16. Siena
Siena
I wake up hungover as fuck. My mouth is dry, my head is pounding, and every inch of me aches. Groaning, I shift, cracking open one eye.
“Good morning, sunshine.” Olivia’s voice is far from sunshine-y. It’s flat and sad.
I pry open my other eye. She’s sitting in a chair across the living room, scrolling on her phone. My living room. So at least I made it home. “Last thing I remember is puking all over Matti’s shoes,” I say, voice hoarse. “What’d I miss?”
“Nothing you want to hear about,” Olivia says with a defeated expression.
“Try me,” I groan, fumbling for the bottle of water she hands me. My fingers barely work, but I manage to twist off the cap and take a long, greedy gulp.
She sighs, clearly reluctant, settling on the couch next to me as I sit up.
“It’s okay,” I assure her. “There’s nothing you can say that will upset me at this point. I think I’ve hit rock bottom in the humiliation department. Unless I stripped naked and tried to blow Matti while covered in vomit, I doubt you can hurt me.”
Olivia gives a humorless laugh. “Nothing like that. But other people were certainly a sloppy mess.”
“Oh, yeah?” I take another long drink, practically feeling my body rehydrating.
Water dribbles down my chin and chest, and I wipe it off the tank top and leggings I’m wearing that I don’t remember putting on, snagging a finger on my chain and St. Michael pendant.
My hair is slightly damp, so Olivia must have helped me shower.
“Yeah,” she grumbles, picking at the fabric of the couch. “I picked this out, by the way. Do you like it?”
I stop mid-sip, blinking. “You did what?”
“Yeah, a couple months ago, I think. Your house was destroyed. Every piece of furniture was broken, ripped apart. Matti asked me to find pieces that you had and replace them. That was not easy, if you’re wondering.”
I snort. She’s not wrong. My entire place was furnished with thrift store finds, roadside rescues, and freebies. “And who was it that destroyed the house? Matti, I’m assuming?”
She shrugs. “That I don’t know. But the bedroom set was impossible. I picked about six I liked, but Matti had final say and approval on everything.” She rolls her eyes. “And he demanded that there be two nightstands in your room even though you only had one before. So. Make of that what you will.”
Jesus. What else do I not know about this man? Murderer, interior designer, and apparently angling for a sleepover at some point. He’s an enigma.
“Really,” I say, my tone sarcastic. “He loved the dress, by the way. Did he pick that out, too?”
Olivia glances down at her hands in her lap, biting her lip. “ I’m sorry, Siena. I didn’t know he was going to be there. He told me— emphatically told me—that he would not come.”
“It’s his building, though?” I ask, knowing the answer.
She nods. “He lives in the penthouse. But honestly, he’s been a mess for weeks, so when he said he wasn’t coming, I believed him.
He basically stays in his penthouse. He’s not even really working, from what I can tell.
Vin goes to see him sometimes and Eleanor tries to make him eat periodically, but that’s about it. ”
“I’m sure Valentina stops by to take care of him.” The thought triggers my gag reflex, and I drink more water to wash away the image. “Or she’s locked in there with him.”
Olivia’s head snaps up. “No.” She hesitates. “Well, I don’t think so.”
“You don’t think so?” I arch a brow. Olivia has always been Matti’s biggest defender, especially when it comes to Valentina.
“Last night was… confusing.”
“Well, he beat the ass of some guy who touched her. That’s not confusing,” I say drily.
Olivia dismisses my assumptions with a wave.
“He’d do that for anyone, even a woman he didn’t know.
He just likes to fight.” She gets up and goes into the kitchen and pulls a bottle of water out of the fridge.
Opening it, she leans her forearms on the counter and looks at me through the pass-through.
When she doesn’t continue, I sigh impatiently. “Olivia, I love you. But if you don’t fucking tell me what happened right now, I’ll take the graffiti dress Matti bought me and set it on fire in the middle of his lobby.”
“Literally my dress. I didn’t buy it for you, you freak, but fine.” She returns to her chair, crossing her arms. “Matti was carrying you. He said he was taking you up to his penthouse to get cleaned up. Then Valentina stumbled her slut ass in and saw him and lost her shit.”
“Fair response to your boyfriend carrying some drunk chick he used to fuck out of a club, but go on.”
“Not her boyfriend.” Olivia shakes her head. “Vin and Matti only keep her around because she knows too much, and she’s a great hacker. They never just hang out with her. Voluntarily.”
“Didn’t look like that last night.”
“Do you want the story or not?” she snaps, crossing her arms over her chest.
I gesture for her to continue and grab my sweater from the back of the couch, the one stained by Amelia’s coffee, and pull it on.
When she says nothing, choosing instead to watch me suspiciously, I pinch my thumb and forefinger together and drag them across my lips like I’m zipping them shut and throwing away the key.
Olivia sighs. “Vin was holding Valentina back, but she was screaming, hitting him, trying to get to you. Matti shielded you from her because you were too drunk to—”
“To function? To exist?”
She purses her lips at me in warning. “To handle her yourself.” She stops and bites her bottom lip. “That’s when it got weird.”
“It’s not weird to keep someone around who gets shitfaced and physically attacks people?”
Olivia shrugs. “No one’s perfect.”
I throw my hands in the air. Now she’s defending Valentina? What the fuck?
