Chapter 16
MATTEO
I haven’t been sleeping. I haven’t been eating.
I haven’t been able to keep my heart from hammering in my chest, going much faster than it should.
Standing around in the cold, marble-lined hallway isn’t helping any of that.
By now, I know every shape in the stones.
It mostly shows me faces—of those long dead, of those only recently dead. Both intolerable.
Since I got back from the walk in the park with the princess, I’ve also been seeing my horse Jack everywhere.
He had to be put down when I was twelve years old and I’ve never looked at another horse since.
We had some adventures, Jack and me. Out on the desert plains and steppes of California.
Jack and me, and my brother Ricardo and his horse Stella.
They’re both dead too, showing up through the shapes in the marble too.
Because I miss both of them more than I’ve let myself accept.
I was fine for the past seven years, doing the grunt work for Dante Moretti, getting shat on every step of the way. The rage and knowing I’d get revenge one day kept me going.
But now there’s just rage.
Because I’m farther away from getting that revenge than I ever was. At this rate, Dante will die of natural causes before I get to do it.
And it’s all down to Goldie.
If she hadn’t shown up in that gold dress at exactly the wrong time, I could be back in LA by now, men at my back, taking back what’s mine.
She’s gonna pay for that too. Fuck her pretty smiles and easy-going manner. Fuck her friendliness and snakiness. Fuck her spoiled girl sass. Fuck her…
That’s a problem too, because every time I see her, I want to fuck her just a little more than I did before I saw her the last time.
But if I do that, I’m a dead man.
I see her in the shapes in the marble too. Mostly naked, full breasts bare, nipples hard and full like ripe cherries, her curves beautiful like the endless desert hills, shimmering gold even when she’s got nothing on.
Yeah, that’s not gonna fly.
I clear my throat and shift my weight, look at the carpet instead of the walls, because at least there are no shapes to see there. And I think of nothing at all, just letting my black rage build and burn.
I’ve gotten very good at this in the past seven years. So good, I can go days with no thought but all the ways I’ll make Dante scream for what he did to my family.
It’s a good way to pass the time.
Or was.
Because nothing can calm me anymore. Not now that I’m free again and could be getting my revenge if it weren’t for Goldie and her old man.
I can’t be wasting my freedom pining for a woman I can never have. No matter how much her eyes glitter like diamonds and how the soft, pleasant sound of her voice reminds me of the days before burning rage was all I am.
But I didn’t lie to her. I don’t want to remember those days. I just want to let my rage out and burn everything it touches. Including Goldie, if she gets in my way.