THIRTY-NINE
She was fire and fucking ruin.
A brand on my skin.
Paula was never meant to be that – not this kind of need, not this ache that twisted into obsession.
And yet, here she was, burned into me, coursing through my veins, a drug I couldn’t quit.
I didn’t do soft. Or fucking forever. I took what I wanted and left, knowing full well they would never want more of me once they glimpsed the truth behind the mask. No one ever got close enough to carve their name into my bones.
But she had. Without asking.
Without mercy.
I’d known she wasn’t like the others the moment she’d walked through my office door.
The first time I’d seen her, she’d looked like trouble coated in that wet, peach lipstick. I’d already imagined those lips around my dick without even speaking a word to her.
A little too sharp, a little too guarded, she had stood at the edge of a shadow she had no business stepping into. And still, she’d walked straight into my tempest, head high, daring me to devour her whole.
And I had.
Fuck, had I ever.
And I would again. And again.
I could still taste her on my tongue, feel the scratch of her nails, the way her breath had caught right before she splintered beneath me.
She was a contradiction – sugar and venom, curves and steel.
She fought me even as she yielded where it counted.
That made the chase so much better – a fucking high.
And Christ, I loved breaking her.
Not in the way that weak fuck before me had tried to. Not in the way that left bruises in places meant for affection.
I broke her in the way that had us both begging for more. In the way that had her whispering my name like a confession.
But love?
I didn’t do love. I wasn’t entirely sure I knew how to.
Not the way she deserved. Not the way she needed.
I wanted her. I fucking needed her. But I was well aware I wasn’t a man for happy endings. I was made for violence and sin, for bloodied knuckles and things I had no intention repenting for. And she?
She was the one thing that made me wish I could be something more.
I exhaled, rolling my shoulders as the vision of her sleeping in my arms burned. In me, over me, through me. Incinerating everything I thought I was.
The way she’d looked at me just a few minutes ago – wrecked and undone, but defiant as hell – had made the feral arsehole in me go rampant.
Because she’d thought I would let those sins slide.
Fuck… I could lie to myself all I wanted. But I knew. I fucking knew.
She was mine. I was hers.
And though I didn’t know how to love, I couldn’t get my claws out of her. Even if it tore us apart.
If she ever forgot that, I’d be there to remind her. Thoroughly.
When her breathing slowed, evening out into that telltale bliss-drunk daze, I wrenched my gaze away before I did something reckless – again. Like dragging her back under me and wrecking her until she couldn’t stand for a week.
The silence pulsed in my ears, taking me back into the real world.
I slid off the bed, walking over to the battlefield of clothing I’d torn from her earlier. My shirt was a wrinkled casualty. My jeans hung half-open, and as I buttoned them up, my gaze glided – unfortunately – back to the bed.
Which was a monumental mistake. Because there she was, lying face down, her perky bare ass streaked with the evidence of my earlier punishment like the sweetest fucking painting I had ever done.
My dick jerked – an impatient bastard with no sense of restraint.
I had to get out before I ended up filling that ass.
As if on cue, my phone lit up, the vibration stark against the stillness of the space.
Vinnie: Meet you at the office. Issues.
Great. Well… the night was still young. I couldn’t imagine what other shitty things it had in store for me. But I was heading out anyway. There was an itch I needed to scratch.
With the last of my self-control, I made myself move towards the door as I collected my shoes on the way, and step into the hallway. The house was steeped in heavy silence, the kind that stretched thick between the walls housing people who had seen too much.
My bare feet didn’t make a sound against the cool wooden floor as I padded downstairs, heading for the door.
At the base of the stairs, I shoved the shoes on—
And suddenly heard a creak of leather to my left.
I didn’t jump, but the way the sound sliced through the quiet had my instincts baring their teeth.
I looked over.
Matteo stood there – a slab of muscle and menace, built like he’d crawled out of some underground fighting ring that had no rules or referees, just blood and broken bones.
His dark-blond buzz had deliberate claw-like slashes shaved into the sides, as if he wanted to look like he’d been mauled by a fucking bear.
Thick, black ink curled up his sinewy neck, disappearing beneath a black T-shirt that didn’t do much to hide the fact that his body might as well be used as a battering ram.
That was a statement, if I’d ever seen one.
I hadn’t really stood this close to him until now. And just because he was nearly my size, I somehow wondered if everyone else saw me the same way.
And when my gaze met his, I nearly flinched.
