Chapter 15
Aoife
It’s past midnight, the kind of hour where even the building seems to hold its breath. I’ll pay for it. Still, the rooftop is the only place I can think without their voices pressing against my skull.
I perch on the rooftop’s edge, Blackstone sprawled below like a sleeping beast. Far beneath, the sea swallows the cliffs in endless black. The blade rolls across my knuckles. I try to balance it the way Matteo showed me. It wobbles, slips. I snatch it before it cuts me.
My breath fogs out in little clouds. I’m not cold. Just unsettled.
The trial loops behind my eyes, the way he wouldn’t let anything stop him from winning.
I freeze as it hits, wood smoke and cigarettes. The same smell from the cliff, the first night. It snakes into my lungs, hot and heavy, wrapping me until I’m caught inside it.
“Planning on jumping, little lamb?” His voice drags low, rough enough to scrape across my skin.
He stands at the edge, the lighthouse flashing behind him, carving him in shadow and light. Wind tangles his hair, but his eyes cut through it, sharp, rimmed in exhaustion, edged with anger.
“Not until I learn to fight with this.” I hold up the knife, eyes narrowing slightly. He stares at it, then at me.
“You need to change the knife,” he tells me again, and in a tone which tells me he’s fed up with telling me.
“They won’t let me,” I say.
He exhales slowly, then nods for me to move. “Jump down.”
I hesitate but do as he asks. Hopping down from the ledge to where he’s standing, closer now.
“Give it here.”
I hand him the knife. He flips it in the air, high enough I lose track for a heartbeat, then catches it by the very tip without even blinking.
“You want to learn?” He asks as he continues to study the knife.
“You’ll teach me?”
He steps closer. “I’m asking, aren’t I?”
“Yes.”
He moves behind me, the cigarette glowing between his lips. His presence closes over me, heavy, pressing at my spine. His hand finds my wrist, firm but careful, guiding my fingers along the blade’s hilt.
I see him flick his cigarette to the ground, and he adjusts my grip, fingers brushing over mine.
“Now balance it.”
I try; it wobbles again but doesn’t fall.
He leans over my shoulder, our bodies almost pressed together. “Loosen your stance. Weight on your back foot, knife held out like it’s part of you, not a burden.”
I move again. His hands follow, correcting. Guiding.
His fingers trace up my arm, anchoring on my elbow. “You’ve got good control here. But your fingers…” He trails along my forearm, then presses over my knuckles with slow intent. “Tense. You’re scared you’ll lose control.”
“I’m not scared,” I whisper.
“Then prove it. You have to be one with it, you control it, it doesn't control you.”
The blade spins once in my hand, this time by my own choice. I catch it, not perfectly, but it doesn’t fall.
A breath leaves me. He watches. So close now I can feel his chest brush my back.
“You’re learning,” he says, voice low.
“I’m trying,” I whisper.
A beat of silence stretches long between us. Our hands are still connected, and I turn my head slightly. Our faces hover an inch apart, breath mingling.
“Do you train the enemy often?” I whisper.
“No.” His voice is blunt, raw. “Only the ones who make me forget I shouldn’t touch them.”
The tension is tight between us, like a wire ready to snap.
I reach up, fingers brushing the edge of his jaw. His bruise has bloomed there, dark and raw. My thumb lingers near it. He doesn’t move.
“Does it hurt?” I ask.
He laughs softly. “Not enough.”
His hand slides to my waist, tugging me forward until I taste his breath, warm and sharp between us.
“Say stop,” he whispers.
I don’t.
And his mouth claims mine.
Not soft.
Not sweet.
But steady. Controlled. Like he’s trying to hold himself together with every second his mouth is on mine.
My fingers fist in the fabric of his shirt. My knife is still in my hand, and for a moment, the storm forgets how to rage.
We stand there in silence. Breathing each other in. The rooftop is alive with the promise of something we both shouldn’t want.
But we do.
The kiss doesn’t end; it detonates.
His mouth crashes back onto mine, and the sky tears open with it. Thunder splits the night, shaking through my chest, lightning slashing white fire above Blackstone.
Is it a warning?
Wind whips around us like it wants to tear us apart, but Matteo holds me steady. Or maybe I’m the one holding him.
His hands are in my hair, at my waist, everywhere at once. The kiss isn’t sweet. It’s consuming. It’s teeth and tongue and the kind of hunger that’s starved for too long.
