Chapter 37
Aoife
The halls echo with laughter and whispers. Each step feels heavier, like I’m dragging my shame through these blood-soaked halls. The whispers aren’t whispers anymore. They’re fangs, cold, sharp, brutal.
They don’t say my name. They call me, “The Irish.”
It rolls off their tongues like poison on silk. I used to flinch. Now I don’t blink, I walk straight-backed, chin up, pretending I’m not dying inside.
I don’t know what’s changed with Rosa, I thought she would be my friend, but now it feels like I’m a ghost she regrets seeing.
Matteo walked beside me all morning, a storm in his jaw, thunder in his eyes. He hasn’t touched me or spoken to me really. He watches everything, everyone, waiting to snap.
I reach my dorm, heart pounding harder than I thought it would. I just want to grab my bag and leave.
I push open the door. The air feels wrong in here, a gut feeling. My skin prickles as I look around.
The top drawer’s open, just enough to get my attention. I never leave it like that. I’m not messy. I’m precise. Intentional.
I don’t know what they were looking for. I have nothing. I continue to look around my room and freeze when I see it.
The knife.
Buried in my pillow, clean and cruel, pinning a torn piece of parchment.
The blade gleams, a smile in the dark. I walk over, my heart pounding in my chest.
The note’s handwritten.
“If the wolves won’t kill you, I will.”
My breath vanishes. No tears. No scream. Just silence tightening inside me.
I stare at the blade. Someone came in here. Touched my things. Waited for the right moment and left their mark.
My hands shake as I pull the knife free. The parchment flutters, mocking. I sit on the edge of my bed, blade in hand, shoulders tight.
Just the sound of my own pulse, thudding like war drums in my chest, is the only sound I’m hearing.
I slip the note beneath the pillow and slide the knife under it too. The irony cuts deep. I’m Irish, sleeping in an Italian’s room, guarded by a weapon my enemy left me.
There’s nowhere left to belong.
The door opens, my head snaps up, my heart stops.
Matteo fills the doorway, tall, still, unreadable, a god of war in black. His eyes sweep the room, then lock on me. His brows crease, like he’s reading my thoughts.
His voice is low, dangerous. “What happened?”
I press the knife deeper under the pillow. Fingers tight. I don’t know why I’m hiding it. Maybe because if I tell him, someone dies. Because all he’ll have left is rage, or because I’m so used to hiding things from everyone.
No words are escaping, and I don't know why.
Matteo Messina was raised by wolves; he doesn’t believe me for a second. “Move your hand,” Matteo says softly, the words hitting like a hammer.
I don’t. I can’t.
But he’s already moving. I stand too fast, and the knife slips from under the pillow, clattering to the floor between us.
Silence swallows the air.
Matteo bends, picks up the knife. His eyes lock on the parchment that had been pinned to the pillow, his jaw tightens, fingers curl around the blade.
He doesn’t ask who. He doesn’t need to, he already knows. His voice is so quiet I almost don’t hear it. “When did you find it?”
I lick my lips, dry as dust. “When I came in.”
“Did anyone see you come in?”
“No one,” I whisper. “I made sure.”
He nods once, then turns away and paces the room like he’s calculating murder in careful, measured breaths. I watch him, pulse quickening.
“I didn’t tell you right away because…” My throat tightens. “Because I knew what you’d do.”
“And what do you think I’ll do, Aoife?” he snaps, spinning back. His voice cuts through the stillness like steel.
“I’m not worth—”
Matteo stares at me like I’ve lost my mind, stopping me cold.
I can’t speak. I feel like a child again, silent and terrified and wanting to disappear.
He drags a hand down his face, breathing heavier each time. Then he steps closer, his heat cutting through the cold in me.
“You’re wrong, little lamb,” he whispers. “You are worth it.” His forehead touches mine, and for the first time since I walked back into Blackstone, I feel air reach my lungs. “What happened to no lies? You need to trust me, or I go into this fight blind.” The words come out harsher than I mean.
I don’t argue; I nod, then pull away. “Sorry,” I whisper.
“Get your bag.”
I nod again, gather the rest of my things in silence—the kind that comes from knowing someone wants me dead. I already knew that. I just didn’t think it would happen here.
But I’m not alone.
Not anymore.
Back in Matteo’s dorm, I’ve been sitting on the bed, as he’s still on the phone, his voice clipped, sharp, as he paces the room with a fury he’s trying to leash.
“She was alone?” His grandfather's voice crackles through the speaker. I can’t hear it clearly, but I can feel it. Feel how Matteo flinches.
“Leo pulled the three of us,” Matteo answers. “Rosa was supposed to be with her.”
