Chapter 25 #3
"Dead before they hit the ground." I swallow hard, and I can feel my pulse hammering in my wrists the same way it did that night, terror and adrenaline making everything too sharp, too clear.
"Then there were guns on my father. Four of them pointing at his head, his chest. And Arian was standing there with this knife in his hand—the knife my father had given him as a wedding present. "
Her arms tighten around me. "The knife that did this?" She touches the scar again and I nod.
"He grabbed me when I tried to fight, twisted my arm behind my back.
" The memory makes my breath catch because I can still feel his fingers digging into my bicep, still feel the panic of being held immobile while my father stood there surrounded by enemies.
"He put the blade right here, and the metal was cold against my skin, sharp enough I felt it break through before he even pressed down.
" My throat wants to close, wants to stop me from saying the rest, but I force the words out.
"He said—" Christ, I can hear his voice in my head, can hear exactly how calm he sounded, how reasonable, like he was giving me advice about homework instead of holding a knife to my face while men aimed guns at my father.
"What?" Her voice is soft, careful. "What did he say?"
"That if I moved even an inch, Emilio would put a bullet in my brain and make my father watch me die before they killed him too.
That I should stay very still and watch and learn.
" The words taste like battery acid coming up, burning my throat, making me want to spit them out and scrub my mouth clean.
"Learn what happens to Romanos who don't bow to Moretti power. "
She's quiet for a long moment, and I'm grateful for the silence because I need to breathe, need to remember that I'm here in the pool with Alessia and not back in that God forsaken warehouse with my uncle's knife cutting into my face.
She just holds me, her heartbeat steady against my chest. "Did Emilio say anything? "
"Gave a whole fucking speech about territory, about respect, about my father being too proud and too stubborn to see that the world was changing.
" I can still see Emilio's face—that smile, cold and certain, like he was explaining basic arithmetic.
"About how this was business, nothing personal, just the natural order of things.
Then he put the gun to my father's head, and I tried to move—tried so hard to break free, to do something, anything—but Arian just pressed the knife deeper, cutting me, and whispered that it would be over soon. "
The gunshot echoes in my skull, loud enough that I flinch even now, seventeen years later and hundreds of bodies between that moment and this one. Alessia feels it, presses closer.
"I'm sorry." Her whisper breaks something in my chest.
"The sound. It was so loud in that enclosed space, so impossibly loud that I couldn't hear anything else for minutes after, just this ringing in my ears that wouldn't stop.
And then he just... dropped." Her hand finds mine beneath the water, laces our fingers together, and I grip her so hard I'm probably hurting her but I can't make myself let go.
"And your uncle?"
"He spit on my father's body while his blood was still spreading across the floor, while I was still being held with a knife to my face.
" Rage surges hot and immediate, makes my pulse spike and my vision narrow.
I want to kill him again, want to make it slower and more painful, want to make him feel a fraction of what I felt.
"My own blood. Standing over my father's corpse, spitting on him like he was garbage.
While Emilio laughed and his men joined in, all of them laughing at the Romano don bleeding out on a warehouse floor. And then he left."
"How did you get away?"
"Emilio let me go because he thought I was broken, thought watching my father die would destroy whatever fight I had left.
" The humiliation of it still burns—being dismissed as harmless, as too young and too traumatized to be a threat, being patted on the head like a child who'd just learned a hard lesson.
"Said I was just a boy, too broken to be dangerous.
That I should go home and remember this night every time I thought about challenging Moretti authority. "
"But it didn't break you."
"It didn't break me." My hand tightens on hers. "I took my father's gun from his body, and it was still warm from his hand, still had his fingerprints in the blood on the grip. And I hunted Arian down like the animal he was."
Her breath catches. "You killed him."
"Found him six miles away in a safe house, celebrating with Moretti money.
" I can still smell the cordite from the shots, still feel the recoil traveling up my arms, still see the surprise on his face when he realized the broken boy had followed him.
"Walked in, put two bullets in his chest so he'd know it was coming.
Then I waited while he choked on his own blood, waited until he looked me in the eyes and understood exactly what his betrayal had cost him.
