct her. Blunt. Exact. "My cousin Dominic runs the family. But your father didn't deal with Dominic. He came to me."
"Arthur Reeves is just a gambler." She spits the words like venom. She wants to believe it. She needs to believe the man who raised her is only guilty of bad bets, not a man who trades stolen goods with the mafia.
"Arthur Reeves is a degenerate gambler who got in bed with the Bellanti family.
" I set the glass down. The crystal clinks sharply against the granite counter.
"He owed them a million dollars. He couldn't pay.
So he stole their shipping logs. Detailed routes of every illegal cargo shipment coming into the South Side of Chicago.
He thought he could leverage that information to blackmail us into clearing his debt. "
Her face goes pale. The defiance cracks for a fraction of a second. She knows her father. She knows the late nights, the moves, the hushed phone calls. She never knew the names of the monsters he was talking to.
"The Bellantis found out." I walk slowly back toward the center of the room. The floor-to-ceiling windows behind her display the sprawling, rain-slicked Chicago skyline. "They put a death mark on him. And they put one on you."
Rain batters the reinforced glass. The sound is a violent drumbeat.
My chest tightens. The rain always brings it back.
Twenty years ago. I was twenty-four.
The phone call came in the dead of night. Turi's voice on the other end, frantic and broken.
The tires of my car hydroplaning on the slick Chicago pavement. Running down a dark alley six blocks from a warehouse. The smell of garbage and copper.
Finding my father, Carlo Costa, lying in the freezing rain. His blood washing away into the storm drains. Identifying his cold, rigid body on a metal table at the county morgue the next morning.
My mind has been a war room ever since that night. There has been no quiet. No peace. Just maps, shipping routes, body counts. I have spent two decades hunting the Bellantis, dismantling their empire piece by piece, turning myself into a weapon of pure retaliation.
But looking at Clara Reeves right now. Standing in the middle of this penthouse. The noise in my head simply stops.
The silence is deafening.
"So you bought the debt." She practically whispers it. "You took the shipping logs and you paid off his debt to save his life."
"I took the logs." I stop two feet in front of her.
The urge to touch her is a physical ache in my knuckles.
I shove my hands deep into the pockets of my slacks.
"I didn't do it to save his life. I did it because those logs give me the exact coordinates of the Bellanti armories.
Your father is currently on a private jet to South America, courtesy of my bank account.
He surrendered his debt to the Costa family. "
"And the collateral." Her throat swallows hard.
"And the collateral." My gaze drops to her lips. Plump. Pink. Fucking perfect. "You."
"I am a third-grade teacher." She squares her shoulders. The sassy spark roars back to life. God, I love it. "I grade spelling tests. I make construction paper turkeys. I don't belong in a mafia war."
"You don't." I agree instantly. "Which is why you are staying in this penthouse. The Il Corvo restaurant downstairs is neutral ground, but this floor belongs entirely to me. Private elevator. Biometric locks. Bulletproof glass. Soundproof walls. The Bellantis don't even know this place exists."
She scoffs. A bitter, sharp sound. "So I'm a prisoner."
"You're protected."
"Same thing." She spins around on her heel. She marches straight past me toward the heavy steel doors of the private elevator.
I don't chase her. I don't need to. I just turn my head and watch the sway of her hips.
She reaches the elevator bank. She slams her hand against the call button. The red light above the panel remains dark. She hits it again. Faster. Harder. Frustration rolls off her shoulders. She searches the wall for a keypad, finding only a sleek black square of glass.
"Thumbprint scanner." I call out to her across the massive living room. "Retinal scan for the override. Only my biometrics open those doors. You can hit that button until your hand bleeds. The car isn't coming up."
She drops her hand. She rests her forehead against the cool steel of the elevator door.
Turi warned me about this.
Just this morning.
Turi sat at the head of the long oak table in the basement war room of the Costa compound. The trusted elder. Carlo's best friend. He raised me. He raised Dante, Nico, Dominic, all of us.
Turi's silver hair caught the glow of the surveillance monitors as he read the file on Arthur Reeves. He rubbed his weathered face with a tired hand.
Leave the Reeves girl out of it, Matteo. Turi had looked at me with those ancient, heavy eyes. Take the logs. Let the Bellantis have the father. Let the girl run. Do not bring innocent blood into this house.
I had nodded. I had fully intended to listen to him. Turi is the moral spine of our violent existence.
Then I saw the surveillance photos of Clara.
I saw her smiling outside her elementary school. I saw her buying coffee. I saw the curve of her waist and the fierce, determined way she walked through the city.
The decision was biological. Chemical. Instantaneous.
I bought the debt three hours later. I brought her here. I claimed her. Turi would call it madness. Turi would say I am compromising the war effort for a woman I don't even know. Turi is absolutely right. I do not care.
Clara turns around slowly. The fight hasn't left her eyes. It's just regrouping. Recalculating.
"I have a life." She walks slowly back into the living space. She keeps a wide berth around my massive frame. Smart girl. "I have a job. I have a cat. I have a lease."
"Your rent is paid for the next six months.
" I list the logistics flatly. "Your cat, Pistachio, is currently eating premium salmon at my brother Dante's apartment.
Dante has severe anger issues but he likes animals.
Pistachio is fine. Your school principal received an email stating you are taking an immediate sabbatical for family emergencies. "
Her mouth falls open. Pure outrage paints her features. "You hijacked my entire existence in one afternoon."
"I secured your existence." I correct her again.
My thick, coarse beard scratches against my collar as I tilt my head.
"If you had gone home today, the Bellanti cleaners would have been waiting in your hallway.
They would have dragged you into a van. They would have tortured you to find out where your father went.
They would have left your body in an alley to send a message. "
My own words taste like ash. The image of her bleeding out in the rain flashes behind my eyes. The war room in my mind violently rejects the scenario. I will burn Chicago to the ground before a single drop of her blood touches the pavement.