Chapter 3 Matteo
MATTEO
The desert wants to kill you from the moment the sun clears the horizon.
I’ve spent my entire thirty years in Vegas, and I still haven’t made peace with it. The dry heat. The way it bakes into your bones before noon. Some people adapt. I just learned to fight back.
My pool is the only place in this city where I don’t feel like I’m slowly cooking alive.
I cut through the water with clean, even strokes. Fifty laps. That’s the magic number. Enough to burn the edge off whatever’s clawing at my insides.
Enough to shut my brain down for a little while.
A man in my line of work needs that. Silence. Stillness.
A way to stop replaying the crunch of bone under his knuckles or the wet sound a body makes when it hits concrete.
I learned a long time ago that violence has a cost. Not guilt. I don’t waste time on guilt. But the images stack up, layer after layer, and if you don’t find a way to clear them out, they’ll eat you alive.
The chlorine stings my eyes. Good. I focus on that instead of the blonde bartender who’s been living rent-free in my skull since last night.
I hit the wall after fifty laps and haul myself out. My phone’s in the shade where I left it. It’s lit up with a message from Shaw, the tech guy who handles our intel. I gave him nothing but a first name and place of employment twelve hours ago.
He delivered.
I sink into a patio chair and open the email.
Sierra Dixon. Twenty-four years old. Born and raised in Vegas. One year at community college, dropped out. Four years bartending at The Happy High Roller. Father and uncle co-own a shipping company. No criminal record. Not even a parking ticket.
Clean. Normal. The kind of woman who probably sleeps through the night without a gun under her pillow.
I scroll down to known associates. Family. Friends. The usual.
Then I see his name, and my stomach drops straight through the chair.
Viktor Ilyin. Listed as a recent romantic partner. Eight months together. Split four weeks ago, according to her social media.
My hand goes still on the screen.
They dated. She was with him. She let that piece of shit touch her, hold her, crawl into her bed.
So she wasn’t just some random woman he was harassing. She’s his. Or used to be.
My finger finds the scar above my right hip. The other one Viktor gave me. My shoulder twinges in sympathy.
Viktor Ilyin is a ghost. He moves through the city like smoke, never in one place long enough to catch. I’ve been tracking him for months, and last night was the first time I got close.
Then he slipped away.
My jaw clenches so hard my teeth ache.
Don Lorenzo wants him alive. Needs intel on Lightning, wants the body count low while the feds are watching. I follow orders. Always have.
But every cell in my body is screaming for blood.
I get dressed and head out. The drive to the casino takes twenty minutes, and I spend every one of them trying to figure out what to do with this information about Sierra.
She’s not with Viktor anymore. That should make her useless as a lead. I could follow her around, sure, but there’s no guarantee he’ll show up again. Last night might have been a one-time thing.
Except I have a feeling it wasn’t.
I saw the way he looked at her outside that coffee shop. The possessiveness. The rage barely leashed behind his cold eyes. A man like Viktor doesn’t let go of what he considers his. He’ll keep circling, keep pushing, until he either gets her back or destroys her.
The casino appears on my left. It’s the newest property in the Andretti’s hospitality empire, all glass and steel and the kind of quiet luxury that tells you real money changes hands here. I pull into the underground garage and take the elevator up.
Two soldiers flank the entrance to the restaurant. They nod at me as I pass, and I return the gesture without slowing.
The private room is in the back. Dark wood. Dim lighting. The smell of garlic and fresh bread thick in the air. Lorenzo is at his usual table with Santino, his consigliere. They’re deep in conversation about the hotel expansion, words like profit margin and revenue growth bouncing back and forth.
I don’t understand any of it. That’s not my job. My job is to break things. To hurt people. To make problems disappear.
Luca, Lorenzo’s youngest son, is at a separate table, working his way through a plate of carbonara despite it being barely eleven in the morning.
The business talk trails off. Lorenzo turns to me.
“Do you have anything to report?”
“I’ve been tracking Viktor. He’s been showing up at a coffee shop near the strip. Same place every day this week. Yesterday, I saw him corner a woman outside. Grabbed her hard enough to bruise.”
Lorenzo’s expression doesn’t change. He has a face like carved stone, hard and unreadable. Twenty years I’ve known this man, and I still can’t tell what he’s thinking most of the time. “And?”
“I had Shaw run her. Sierra Dixon. She’s his ex.”
That gets his attention. “Viktor’s woman?”
“She was. She ended it. He’s not taking it well.” I think of the fear in her eyes. “She’s a lead. But I don’t know how useful. They’re not together anymore. I can tail her, but there’s no guarantee he’ll come after her again.”
Santino speaks first. “Did you know I knew Viktor’s father?”
That catches me off guard. I didn’t.
“Boris Ilyin. Arrogant bastard, but effective. I see the same pride in his son. The kind that makes a man reckless.”
