21. Matti
Matti
W hen I get her back to the couch, she’s in full-blown flight mode, kicking and fighting hard to get out of my arms. I sit down with her on the closest couch and wrap my arms around her.
She writhes against me. “You’re such a fucking asshole, Matti! You want me, you don’t want me. You throw me out, now you won’t let me leave. Why are you fucking with me? What the fuck is wrong with you?”
I grab her wrists, pushing her off my lap and pinning her back against the cushions. She stiffens, and for a moment, I can’t breathe. She’s so gorgeous, broken open, fragile. The weight of all that I’ve done to her practically crushes me.
Keeping hold of her wrists, I pull her toward me until she is seated on the edge of the cushion, then I slide down so I’m on the floor, kneeling between her knees.
We’re on the same eye level, but the fire has left her now and she won’t look at me. It’s worse than when she was fighting me.
Pressing her fists to my lips, I kiss her knuckles and then press them to my chest before tilting my head so that I can look into her bloodshot eyes.
“I know I’m an asshole, Siena. I can’t change that—and the truth is, I don’t want to.
Out here, it’s the only way to survive.” I let go of her hands, my thumb grazing her bottom lip, slow and deliberate.
“But you have to understand… as fucked up as it looks from the outside, everything I’ve done with you was to keep you safe. ”
She smacks my hand away and shoves me back, standing up and backing away from me toward the table.
“You protect me? When have you protected me? When you kidnapped me and held me hostage at the Edge for weeks on end? When you let a psycho mob boss find me and almost rape me? When you fucking killed my sister?! When you decided that destroying my family was somehow just as bad as me not giving you some stupid fucking flash drive and threw me out of your life?”
I say nothing. She’s wild right now, feral, and I step back, giving her space.
Her gaze lands on the flash drive beside my laptop, and her eyes narrow.
“Which you apparently found. Did you have that when you were making me feel like shit? When you fucking sent me home, which by the way, what the fuck did you do to my house, you asshole? You tear it to shit and then think you can come in and fix it in whatever pretty way you see fit? The same way you’re trying to do with my fucking life? IT DOESN’T FUCKING WORK THAT WAY.”
She’s so goddamn gorgeous when she’s angry, her rage wrapping around her like a burning halo. It’s the same fury I feel when she’s in danger. When someone tries to take her from me .
My cock moves, and it takes everything in me not to bend her over the table and fuck her into submission, show her how much I want her, need her, that I’ll burn down the entire Demonio family, all of New York, the entire fucking world if it will take away her pain.
Holding her gaze, I stand, shoving my hands in my pockets to help me maintain restraint.
“Siena, you don’t seem to understand the situation you put yourself in when you drove down to that plane crash and stole Emily’s stuff.
If it had been anyone but me there from the Demonio family, you would have been run off the road and left for dead in a ditch. ”
Siena blinks rapidly as if that thought hadn’t occurred to her and opens her mouth to speak, but shuts it again before saying anything.
I take a slow step toward her. “I did my best to replace the furniture in your house that—a Demonio associate destroyed when he was looking for the flash drive. I wanted each item replaced with the same thing you had before, but I didn’t do a great job, I know.
Olivia helped me, and so did Eleanor. Anything you don’t want, I’ll replace. ”
I work hard to keep Franco’s name out of it. The last thing I want to do is break the last thread tethering her to her family. Her brow furrows, and she takes a step back, placing a hand on the table to steady herself.
“As for the flash drive, I did have that when I—when I sent you home. I wanted to protect you. I made you leave because it was the only way to keep you safe. And I know you, baby. You don’t like to be told what to do.
So I let you believe the one thing I knew would make you hate me and choose to stay away from me and out of harm’s way. ”
Her face blanches whiter than it was before. She grips the table so hard that her knuckles turn white. “So now you’re saying you didn’t kill Emily,” she says, her voice raspy.
“I’m sorry, Siena. I don’t want to hurt you, and it probably wasn’t the right way to go about it, but I was desperate to protect you after what happened with Aurelio. And it worked. Until last night.”
