Chapter 21 Matteo
Matteo
The coded message arrives at four in the morning, cutting through sleep with the sharp buzz of encrypted urgency.
I grab my phone from the nightstand, squinting at the screen in the darkness of my empty bedroom.
Isabella's been sleeping in the guest room since yesterday, putting physical distance between us after I gave her the portrait.
The space beside me feels cold, too big, a reminder of how she pulled away when I tried to get closer.
But Dom's text glows harsh on my phone screen: *Hornets moving upstate. Time to relocate.*
Fuck. I flip my coin between my fingers, silver catching the pale pre-dawn light filtering through the windows. Chase has operatives sniffing around our area. Too close for comfort. Too close to her.
I move to the window overlooking the forest, watching shadows shift between the trees.
This place has been perfect. Our own private world where Isabella can read in the sunroom and I can watch her pretend she doesn't notice me watching.
Where she curls against me at night like she's forgotten she's supposed to be my captive, not my woman.
The coin flips faster. Leaving means taking her back into the heart of Rosetti territory. Back to guards and surveillance and family meetings where she'll remember exactly what I am. What we are. Kidnapper and victim, not whatever the hell we've been pretending to be for the past few weeks.
But staying means risking Chase's men finding us. And if they take her...
The coin goes still in my palm. No. Not happening. Not ever.
I dress quietly in dark jeans and a white button-down, then start gathering essentials.
Laptop, encrypted phones, the Glock from my nightstand.
Business first, complications later. Except Isabella stopped being a complication somewhere between the restaurant and that first night she let me hold her.
When I have everything packed, I move down the hall to the guest room. The door is slightly ajar, and I push it open carefully, stepping into the space that smells like her perfume and the faint scent of the lavender soap she uses.
She's curled on her side, honey-blonde hair spilled across the pillow, one hand tucked beneath her cheek.
The morning light filtering through the curtains paints gold highlights across her skin, and for a moment I just watch her breathe.
Peaceful. Unguarded. Nothing like the careful mask she wears when she's awake.
I sit on the edge of the bed, the mattress dipping slightly under my weight.
"Matteo?" Her voice is soft with sleep, confused.
"We need to leave." I sit beside her, close enough to catch her scent but careful not to crowd her. "Chase's people are getting too close."
She sits up, immediately alert, and I watch her armor slide into place. The soft woman who whispered my name in her sleep disappears behind careful composure. "How close?"
"Close enough that Dom wants us back in the city. The mansion's more secure."
Something flickers in her expression. The safehouse has become familiar territory, a bubble where she's started to relax. The mansion means performing again, being Matteo Rosetti's captive for an audience of dangerous men.
"How long do we have?"
"An hour. Maybe two." I brush a strand of honey-blonde hair away from her face, and for once she doesn't pull away. "Pack light. Anything important we can send for later."
She nods, sliding from bed with efficient grace. I watch her move around the room, gathering clothes with the same careful precision she brings to everything. No complaints about the early departure or sudden change in plans. Just acceptance of another shift in the game neither of us chose to play.
But I catch her pausing at the nightstand where the portrait leans against the lamp, still wrapped in protective tissue paper. Her fingers hover over it for a long moment before she lifts it carefully, tucking it into her bag like it's made of spun glass.
My chest tightens. She can tell herself the gift doesn't mean anything, can pretend this is just survival, but she's not leaving that painting behind. The Unknown Woman is coming with us, proof that someone sees Isabella for who she really is.
Twenty-five minutes later, we're in the Aston Martin heading south toward Manhattan. Isabella sits beside me in yoga pants and one of my hoodies, looking smaller somehow in the oversized fabric. The morning air is cool enough to need heat, and I catch her shivering despite the jacket.
"Cold?"
"Just tired." But she's not tired. She's bracing herself, watching familiar territory disappear in the rearview mirror.
The silence stretches between us, loaded with everything we're not saying. Yesterday she told me the portrait didn't change anything. Yesterday she kissed my cheek and pulled away when I tried to turn it into something more. Yesterday she built her walls higher instead of letting me closer.
Part of me wants to fill the quiet with words, explanations, promises that things will be different once we're settled. But Isabella doesn't need my promises right now. She needs space to find her footing in whatever comes next.
So I flip my coin and drive, giving her the quiet she needs while the highway carries us toward everything complicated.
The Manhattan skyline rises ahead of us, all steel and glass and ambition. Home territory, but it feels different with Isabella beside me. More dangerous. Like bringing something precious into a war zone.
"Nervous?" I ask as we turn onto the Upper East Side.
"Should I be?"
"Dom's not as scary as he looks. Carmela's going to love you. And if anyone gives you shit, they answer to me."
She glances at me, something unreadable in her green eyes. "Is that supposed to be reassuring?"
"It's supposed to be true."
The Rosetti mansion looms at the end of its gated drive, three stories of modernist intimidation surrounded by security cameras and men in black suits. I watch Isabella take it in, cataloging exits and threats the way she's learned to do.
"It looks like a fortress," she says.
"It is a fortress. But it's also home." I kill the engine and turn to face her. "My family's going to want to know you. And you don't have to pretend to be anything other than what you are."
The front door opens before we reach it, Dom stepping onto the portico with his usual commanding presence. My older brother looks tired, stress lines deeper around his eyes, but he straightens when he sees Isabella.
"City's heating up," he says without preamble. "You were right to pull her out."
I catch Isabella's spine straightening at being discussed in third person, but she doesn't comment. Professional courtesy in the face of powerful men, something she's perfected over years of navigating Chase's world.