She shakes her head at me. “You’re focusing on the wrong thing. ”
I grunt, curling up in the corner of the couch, and she continues.
“Vin and Matti had something going on with some of Aurelio’s men showing up unexpectedly. Matti wanted to take you up to his place, and Vin said it could put you in danger.”
I think we’re getting to the part she didn’t want to tell me, because she slows down and takes a breath.
“Matti decided Vin was right,” Olivia says, holding up her hand in a stop motion before I mouth off. “But then he had me get security together to take you home and told me to go with you to make sure you were okay.”
“You didn’t have to,” I snip and immediately feel bad. It’s not her fault that Matti is a prick.
“I was going to do that anyway, bitch. I fucking love you,” she snaps back. “But when we got in the car, I wouldn’t let Grit leave right away. I made him pull the car around to the front first, so I could run in and round up Blake and Amelia. We dropped them off on the way home.”
Softening, I give her a little smile. “Thank you. You’re a good friend, Olivia.”
“I fucking know that!” she yells, but she’s smiling too.
I love this girl and not even like a little sister. She seems much more mature, much wiser than her twenty-two years. She takes care of people, and she knows how to deal with assholes like Matti and Vin. Apparently, I can’t even do that.
When she doesn’t go on with the story, I frown. “So what is it that I don’t want to hear?”
She sighs. “They didn’t send Valentina home.”
My stomach twists as her face settles into a grimace. “And?”
“And…” she sighs. “When I went back for Blake and Amelia, I saw Matti carrying her. He and Vin took her to his private elevator, the one that goes nowhere but his penthouse.”
Bile rising, I try to keep my face neutral. “Are you saying they took her to his penthouse and fucked her together?”
Olivia presses her hands to her face and screams into them. “I have no fucking clue what the answer to that question is. I know nothing about their sex lives, either of them, and I very much prefer to keep it that way.” She shudders.
When she uncovers her face and sees my expression, her face pales. “Do you need a trash can or something?”
Something about the way she places her hand on my knee, the pity in her eyes, ignites a fire inside me.
“If you mean for all his bullshit, then yeah, I need a trash can.” I give a dry laugh and pull away from her, standing up to throw out my water bottle. I’m done being the fucking victim.
“I don’t know. Maybe he’s an asshole, Siena. I’m sorry that I encouraged you to believe in him. I really thought it was real. He called you ‘his girl’ in a conversation with me. I have never, not once, heard him call anyone else that,” she says softly.
I shrug and open the refrigerator to get another bottle of water. “Maybe Valentina has a pot of gold for a pussy.”
Olivia gags. “Repulsive. Do not, do NOT, refer to that hag’s pussy in front of me again.
” She shakes her head. “Honestly, it’s hard for me to believe that either one of them would touch her.
They hate her, and Matti was staring at you when he put you in the car, touching your face.
I literally had to push him out of the way to get in the backseat with you.
But they were drinking, and Vin was on a mission to get Matti laid. I just don’t know.”
I finish off the water bottle and throw it in the trash can and shrug again. Maybe he fucked her. Maybe he didn’t. Maybe he is with her. Maybe he’s not. All I know for sure is that he doesn’t want to be with me, and I still have a huge problem I have to solve with Emily’s phone.
Olivia sighs. “If it helps, I can find you some hot hunk to get under so you can get over, if you know what I mean.”
She winks, and I laugh as her phone starts buzzing. “Polite pass.”
Annoyed, she reads the text and stands to leave. “Duty calls. Do you need anything at all? Can I do anything for you?”
“Olivia, don’t worry about me. You take care of you. And you should know that your party was a fucking incredible success. Honestly, last night was a personal shit show, but it was fun as fuck until—”
“Until it wasn’t,” she finishes for me. “We’ll do better next time.”
She blows me a kiss and slips out the door, leaving me alone in my little living room. I’ve got a weekend with nothing to do, I’m hungover as fuck, and I feel the need to purge more than the contents of my stomach.
My gaze lands on the pile of Emily’s belongings in the corner. I pull Emily’s phone and the broken watch band out of my bag. Staring at them, resolve plants itself in my brain and grows like a weed. Within minutes, it’s a huge vine choking out all my other thoughts.
Vin wouldn’t help me get to Valentina, and if what Olivia says is true about last night, then Valentina is no fan of mine and likely wouldn’t help me, anyway. But Matti owes me, and he fucking knows it. I’m betting that if he tells Valentina to fix Emily’s phone and retrieve the data, she will.
Seeing Matti again is the last thing I want to do. He looked too fucking good last night, he was far too smug, and I’m still sore from how hard he fucked me on top of the car the other day. I smirk, wondering if his psycho girlfriend knows about that.
But the one thing I remember clearly from last night was the look of incredible guilt on Matti’s face when I asked him why he didn’t protect me from Aurelio.
I think he even called me ‘baby,’ which he only does when he’s deep in his feelings, but I could be wrong. This could be my moment to use that guilt to make him give me what I want. And what I want is to break into Emily’s phone.
Now that I know where he is, it’s just a matter of pulling my shit together and making it happen. I stand up, grabbing my bag and pulling on my shoes. Messy bun, leggings, stained sweater—fuck it. Now is the time.
And I’d be willing to bet everything that Valentina is still there as well, making my little mission that much more efficient.