My back hits the wall, stone biting cold against my spine, his heat burning everywhere else. The knife slips from my grip, clattering to the rooftop, lost between lust and madness.
His body crushes me against the wall, heat pouring off him in waves. He groans into my mouth when my nails rake down his shoulders.
“I should stop,” he breathes, lips brushing mine.
“Then stop,” I whisper back.
He doesn’t.
Because we both know, he won’t and I won’t let him.
His hands tear at my clothes, frantic, as if fabric itself is an enemy. His mouth drags down my throat, tongue pressing against the pulse hammering there, beating louder than the storm. Wind slams against us, rain spitting across our skin, but the cold doesn’t reach. Heat burns too deep to touch.
His hands drag down my leggings and panties in one rough pull, lips never leaving my throat. He breaks away just long enough to strip them off. His mouth crashes back onto mine, harder than before.
Not pulling away, I feel him pulling his trousers down, and once free, he pulls away, and slides on a condom. Then he lifts me, pressing me tighter against the wall, I wrap my legs around him like I was built to be there. I can feel him, hard, pulsing, ready.
He doesn’t tease.
He thrusts into me in one brutal push, filling me.
I cry out in a moan, swallowed by thunder cracking overhead, the storm answering us with its own violence.
Each thrust slams me harder into the wall, stone scraping my spine, pain and pleasure fusing until the moment sears into me like it’ll never leave.
The sky opens and the world blurs behind a curtain of rain, but I barely notice. All I feel is him, his hands gripping my thighs, the way his body moves like he was made to break me open and fill in the cracks.
He growls my name against my shoulder, biting down gently, and the pain blurs into pleasure. My hips move with his, desperate, frantic, like I’m chasing something I’ve never known before.
He mutters Italian against my ear, the meaning lost but the intent clear, his teeth grazing skin as his voice drops, raw and uneven, carrying the sound of someone already past the point of stopping.
His name is the only word I can form. Over and over.
“Matteo… Matteo.” I moan again.
“Say it again,” he growls, fucking me harder, deeper.
“Matteo.”
Release rips through me, lightning in my veins, white-hot and blinding. A scream tears out of me, raw and ragged, as my body convulses around him. Lightning from the night sky hits again, the rain prickles over our skin. I shake, spasming around him, nails drawing blood down his back.
He follows seconds later, his hips stuttering, jaw clenched, growling against my mouth as he spills inside me, every inch of him locked in place. My name escapes his lips in a whisper.
We slide back against the wall, breath tearing out of us in broken gasps.
His forehead presses to mine, his arms locked under my thighs, holding me in place as if he can’t let go.
My hands cling to his neck, trembling. I’m still wrapped around him, joined, shaking from the aftershocks.
Rain sheets down, soaking us both, but we don’t move.
“I shouldn’t have touched you…again” he murmurs, voice rough against my skin.
“But you did.”
His thumb drags across my swollen lip, slow, like he can’t decide if he’s erasing the kiss or branding it there forever.
“I’ll regret this,” he whispers.
“I won’t.”
He eases out of me, slow, reluctant, fixing his clothes with quick, rough motions. Then he turns back, tugging my leggings up with hands softer than before, steadying me when my knees falter. His touch has shifted less fire, more reverence.
The stone at my back is cold, slick with rain, but I know it will remember just like I will. What we did is carved into this rooftop now, into my skin, into him.
Thunder crashes overhead, lightning splitting the sky wide open. Matteo laughs, raw, unguarded, nothing like the sharp smirks he wears in daylight. The sound jolts through me, rare and real, and I want to hear it again.
“Even God knows this is wrong,” he says, glancing at the lightning. “The storm’s a warning to keep away.” He leans in, presses one last soft kiss to my lips, then steps back, tasting the moment on his own. “Good night, little lamb.”
I sit in the courtyard, sun warming my shoulders. No one would guess a storm tore through only hours ago, the stone is dry, the sky too calm.
I feel him before I see him, somewhere across the courtyard, eyes on me. He always watches.
Conor’s voice snaps me out of it, tearing last night from my head.
“Aoife.”
I blink, turning to find him standing a few steps away. His jaw is tight, arms crossed over his chest. The way he’s looking at me isn’t just a cousinly concern. It's an obligation.
“We need to talk,” he says. His tone isn’t casual. It's a warning.