"Dom, this is Isabella," I say, watching my brother take her measure. "Isabella, my brother Domenico."
"Ms. Callahan." Dom's voice is formal but not unkind. He steps forward, and I see him consciously making himself less intimidating. "Welcome to our home."
"Thank you," Isabella replies, her museum manners surfacing automatically. "I appreciate your hospitality."
"No need for formalities," Dom says, and there's something sharp in his tone that makes me look at him closer. "You're under our protection now. That means something in this city."
The words hang in the air, weighted with implications that make Isabella's breath catch. Dom's not just being polite. He's making a public declaration, extending Rosetti protection whether she wants it or not.
Before she can process that fully, footsteps echo from inside the house, and Carmela appears in the doorway. Our sister takes one look at Isabella and grins, but it's not the sharp, predatory smile I expected. It's genuine warmth mixed with curiosity.
"Well, well," Carmela says, moving past Dom to study Isabella with open interest. "You're the one who's got my baby brother tied up in knots."
"Carmela," I warn, but she waves me off.
"What? It's a compliment. Matteo doesn't usually have the attention span for anything more complicated than a weekend." She turns back to Isabella, her expression gentling. "I'm Carmela. And you look like you could use coffee and a break from testosterone-heavy conversations."
Isabella blinks, clearly not expecting casual warmth from a Rosetti woman. But I catch the hint of a smile at the corners of her mouth, the first genuine expression she's worn since we left the safehouse.
"Coffee sounds perfect," she says.
"Excellent." Carmela links her arm through Isabella's, but it's protective rather than possessive. "Fair warning, the espresso machine is Italian and has opinions about everything. But I've learned to sweet-talk it into cooperation."
I watch them disappear into the house, Carmela's chatter filling the marble hallway with unexpected lightness. Isabella's shoulders relax incrementally with each step away from the formal entrance, away from the weight of being evaluated.
"She's not what I expected," Dom says quietly beside me.
"What did you expect?"
"Someone who breaks easier." He studies the doorway where they vanished. "She's got steel under all that polish. Good thing, considering what's coming."
"What's coming?"
Dom's expression hardens. "Chase made another move last night. Hit one of our supply lines. He's escalating."
The words follow me into the house, through marble corridors that suddenly feel less like home and more like the front lines of a war Isabella never asked to fight.
But as I follow the sound of laughter from the kitchen, I find Carmela and Isabella bent over the espresso machine, working together to coax perfect crema from its complicated mechanisms.
"The trick is to let it know you respect its artistic process," Carmela explains, adjusting dials with exaggerated care. "Italians don't respond well to being rushed."
"Like most artists," Isabella observes, and there's actual amusement in her voice.
"Exactly. You work with artists?"
"I work with their ghosts. Dead painters, mostly. European decorative arts."
"Ah, the safe ones. They can't hit on you or steal your ideas."
Isabella laughs, and the sound does something to my chest. Loosens knots I didn't realize had formed. This is what I wanted, what I hoped for. Isabella finding her place in the chaos of my world, my family accepting her not as my captive but as herself.
"Matteo," Carmela calls without looking up from the machine. "Your girlfriend has excellent taste in coffee. I approve."
"He's not my—" Isabella starts, but Carmela cuts her off.
"Honey, I've seen the way my brother looks at you. Whatever complicated situation you two have worked out, it's not casual." She glances at me over Isabella's head, something knowing in her dark eyes. "And the way you look at him suggests it's not one-sided."
Heat flushes Isabella's cheeks, and she focuses intently on the espresso machine. But she doesn't deny it, and that small omission makes my coin flip faster between my fingers.
Before I can say something that might spook her back behind her walls, heels click across marble, and Besiana appears in the kitchen doorway. My sister-in-law surveys the scene with the poised elegance she brings to everything, taking in Isabella's casual clothes and Carmela's animated gestures.
"You must be Isabella," Besiana says, extending a manicured hand. "I'm Besiana. It's lovely to finally meet you."
"Thank you." Isabella accepts the handshake, but I catch the slight tension in her shoulders. Another performance, another careful first impression.
"You carry yourself with such control," Besiana observes, pouring herself coffee with fluid grace. "Like someone used to being watched."
The insight cuts through Isabella's polished exterior to something raw underneath. I see her blink, surprised by the perception, the lack of judgment in Besiana's tone.
"I suppose I am," Isabella admits after a moment.
"Performance becomes survival when you're surrounded by powerful men," Besiana continues, her voice gentle but knowing. "But you're safe here. You don't have to be anyone but yourself."
The kindness in her words makes something crack open in Isabella's expression. She's spent so long being what other people need that someone offering her permission to just exist seems to catch her completely off guard.
The coin goes still in my palm as I lean against the doorframe, watching three of the most important women in my life find their rhythm around each other.
Isabella's walls aren't gone, but they're lower.
She's laughing at Carmela's stories about the espresso machine's previous victims, asking Besiana genuine questions about the art decorating the kitchen walls.
And when she catches me watching, she doesn't look away immediately. Just meets my gaze across the kitchen and offers me a small, real smile that promises nothing and everything.
"You know," Carmela says, glancing between us with barely contained mischief, "I think this might actually work out."
Isabella's smile falters slightly, but she doesn't retreat. Just takes a sip of perfect espresso and lets the comment hang in the air between us, weighted with possibility neither of us is ready to name.
But for the first time since she pulled away from me yesterday, I believe we might actually find our way to whatever this becomes. And sitting here in my family's kitchen, watching Isabella belong somewhere she never expected to fit, that feels like enough.
For now.