I drop my eyes. I don’t want to look up, I don't want to see him angry. Not at Rosa, not because of me. The call seems to be going on for a while, before Matteo ends it, there’s a moment of silence.
He turns toward me, the question hitting me before he even opens his mouth. “Why were you alone?”
I brace. “Rosa’s been… a bit off,” I say, softer than I mean to. “She didn’t say anything. Just left. I didn’t ask why. It doesn’t matter,” I add before he can speak again.
“It does matter,” Matteo snaps. He’s not shouting, but it cuts deeper. “You could’ve been—”
“I wasn’t,” I say sharply. “I’m here. I’m breathing. So don’t make it worse by blaming Rosa.”
I see the way he looks at me, like he wants to argue, he wants to tear apart the walls and rebuild the world safer just for me. But he doesn’t.
Instead, he turns to his brothers. “Find out what her problem is. Don’t come back until morning.”
Marco tilts his head. “You sure?”
“I’ve got a fucking headache. Go.” And just like that, the brothers disappear, leaving only the sound of the lock turning behind them.
Matteo moves, dragging a chair close to the bed, facing me. I stay still. The knife from earlier sits on the table on the side, silent but screaming. My hands are clenched in the fabric of my clothes so tight I feel the imprint in my skin.
He studies me. “Next time,” he says, voice low, “you tell me. Don’t keep this shit to yourself. You get a threat like that, you run. Straight to me.”
I look up, his eyes burn with something that scares me more than the note did. Not because he’s angry, but because I can feel how much he cares. And I don’t know what to do with that.
“I didn’t want to be a problem,” I whisper.
“You already are,” he murmurs, a ghost of a smile on his lips. “The kind I’ve started a war for.”
I don’t smile.
“You know,” Matteo says, voice low and rough as his fingers trail along the side of my thigh. “There are ways to get rid of a headache.” His lips curve into a crooked smile. “Some even come with benefits.”
I roll my eyes, but my breath catches when his hand grips just a little tighter, because god I want him touching me like that again.
“You’re impossible.”
“I’m honest,” he murmurs, the words brushing my skin like smoke, warm and heavy and addicting. “And a man with a headache.”
“You’re also a man who knows exactly what he’s doing.”
He leans in, slow, deliberate, until his mouth is a whisper above mine. “Tell me to stop.”
I don’t.
My hands are already in his shirt, gripping the fabric as he presses me gently back onto the mattress. His mouth finds mine with a hunger he barely reins in, teeth scraping my bottom lip, tongue sweeping in like he owns the rhythm between us.
Maybe he does.
Because I can’t think. I can’t breathe. My name in his voice is a prayer and a warning.
He kisses me like I’m the only relief left in the world, like if he can just get close enough, deep enough, it’ll make everything else go quiet.
My hands find the back of his neck, pulling him closer, desperate for the weight of him. The tension, the fear, the knife in my pillow with the note, all disappears under his mouth.
“I should stop,” he says against my neck, breathing hot. “You’ve had a hell of a day.”
“Don’t,” I whisper.
He doesn’t.
The rain taps softly against the windowpane, a faint, steady rhythm that blends with the quickening beat of my heart.
What starts as Matteo half-joking about a headache unravels us slowly, then all at once.
Matteo’s mouth moves lower, trailing open kisses down my throat, across my collarbone, into the sensitive dip between my breasts.
Each press of his lips brands me, the faint rasp of stubble scraping my skin, the warm puff of his breath raising goosebumps.
My head falls back against the pillow, I look down, his eyes lock with mine, dark, ravenous, pupils blown wide.
That look alone sends fresh heat blooming low in my belly, thick and insistent.
I ease out of the warm curve of his arms; the sheets cling to my skin for a second before letting go.
I kneel beside the bed, watching him rise, muscles shifting under the low lamplight, a faint sheen of sweat already gathering along his sternum.
He pushes his trousers and boxers down in one smooth motion.
My breath catches, I let my gaze travel him slowly, broad shoulders, dark trail of hair narrowing over his abdomen, sharp cut of his hips. A soft, involuntary sound slips from my lips, I press them together.
Everything about this moment feels new, tremblingly new, but giving myself to Matteo, trusting him with every first feels like the only right thing I’ve ever done.
I reach out, my palm cradles the warm, heavy weight of his balls, the skin there is fever-hot.
My other hand wraps around his shaft, silky over iron and I guide him to my mouth.
I glance up, heart hammering against my ribs.
His eyes soften, a small nod, the barest curl at the corner of his mouth. Permission. Encouragement. Love.