Chapter 16
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Matteo
The reports blur together after six hours. I set down Enzo's timeline and pick up Rafael's, comparing the numbers for the third time.
Thirty-two names spread across my desk in various files.
Thirty-two people who had access to information about Alessia's movements, our routes, our schedules.
I've been working through them methodically, looking for gaps in alibis, inconsistencies in timelines, anything that would point to the leak.
My whiskey sits untouched in its glass, ice melted down to slivers hours ago. I've been at this since yesterday, and the only thing I've accomplished is giving myself a headache and a growing sense of paranoia.
I know the traitor is someone outside the core. Someone who doesn't understand that betraying me means choosing a slow death.
I lean back and the chair creaks under my weight. My neck is stiff from hunching over the desk all night, shoulders knotted with tension that won't ease no matter how I shift position.
I need to move. Need to clear my head before I start seeing threats in every shadow and betrayal in every face. The walls of this study feel like they're closing in, the air too thick to breathe properly.
I push away from the desk and head for the door. The hallway outside stretches long and quiet in the early morning, my footsteps echoing on marble.
That's when I see them.
Romeo stands outside the library with Alessia, and she's got her arms full of books, trying to balance what looks like at least five hardcovers against her chest. Her dress is short—too short—and I don’t like it one bit.
They're talking—I can hear her laugh from here, light and genuine in a way that makes something uncomfortable twist in my chest—but then Romeo shifts closer and his hand goes to her elbow like he's steadying her yet his hand stays there longer than it should.
I am already feeling the anger rise inside of me the instant I see them. Romeo, that little shit, has disobeyed my orders and let Alessia out of the room again, when I had strictly forbidden it. Not to mention that Alessia has also ignored my warning about flirting with the men who work for me.
Then, she stops laughing, and I watch her body language change in an instant, shoulders pulling back and her smile disappearing as she tries to step away from his touch without dropping the books.
Romeo doesn't let go. His fingers stay wrapped around her elbow, holding her in place, and he leans in closer to say something I can't quite hear from this distance. Whatever it is makes Alessia's face flush red, and she jerks her arm trying to pull free of his grip.
"Let go of me, Romeo," her voice carries down the hallway now, sharp with discomfort.
"Come on, Signora." Romeo's voice has taken on a tone I don't like, familiar and suggestive in a way that makes my hands curl into fists at my sides. "We both know you’ve been flirting with me from the beginning."
The books fall from Alessia's arms, hitting the marble floor with a series of heavy thuds that echo through the corridor.
She's staring at Romeo with an expression caught somewhere between shock and fury, and her free hand has come up to shove at his chest, trying to create distance he's not allowing.
"Get your hands off me right now," she snaps, still pushing at him.
Romeo's other hand comes up to catch her wrist, and now he's got both her arms, holding her in place while he looks down at her with an expression that makes me want to tear out his throat with my bare hands. "Hey! You're usually so friendly with me, why are you acting weird now?"
That is enough! I see red. Heat floods my veins.
Not anger—I know anger, know how to control it and use it.
This is worse. This is the kind of rage that makes my vision narrow and my hands shake with the need to put them on him, that fills my mouth with the taste of violence and makes every muscle in my body coil tight with the urge to move, to act, to make him bleed for putting his hands on her.
For not listening to her when she clearly tells him to stop.
And then plays stupid on top of it, turning things around, acting like she wants this.
I'm moving before the thought fully forms, boots silent on marble as I close the distance. Twenty feet. Fifteen. Ten. Romeo doesn't notice me until I'm almost on top of him, and when he does, his smile dies like someone snuffed out a candle.
"Romeo." My voice comes out flat, stripped of inflection. "Step away from her."
He does immediately, hands coming up in a gesture that's half surrender, but I catch the way his eyes flick to Alessia and then back to me, like he's calculating whether he can talk his way out of whatever he sees in my expression. "Don Romano, I was just—"
"I know what you were doing." I stop three feet from him, close enough to smell his fear-sweat cutting through his cologne. "You were putting your hands where they don't belong."
His throat bobs. "I didn't mean—"
"You meant exactly what you did."