Then one more bullet in his head to make sure he was finished, and then I took his knife and I carved our crest into his fucking corpse so everyone who found him would know a Romano had done it. "
Silence settles between us, just water lapping and cicadas and her breathing against my neck, and I wait for her to pull away, to realize she's holding a monster who killed his own uncle at seventeen and felt nothing but satisfaction.
"I was seventeen," I say again, quieter now. "And I'd just inherited an empire I had no fucking idea how to hold on to it."
"But you did." Her hand cups my face, forcing me to look at her. "You survived."
"Barely survived those first few months.
" The admission scrapes out, and I hate how vulnerable it makes me sound, but she's already seen the worst of me and hasn't run yet.
"That first month after I took over, I had to prove I wasn't easy prey.
Had to show everyone that the boy died in that warehouse and what remained would break anyone who tested me. "
"That's when you became Il Diavolo."
"That's when I became what I needed to be to stay alive.
" I touch the scar again, feeling the raised tissue that's been with me longer than I've been without it.
"This reminds me every time I look in a mirror.
That trust is a knife waiting to cut you.
That mercy is weakness that gets you killed.
That the only way to survive in this world is to be harder, colder, more ruthless than everyone else who wants what you have. "
Dawn lightens the sky—deep purple fading to pink.
She's quiet for a long moment, studying my face in the growing light, then: "Do you really believe that?"
"I have to believe it because it's kept me alive this long."
"Why?"
"Because if I don't—" My voice cracks, and I hate the weakness in it but I can't seem to stop now that I've started bleeding these truths out.
"If I let myself be anything softer, if I trust the wrong person or show mercy at the wrong moment, I'll end up like my father.
Dead on a warehouse floor with a bullet in my head while my enemies laugh. "
Her thumb traces the scar, gentle. "Or maybe you'll end up human again."
The words knock the breath out of me, and I want to argue, to tell her she doesn't understand this world or what it costs to survive in it, but I can't make the words come. Because she's looking at my scar—at the mark of my worst night, the thing that shaped me into a monster—and she's not afraid.
"I don't know how to be anything else," I admit, and the confession feels like tearing something vital out of my chest and handing it to her.
"Then I'll remind you." She leans forward, presses her lips to the scar. Soft. Tender. "Every time you forget."
Something breaks open in my chest—not painful but terrifying in how complete it is, how thoroughly she's destroying the walls I've spent years building.
I pull her closer, bury my face in her neck, and for the first time since that warehouse I let myself feel the weight of that night without trying to armor myself against it.
The terror of watching my father die. The grief of losing him and my uncle in one night.
The boy who died because a man had to be born to survive.
She holds me through it without trying to tell me it's okay when we both know it's not.
When I finally pull back, her eyes are wet. "Thank you," she whispers. "For telling me."
I nod because I can't speak yet, can't explain that she's the first person who's ever made me feel like maybe being human isn't the same as being weak.
"We should go inside." My voice comes out rough and scraped raw from talking. "Before the staff wakes up and finds us naked in the pool."
A small smile touches her lips. "Would that be so terrible?"
She laughs—soft and tired but real, and the sound does something to me that I don't have words for. I stand, lifting her with me, and carry her up the steps. The air is cool against wet skin. Birds are starting to wake in the garden, filling the silence with song.
I wrap a towel around her shoulders, then one around my waist. She leans against me, exhausted from the night, from everything I just told her. From choosing not to run even though she probably should.
"Matteo?" Her voice is quiet.
"Yeah?"
"I'm still angry about the marriage. About you deciding without asking me first."
"I know you are, and you have every right to be."
"But I understand why you did it."
I press my lips to the top of her head, breathe in chlorine and jasmine. "That's all I can ask for right now."
We walk back to the house together in silence. When we reach the bedroom, she lets the towel fall and climbs into bed. I follow, pulling her against my chest. Her body fits perfectly in the curve of mine—like we were made for this, for each other.
"Sleep," I murmur against her hair, and my eyes are already getting heavy now that the adrenaline from telling her everything has worn off. "We have time to figure this out."
She's already drifting off, her breathing evening out into the rhythm of sleep. But just before sleep takes her completely, she whispers: "I see you. Not the monster. You."
And for the first time since that warehouse eighteen years ago, I believe someone actually does.