I raise a brow. “About?”
“We’re going home this weekend.”
My stomach tightens the moment his mouth opens, a slow, instinctive warning curling low and sharp, the kind that never shows up without reason. Whatever he is about to say, it is already wrong.
“Why?”
The pause stretches. Not long, but long enough to make my pulse thud in my ears.
“Conor.” I push to my feet, the movement abrupt, chair legs scraping behind me as I close the space between us, my eyes locking onto his face before he has time to look away. “What is going on?” The hesitation alone sets my nerves alight, dread twisting tighter with every heartbeat he wastes.
“It’s family business,” he says, too quickly, his gaze sliding past my shoulder like escape might still be an option.
I step directly into his path, forcing him to stop, forcing him to see me. “Do not lie to me.” His jaw tightens, a reflex he has never learned to control, and I know before he opens his mouth that the truth is already bleeding through.
“I’m not—”
“Conor.” My voice leaves no room for him to finish.
He exhales hard, frustration cutting through his restraint as his hand drags over the back of his neck, skin flushed beneath his fingers. “They want an engagement picture.”
The words land wrong, sharp and cold, as if someone has dropped ice straight into my chest. “What?”
“For the announcement,” he mutters, the explanation thin, unfinished. When he finally looks at me, worry flickers there, quick and unguarded, and I know before he speaks again that this is not the full truth.
“Is that everything?” I ask, my voice flattening despite the panic clawing at my ribs. His eyes shift, and the last of my calm fractures. Fear rolls through me, hot and sudden. “Conor. Tell me.”
“It’s talk,” he says, too careful.
“Conor.” My voice rises, sharp enough to snap heads in our direction, and I feel it, the attention, the weight of it, but I do not pull back.
He closes his eyes as if bracing for impact, as if the words hurt him to release. “They are considering moving the wedding date forward.”
“No.” The denial rips out of me, raw and unfiltered. “No. They promised four years.” My voice climbs higher, anger burning through control, students openly staring now, the world narrowing to the space between us. I do not care who hears.
“I know,” he says quickly, glancing around, unease flickering across his face. “Lower your voice.” His attention snaps back to me, heavy, assessing.
“Why?” I hiss, stepping closer, every nerve screaming. “Why are they doing this now?”
“I don’t know.” He lowers his voice, leaning in as if secrecy might soften the blow. “Father refuses to explain, but there is talk of an heir.”
The air leaves my lungs. My chest tightens, vision blurring at the edges as the meaning settles, ugly and unavoidable. “They would not,” I whisper, even as dread floods through me.
“They will,” he says, final and unyielding.
I look at him, betrayal flooding hot and violent through my veins, my hands trembling at my sides. “And you are fine with this?”
“I am not in control,” he snaps, the edge in his voice finally breaking through. “I am trying to contain the damage. I am trying to protect you, Aoife—”
“By lying to me?” The words cut through him, sharp and furious, the sound of something breaking that will not be repaired.
“By making sure it does not get worse.”
I shake my head, stepping back, the distance between us widening into something hollow and irreversible. “You waited too long for that.”
He doesn’t follow. Doesn’t speak and then he walks away.
Rage coils through me, hot and tight. “I’ll die before that happens!” I shout, and heads snap toward us. Conor freezes mid-step, turning back, eyes darting at the crowd. “And you won’t stop me!”
I know he will tell my father about these words. If he doesn’t someone else will, and right now I don’t care. My life is over anyway.
My phone buzzes in my pocket.
Unknown
Not dying on my watch, little lamb.
I scan the courtyard until I see him. Matteo. Leaning against a pillar, smoke curling from his lips. Watching me like he already knows every word.
Aoife
How the hell did you get my number?
Unknown
You forget who my brother is.
I don’t answer. Then another buzz.
Unknown
Rosa is walking past you. Take out your knife. She’ll take it.
Aoife
Why?
Unknown
You’ll see. I’ll message when and where to pick it up.
Rosa walks over eyes fixed on her phone.
I slip my knife into my hand, holding it low.
She doesn’t even glance up, but her fingers brush mine, and the blade vanishes.
Clean. Effortless. I glance back toward Matteo.
He’s gone. I pull up my phone to text him, only to find the whole thread wiped clean.
The thought of the weekend, and the moment with my family hits me once again. Four days, four days to fight my case, even though I know I’ve already lost, before I even walk into the house.