Alessia sets her books down on the side table against the wall. Her hands shake slightly, but she doesn't speak.
"Marco," I call without looking away from Romeo. "Get over here."
Marco appears from his post down the corridor, and I catch the way his eyes immediately go to Alessia before settling on Romeo, and there's something in his expression that I file away for later—resentment, maybe, or blame, like this is somehow her fault. "Yes, Don Romano?"
“Call all the guards. Now.”
Within three minutes, eight guards line the corridor walls. They stand at attention. Nobody moves.
"You know the rules," I say, keeping my voice level and conversational because shouting would give Romeo the impression that this is about emotion rather than consequences.
"You know boundaries exist for a reason.
No inappropriate comments. No touching unless it's part of your job to move someone out of danger. "
"Yes, Don Romano." His voice shakes.
"Then explain to me what you were doing just now."
"I—" He stops. Swallows hard. Starts again. "She... I thought—"
"You thought wrong." I take a step closer, and he presses back against the wall like he wants to sink through it. "When a woman says let go, you should let go."
"No, I—"
"Yes." The word cuts through his stammering. "You need to understand why that kind of behavior is dangerous in my house."
His face drains of color until he's white as the marble beneath our feet. "Don Romano, please, I'm sorry, I swear I'll never—"
"You're right about that last part. You won't."
I turn to Marco without taking my eyes off Romeo's face. "Give me your knife."
Marco doesn't hesitate, but I see his jaw tighten as he reaches for his belt, and when his eyes flick to Alessia again there's definitely anger there now—not at Romeo for crossing the line, but at her for being the reason his friend is about to lose something.
His hand goes to his belt and comes back with a folding knife—four-inch blade with a serrated edge, the kind we all carry for utility work and emergencies.
He extends it toward me handle-first. I take it, feel the weight of it in my palm, then hold it out toward Romeo. "Take it."
Romeo stares at the knife like it's a snake. "Don Romano, please—"
"Take the knife, Romeo."
His hand trembles badly when he reaches out and wraps his fingers around the handle. The blade catches the morning light coming through the high windows, throwing small reflections across the marble floor and walls.
"Your left hand," I say, still in that same level, conversational tone that's more frightening than shouting would be. "Pinky finger. I want you to cut it off at the joint closest to your palm."
The silence that crashes through the corridor is absolute. Not one guard moves, not one guard breathes, and I can feel the weight of their attention even though they're all staring straight ahead at nothing.
Romeo stares at the knife. "Don Romano—"
"Do it yourself, or I'll have Marco hold you down and do it for you. Your choice."
His breathing goes ragged, almost hyperventilating. Sweat runs down his temple in visible tracks, drips off his jaw onto his shirt collar. He looks at me with desperate hope, like maybe if he waits long enough, I'll tell him this was just a test and he's passed it.
I don't.
"Now, Romeo."
"Matteo, stop!" Alessia's voice cuts through the corridor. She moves toward me quickly, and I see her reaching for my arm.
I don't turn to look at her. "Stay back, Alessia."
"Don’t do this. He made a mistake, it was a misunderstanding—"
"He understood perfectly." I keep my eyes locked on Romeo, who's frozen with the knife trembling in his grip. "This doesn't concern you. Step back."
"It does concern me!" Her voice goes higher, desperate as she moves closer. "He was talking to me, you can't punish him like this."
Now I do turn my head slightly, just enough to catch her in my peripheral vision. "Yes, I can. And I will. This is the last time I'm going to tell you to stay back."
She grabs my arm anyway, her fingers digging into the fabric of my shirt sleeve with surprising strength. "Please. Matteo, please, don't do this. Punish him some other way. Dock his pay, demote him, anything else, just please not this—"
"No." The word comes out final and absolute. She must hear the finality in it because her grip on my arm loosens, her fingers going slack. When I look at her directly, her face has gone pale as bone, freckles standing out in stark contrast, and her eyes are too bright with tears or rage or both.
I turn back to Romeo without saying anything else to her.
"On your knees. Left hand on the floor, palm down."
He doesn't move. His whole body has gone rigid with fear, muscles locked up so completely he might as well be carved from stone.
"Romeo. On your knees. I'm not going to tell you again."