“Prideful,” Lorenzo repeats thoughtfully. His gaze settles on me. “And you think he still wants this woman?”
“That’s my read.”
“Then she’s your way in.” He steeples his fingers. “I’m done chasing Viktor. It’s time to make him come to us. Get close to her. Close enough to draw him out.”
I frown. “You want me to date her?”
Lorenzo’s mouth curves into something that isn’t quite a smile. “No. I want you to marry her.”
My body does what it does before a fight—goes quiet, shuts everything down. Except there’s no threat here. Just Lorenzo watching me like he didn’t just say something certifiably insane.
I wait for the rest of it. The actual order. The part that makes sense.
It doesn’t come.
“Marry her,” I repeat flatly.
“Yes.”
“You’re joking.”
“Do I look like I’m fucking joking?”
He doesn’t. Lorenzo never jokes. In two decades, I’ve seen him laugh maybe a handful of times, and it’s never been about something funny.
“Why?” The word comes out harder than I intended. “That’s extreme, even for us.”
“This is an extreme situation.” Lorenzo’s voice turns cold.
“Lightning is a problem. The lab we destroyed was a setback, not a solution. Viktor is connected to the production and distribution. We need him alive long enough to get information, which means we need to flush him out without killing him on sight.”
“And you think marrying some random bartender is the way to do that?”
“I think marrying his ex-girlfriend will drive him out of whatever hole he’s hiding in.”
My hands curl into fists under the table. “Dating her would accomplish the same thing.”
“Dating is temporary. Easily dismissed. But marriage?” Santino’s smile is knowing, almost cruel. “Marriage is permanent. Final. It tells Viktor he’s lost her forever.”
Forever.
The word sits in my chest like a stone.
I’ve never wanted to get married. Never saw the point. I keep things simple—women I won’t see again, no attachments, no one who can be used against me. The life I live is too violent for anything else.
And now Lorenzo wants me to tie myself to a woman I barely know. A woman with big brown eyes and bruises on her arm and a smile I can’t stop thinking about.
“I’ll find another way,” I hear myself say. “I’ve been tracking him for months. I’ll pick up his trail again.”
“You’ve had months and you’ve failed.” Lorenzo’s tone is flat. Dismissive. “Yesterday was the first time you got close, and he slipped through your fingers.”
My jaw goes tight. He’s not wrong, and that makes it worse.
“This isn’t a request, Matteo.”
Silence blankets the room. I’ve never refused an order. Not once. Even when the job made my skin crawl, I did what was asked because that’s who I am. Loyal. Obedient. A weapon to be pointed in whatever direction serves the family.
But this feels different.
This feels like being asked to crack open a door I’ve spent my entire life keeping locked.
“She’s a civilian,” I say, one last attempt. “She didn’t ask to be part of this.”
“No one asks.” Lorenzo’s eyes bore into mine. “But Viktor already made her part of it when he put his hands on her. You said yourself she’s scared of him. That he’s been harassing her since they split. Maybe she’d welcome the protection that comes with your name.”
What a fucking joke. My name is synonymous with blood and broken bones. The only protection I can offer is the kind that comes from being more dangerous than the monsters circling.
“Think of it as an arrangement,” Santino says smoothly. “Temporary. Once Viktor is handled, you can annul it.”
My gaze drifts to the wall. There’s a painting there, some abstract bullshit that probably cost more than my car. I stare at it without seeing.
Sierra Dixon.
I think about her standing behind that bar, all warmth and easy laughter despite the fear I could see lurking in her eyes. I think about the way she flinched when I asked about her bruises. The way she tried so hard to seem like everything was fine.
She’s tougher than she looks. I saw that much last night. But tough isn’t the same as prepared. And she has no idea what she’s already tangled up in.
“Fine.” The word scrapes out of my throat like gravel. “I’ll do it.”
Lorenzo nods, satisfied. “Good. Get close to her. Convince her to cooperate. Make it believable enough to enrage Viktor, and he’ll come running.”
I push back from the table and head for the door. My legs feel strange underneath me, disconnected from my body.
“Matteo.”
I stop but don’t turn around.
“Don’t let personal feelings complicate this.” Lorenzo’s voice follows me toward the door. “She’s a means to an end. Nothing more.”
Right.
I walk out of the restaurant without looking back. The casino floor spreads out in front of me, all flashing lights and ringing machines and people who have no idea how close they are to the kind of darkness that runs this city.
Marry her.
The command echoes in my skull.
I think about Viktor. The bullets he put in me. The bruises on Sierra’s arm.
Maybe Lorenzo’s right. Maybe this is the smartest play. Dangle what Viktor wants most in front of him and wait for him to make a mistake.
But as I step out into the blinding desert sun, I can’t shake the feeling that I’m the one walking into a trap.
And I have no idea if I’ll survive it.