Because I’d been staring at a near-identical pair of eyes just minutes ago, right before I’d fucked her into oblivion.
Only these were looking at me like they already knew too much, and I almost recoiled.
A memory plopped into my mind: of Paula calling her brothers good boys.
Good boys, my arse.
This one looked like he came out of the womb tattooed and carrying a fucking switchblade. And judging by the look on his face, it seemed he took the first flight here just for the pleasure of sizing me up.
I squared my shoulders, spine straightening instinctively as the little hairs rose on the back of my neck.
‘Which one are you?’ I asked, locking eyes with him. ‘The oldest?’
The corner of his mouth twitched – not a smile. More like the slow pull of a trigger.
‘The one who does the cutting.’
His voice was like the kind you heard in movies when the killer called from inside the house.
I let out a sharp puff of air. ‘What do the rest do then?’
‘One has a green thumb, the other is wicked with a mop.’
Threat received. Message clearly fucking delivered.
We stared at each other.
I reached for the door handle, fully prepared to step into the night and let my darkness do the talking – but then… He tutted.
He. Fucking. Tutted at me.
Like a schoolteacher catching some delinquent sneaking out for a smoke break.
I turned my head very slowly, my fingers tightening around the handle as I glanced back at the bastard.
‘Now where might you be going at this time of night, Hollywood?’
I couldn’t help the wicked grin that took over the side of my face. It usually made people either back the fuck off or get reckless enough to try their luck.
‘Hunting,’ I said.
He tapped a finger against his bicep. A little too casual for a man who looked like he kept a machete under his bed.
Then he tapped it again. And a third time for good measure.
And that was when it hit me: it was a fucking family tic. Paula did the same thing when she was considering whether she wanted to stab me or kiss me.
‘You know where the fresh meat is?’ he asked, voice smooth as silk but carrying the promise of something much worse.
I exhaled through my nose, shaking my head. ‘Why? You itching to fillet a rabbit?’
A slow, shark-like grin stretched across his face. ‘I do like a good rabbit fillet.’
Jesus Christ.
A fucking demon from hell with a sense of humour. A deranged, should-be-institutionalised, long-body-count kind of humour.
‘Call me Cain,’ I said as we stepped outside, the early summer chill sneaking under my thin shirt.
‘I know your name, Cover Boy,’ he shot back, heading straight for the passenger seat of my Audi. ‘You can call me Matt.’
Without another damn word, he opened the door and dropped inside like an oversized slab of protein-fuelled trouble, and made himself at fucking home.
Fan-fucking-tastic.
I was going hunting a psycho – with a gangster.
My life was taking a really weird turn.
The engine grumbled to life beneath my hands, the deep, guttural sound swallowed by the narrow streets. A damp breeze drifted in through the open window, carrying the mingled scents of old stone, cigarette smoke, and something sweet.
Just like the rest of my week, Rome was a contradiction at night – both haunting and alive, threaded with history yet pulsing with the weight of the present.
‘How long have you been fucking my sister?’
The words landed like a crack of a gunshot in a quiet room.
I didn’t flinch. If he expected me to panic and slam the brakes, send us both flying through the windscreen, he was going to have to work harder than that.
‘A couple of days,’ I said smoothly, shifting gears as if we were discussing the goddamn weather.
I shot a look at the rear-view mirror, where the glare of Vespa headlights sliced through the night.
‘What now? You get in my face? Make threats? Something cheesy about slicing my balls off?’
I turned onto Via del Corso, rolling into a sea of sluggish traffic. Rome on a Sunday night was a special kind of hell. Tourists wandered like sleepwalkers under neon lights, street performers with dead eyes juggling knives, locals pressing their horns like it were a national sport.
‘Yeah,’ he said flatly, watching the road ahead as if he weren’t actively plotting my murder.
His fingers drummed lazily against the car door.
I exhaled through my nose. ‘Is that what you told that psycho, too?’
His fingers stopped drumming.
‘I didn’t know,’ he said.
A dry chuckle left my throat. ‘Didn’t know what? That she was with him?’
His jaw flexed. ‘That he was hurting her.’
I let that hang in the air for a moment, let it curdle between us. Then let out a low, but utterly humourless laugh.
‘You expect me to believe that?’
I really did not want to strangle my woman’s brother tonight.
He didn’t even need to answer me. The truth was already there, in the rigid way he sat, in the muscle ticking in his jaw like he was hiding something.