“Why? What happened last night?” Her face is pale, and I don’t want to scare her, but I need her to understand.
“I took care of it, kitten. I never let you out of my sight. Not last night, not ever.” She looks confused and I run my hand through my hair, not sure how she’s taking this. “Since you’ve been gone, when you were back at your house, I always had eyes on you. I was always watching.”
She bristles, her cheeks pinking. “You were fucking spying on me? And that’s supposed to somehow make me feel better?”
“I should have left you alone, Siena, I know that. I should have put some bodyguards on you and separated myself from you. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t stay away.” I ball my hands into fists in my pockets. “I’m sorry.”
Her body is trembling as her eyes spark fire at me. “Was fucking Valentina part of your plan to ‘protect me,’ too?”
“You know that didn’t happen,” I say, moving toward her slowly.
“I do? Did you or did you not put her on the plane with me so that you could let me know that you were just fucking me for entertainment?”
I almost flinch, hurt that she would say that. Entertainment? She can’t really believe that. “You know that’s not true.”
She gestures to the leftover dinner plates. “It’s not? Because it is true that you guys never quite found the time to eat last night. That you were wearing nothing but a towel when I got here. That she left here naked under her dress this morning.”
Siena kicks the trash can, and it falls over, spilling out papers along with Valentina’s red bra and panties.
Her jealousy has my dick hard, and watching her re-animate with rage makes my heart pound with relief. She fucking loves me.
She shakes her head, her voice dripping with disgust. “How the fuck does fucking Valentina protect me?”
“I didn’t fuck Valentina last night.” I state the fact calmly, but work hard to bite back a smile when her eyes flash.
“ ‘Last night? You didn’t fuck her ‘last night?’” Her voice is low, and she enunciates each word, taking slow steps toward me until she’s right in front of me, her head tilted back to maintain eye contact.
“Are you implying that you have fucked her in the past but for some reason didn’t last night? ”
I can’t hold back the smile now. “I didn’t imply anything, but clearly you are inferring.”
She slams her fists into my chest, and I grab her arms and turn her around, hugging her back to me. Wrapping myself around her so that my mouth is next to her ear, I let myself just hold her for a few moments as she struggles against me, enjoying the feel of her in my arms.
When she calms down, her voice is low, precise. “You keep telling me different things, conflicting things, creating these elaborate set-ups apparently, in order to manipulate me, Matti. I can’t trust you. I don’t trust you.”
My heart breaks hearing those words from her. Burying my face in her neck, I breathe her in, squeezing her tighter, ready to tell her everything. Almost everything.
“I did fuck Valentina one time almost two decades ago when we were kids. We were never together. It was stupid. I didn’t give a shit about her then, and I don’t give a shit about her now. She knows that, and she doesn’t care, Siena. She’s a bitch who likes to fuck with people.”
“You’re an asshole!”
She writhes against me even more, and I adjust my grip, holding her even tighter so that she can’t move. It doesn’t stop her from trying.
“I did not fuck her last night. I didn’t fuck her the night you left or any night in between. Siena, listen to me. I know what it looks like. I know what she told you. And I’m telling you it didn’t happen.”
She begins to still, but her heart is pounding and her chest heaves with her labored breathing. “Why should I believe you? You lied about Emily.”
I sigh, my lips brushing against her skin as I speak.
“I never said I had anything to do with Emily’s death.
But I did let you believe it because you seemed to want to, and I knew it would help you walk away from me.
I used Valentina, put her on that plane, for the same purpose.
I haven’t fucked anyone else since the first time I laid eyes on you, and I will never look at, much less touch, another woman again.
I am yours as much as you are mine. And you are mine, Siena. You always will be.”
“You don’t even fucking know me,” she snarls, but I can feel her body softening into mine as she tilts her head just slightly, giving me more access to her neck.
I smile softly, dropping kisses up to her ear.
