29. Chapter 29 - Emiliano
C ole thinks I don’t know that he didn’t close the door, but I’m plenty aware. I’m letting him have this, though. Maybe it makes me a coward to let him listen in instead of facing him and telling him myself, but I just don’t have it in me to do it. It’s bad enough that I have to tell Matteo. He’s going to hate me even more than he does now, and Cole might just jump on that bandwagon, too. Neither of them will be okay after this, I’m sure of it. I just hope that Cole’s promises of forever stick or I’ll have to chain him to the fucking bed and not let him leave. Matteo, on the other hand, might be more difficult to convince. He has a fucking back bone now, and he already hates me. So what’s a little more hate, anyway? He’s already never coming back.
“What did you want to talk about?” Matteo asks through gritted teeth. “I want to go home.”
“And where is that, anyway?” I ask him calmly.
“Oh, you don’t know?” Matteo chuckles. “I find that hard to believe.”
“I have been letting you have the space that you need.” I sigh, and Matteo grits his teeth. “But I do have one question.”
“What?” Matteo growls.
“Will you be coming back to work?” I ask him, “I’m giving you an extended leave of absence, but I do need my assistant.”
“Cole can be your assistant,” he snaps.
“I don’t want Cole to be my assistant.” Matteo’s eyes flash at my words, and I see anger in them. But I also see pain—lots of it. “I want you.”
“Too bad.” Matteo shakes his head. “So fucking sad.”
“What are you, five?” I snap back. “Be serious.”
“Be fucking for real, Dad.” Matteo’s eyes narrow, and his nostrils flare with anger. “I don’t think I’ll be going back. But I’ll let you know if I change my mind.”
“And how long will you make me wait?”
“However long it fucking takes.”
I deserve that. I know I do. It still makes me livid. How dare he talk to me like that? But I also have to understand he’s not talking to the Don right now. He’s talking to his dad. And as his dad, I need to try to be understanding. I broke his heart. I shattered it. I can’t expect to be forgiven this quickly and without putting in the work.
“How about we meet once a week for dinner, just you and I?” I ask him slowly. “We can work this out.”
“Absolutely not.”
“What about therapy?” I ask him, and his eyes widen. “We can go to family therapy once a week.”
“You’d do that?” His eyebrows clash as he frowns, but he recovers quickly.
“I’d do anything for you,” I reply, but it sounds like a lie.
“Leave him.” Matteo’s bottom lip trembles. “Leave him and I’ll come home.”
“I can’t.” My voice breaks. “I love him. He’s going to be my husband.”
Matteo’s eyes widen. “It’s been five fucking minutes, Dad! You can’t be serious.”
“I’m always serious.” I run a hand down my face in frustration, and he watches me silently. “Come to therapy with me. We can fix this.”
Matteo shakes his head. “I highly doubt that.”
“We won’t know until we try,” I say with exasperation. I know why he’s holding back, why he won’t agree to it. But fuck, I’m trying. I want to do this—need to do this. I don’t want to lose him.
“I’ll think about it,” he replies, and my body sags with relief. “Now, what did you ask me to come here for?”
“Can we sit?” I ask him, and he raises an eyebrow.
“I’d rather not.”
“Please.” I practically beg. “It’s a long story, and we’re going to be here a while.”
Matteo nods, then sits on the sectional couch. I sit on the other end of it, giving him space. I don’t know how he’s going to react to this, but I wouldn’t blame him if he punched me in the face again. Hell, I want to punch myself in the face for keeping this from him this long, but I didn’t have a choice. Now that it’s an all out war, though, I feel like he deserves to know.
“I can’t sugarcoat this, Matteo.” I sigh, and he tenses, raising an eyebrow as he stares me down. “Do you know about the Russian princess?”
“Natasha?” he asks, his brows furrow as if trying to figure out the next words coming out of my mouth. But he’ll never guess them, no matter how hard he tries.
“Yes.”
“I know about her, yes.” He nods slowly. “What about her?”
I steel myself, my balled-up fists in my lap. “She’s—” Matteo and I make eye contact. “She’s your mother.”
A myriad of emotions overcome his face in slow motion, but the most prevalent one is confusion. I can’t blame him. I’m dropping this bomb on him without preparing him for it first, but would he really ever be ready to face this? I don’t think he would be.
It’s been twenty years since Natasha and I have spoken. She just handed him over and bolted. Her pregnancy wasn’t a secret, but the father was— is . I’ve been a secret all along. That was her dad’s request if I didn’t want to put the baby up for adoption. I was to take him and never speak about the mother or who she was. He didn’t want her marriage to another ally to be compromised, and that man turned a blind eye to her pregnancy, then married her a couple of months after she gave birth.
This is why I’ve kept it a secret all along. For Matteo’s safety. I don’t think Natasha would let anything happen to him at the hands of her father, but I also can’t be sure. She’s never shown any interest in him or getting to know him. Hell, she’s never even contacted me to ask how he’s doing. She disappeared as if we’d never happened, and maybe we didn’t. It probably was all in my head. I didn’t even get to be with her at all throughout her pregnancy. I was just a stranger, a one-night stand to her. A stupid decision. Though I could never regret it. It brought me Matteo.
I still don’t know what to do about her, though, so this is me giving Matteo the chance to decide. Does he want to reach out to her and possibly get to know her? Would she be open to that? Would she reject him the same way she rejected me? I don’t know, but something tells me that if Matteo reaches out, and she turns him down, I’ll probably stab her in the neck my damn self. I can’t let her die until he makes his choice, though, and if he wants her to be a part of his life, then I have to respect that.
Matteo makes a face as if he’s tasted something sour, and then he shakes his head. “I don’t believe you.” He grits out. “I look nothing like her.”
“You have her nose,” I reply, trying to remember exactly what she looks like. It’s been years since I’ve laid eyes on her. “The texture of her hair. Her chin.”
“Why the fuck would you tell me after all these years?” he asks me, brows furrowed. “Shouldn’t you have told me this, I don’t know, as soon as I was able to make sense of it?”
“I had a deal with the Russians.” I sigh, running a hand down my face as he runs his hand through his hair. “I wasn’t allowed to tell you, or anyone else, for that matter. But now we’re at war?—”
“Because of Cole,” he mutters. “Fucking Cole.”
“—and he wants to kill her.”
Matteo tenses, our eyes clashing. “Who wants to kill her?”
“Cole.” I sigh. “He wants to kill them all. So I have to know, Matteo. What will it be? Do you want her alive? Do you want to get to know her?”
“And if I do?”
“Then we will respect your decision and leave her alive.” I tell him, and his shoulders almost reach his ears, he’s so tense. He has to know I’d do this for him. “It will be up to her if she wants to talk to you, though.”
“I’m assuming she’s never wanted to?” he asks, his eyes welling up with tears.
“No, son.” I shake my head, but I don’t want to pity him, so I look away. “She hasn’t.”
Matteo clears his throat and nods. “She—” He takes a deep breath. “I don’t know what to do.”
“It’s your choice.”
“Can you at least tell me your story?” he asks me, and I hesitate. “How you met?”
“And then?” I ask him slowly.
“Then I’ll make a decision.”
I’ll be honest, I really don’t want to do this. I know he deserves the truth, but it’ll hurt Cole, who is most definitely listening in. But I can’t deny Matteo this. and I’ll have to set my feelings aside for him.
“Okay.” I take a deep breath. “I’ll tell you everything.”
Matteo nods, leaning back against the cushions and getting comfortable. As he should be, considering this is a long fucking story. He’s silent, waiting for me, and I sigh yet again.
“It was almost twenty-one years ago when I met your mother…”
And then I proceed to tell him everything.