“I don’t know you? You read four books like the ones Olivia was reading with you at the Edge since you’ve been gone.
The smile you give your clients is different from the one you give your friends, which is different from the one you give me—when you actually smile at me, that is.
You wear your hair up when you go to bed and the tiniest clothes with the fan on, but sleep with a heated blanket.
You eat Greek yogurt with maple syrup and fruit for breakfast every morning while scrolling on your phone.
You have a yoga mat rolled out in the corner of your room, but you never use it. ”
“Stuff you learned while spying on me doesn’t count. None of it has to do with who I am,” she growls, twisting in my arms to glare up at me with her big brown eyes, her fingernails digging into my chest.
I lace my fingers behind her back and look down at her, taking in every inch of her face, her neck, her chest, the feel of her in my arms. Fuck, even with her angry with me, I could stay like this forever.
“You care about the people you work with and the people you serve. You’ll eat lunch at that chicken place that you used to love but are now sick of just because it’s Blake’s favorite, then give most of it to an unhoused person on the way home.
You’re honest to a fault. You love your family even though they don’t deserve any of your precious attention, except maybe your cousin, Sophie.
You know who I am, both the man I am with you and the person I am out in the world, and you love me despite that, because you know my heart the same way I know yours. ”
“I never said I loved you,” she whispers, pressing her forehead into my chest, her arms slipping down by her sides.
I lift her chin so she’s looking at me.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t with you when Aurelio came for you at the Edge, Siena.
It’s a day I relive over and over in my head.
If I could go back and do it over, I would.
I’d give anything to take that experience away from you.
” I kiss her forehead and take a breath.
“But I wouldn’t change sending you back to your house.
It was the best way to protect you then.
Keeping you far away from me kept you safe.
What I should have done differently is tell you what was happening.
I’m so sorry I broke your trust. It fucking breaks me to know that you don’t believe in me.
But I promise that I’ll do everything I can to earn your trust back. I promise you, baby, no more secrets.”
“No more secrets,” she repeats.
“Want to know another secret?” I ask, tugging on the chain she’s wearing around her neck gently. When she nods, I smile. “This is mine.”
She frowns. “What? The necklace? Olivia said it was hers.”
“I know. I didn’t tell her to say that, but she knows what it is.
I put it on you when I sent you back home.
My mother gave it to me when I was a kid and I’ve worn it everyday since she died.
I put it on you so that you would have her protection when I couldn’t be there with you. She would have loved you, Siena.”
Siena’s eyes grow cloudy as she looks up at me, sliding the pendant up and down the chain slowly, her chest rising and falling heavily. “Oh my God,” she breathes. “Matti, I—I don’t know what to say. I—Thank you.”
Her expression darkens, as if it bothers her to say those words to me. Panic starts to rise in my chest. I don’t know if I can fix this, if she’ll let me. And I don’t know how I can live without her.
I pull her into me, burying my face in her hair and breathe deeply. “I’m so sorry, Siena. For everything. But I never took my eyes off you, baby,” I whisper. “You were never alone.”
Siena hangs her head, limp, her arms hanging by her sides. “ Alone?” Her voice is flat, emotionless. “I’m always alone. I’ll always be alone now that Emily is gone.”
Without warning, she leans fully into me, pressing her cheek against my chest. I grip her tightly as she lets out one long moaning whimper, the sound searing through my soul. I can feel her heart cracking into pieces.
I pick her up and hold her close to me. She doesn’t cry—she never cries—but I know my baby is breaking.
I walk her over to the couch, and lay down with her in my arms.
“I’m so sorry, baby, I’m so sorry,” I whisper.
Her whole body trembles and she entwines her legs with mine, digs her nails into my skin, her face buried in my chest, breathing me in.
“Give me all of your pain, Siena. I’ll drown in it if it takes away even a second of your heartache.
You’re mine, baby. All mine. I claim you, all of you, every torn piece, every shattered memory.
Now and forever. Give it all to me. You’ll never be alone again, kitten. ”