Chapter 39
Matteo
The war room smells like steel, sweat, and old tobacco, the kind of place where bad decisions are made in the name of blood and legacy.
We sit on our side, Leo and my brothers, the Irish are sitting on their side, and I feel them looking over at me. It’s taking everything in me not to go over and tell them to fuck off.
Leo sits, arms folded across his chest like a statue carved from granite.
His eyes are locked on the folder in front of him, but he hasn’t said a word yet.
Marco and Milo are flanking me, silent for once, because even they can feel the shift in the air.
He flips a sheet over with a snap. “The Irish have picked two fighters, they won’t name which one, but I have an idea. ”
I lift my head. “Who?”
He looks at me, there’s a flicker of hesitation in his expression, the kind that makes my stomach tighten. “If I had to bet my life and I might, it’s him. I mean they want you dead for a whole new reason now.”
Silence.
Then Marco mutters, “Fuck.”
Milo lets out a low whistle. “Their machine?”
Leo nods once. “The killer from Ireland. The O’Briens didn’t just raise him, they built him. Cold. Calculated. They’ve been saving him for something.” He locks eyes with me. “You’re that something.”
My mouth is dry, but I force myself to speak. “What do we know about him?”
Leo exhales slowly and starts pacing. “He doesn’t fight to win. He fights to destroy. No rhythm, no technique, just… carnage. He doesn’t stop when the bell rings. He doesn’t stop when you fall. He stops when he thinks you’re not getting back up.”
For a moment, the room tilts.
I’ve fought monsters before. I’ve fought with blood in my mouth and rage in my chest. But this feels different. This is personal, and they’re going to make sure I suffer to the point I can’t walk or even might end up in hospital for a long fucking time.
“They want you humiliated,” Leo continues. “Broken. This isn’t about the Ring. It’s about making a point, telling you, you can’t take what’s theirs and walk away without anything happening to you.”
I nod slowly, jaw tight. “Have you spoken to Father?”
Leo gives me a grim look. “About five minutes ago. He agrees. We train harder. We go darker. He said if we want to survive this… we have to unleash something worse than whatever they send.”
I look at my brothers, both of them tense, quiet. Milo cracks his knuckles. Marco’s chewing the inside of his cheek.
We spend time working on my training plan, and the game plan I’ll be using going into this fight.
I sit back and light a cigarette, even though my hands are already shaking. I don’t let them see it, but inside, there’s a whisper of fear. Not because I’m scared to die.
But because for the first time… I don’t know if I’ll win.
By the time we leave Leo, the sky is already turned to ink. Thunder grumbles like an old grudge over Blackstone's turrets, and the wind is pushing against the academy like it's trying to get inside and warn us.
We head straight back to the dorm. I push open the door to find Rosa perched on the arm of the couch, scrolling through something on her phone.
I look around for Aoife, but don’t see her anywhere. Fuck. She knows it’s not safe for her to be alone at the moment.
“Where is she?” I ask.
She doesn’t even look up. “Roof.”
Of course.
Leaving the room without saying anything to my brothers, I take the stairs two at a time. The wind is sharper up here. Colder. Salt lingers in the air, from the ocean.
Aoife’s silhouette is outlined against the storm. Hair blowing like wildfire. She’s sitting on the ledge again. Always on the edge of something.
“Are you planning on jumping, little lamb?” I call out to her.
She turns, a small smile ghosting across her lips.
“Not tonight,” she says. “Just needed air. A break from all the eyes, all the words.”
I walk over and sit next to her, balancing my elbows on my knees, cigarette between my lips. The waves crash far below. The lighthouse blinks, steady and defiant.
She exhales slowly. “I don’t know if I can take another whisper behind my back.”
I know it’s been hard on her, she’s never been a fighter, never had to go to war. But now she needs to learn how to hold her head high and show people she’s not scared of anyone, or their fucking words.
“You could stab them.”
She laughs under her breath. “I might. Milo’s been telling me the best place to stab them, so they shut up quicker.”
Aoife turns to me when I burst out laughing, trusting Milo to teach her the kill way first.
Silence falls for a beat. The kind that wraps around you, not awkward but knowing. Like even the wind understands what we’re not saying.
Then her phone buzzes.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
She stiffens, and I glance over. The screen lights up with blocked numbers.
Unknown
They will attack.
Unknown
Watch your back. They have a plan.
Unknown
They are watching everything!
My cigarette hits the floor and I snatch the phone from her hand and start typing.
Aoife
Who is this?
A beat.
Unknown
Aoife never asked who I am, so hello Matteo.
I’m someone who might ask for a favor one day.
Your family is very powerful, and one day I may need you.
I go to reply, but when I look back down at the phone all the messages vanish. Wiped. No trace.
I stare at the screen. “What the fuck?”
“Who the hell—”
“This isn’t just some hacker. This is someone smart. Marco-smart. Father and Grandfather had paranoid levels of training for him. They made sure he knew every hacking system in the world.” I think about this and need Marco to figure out who this is.
Aoife is shaking beside me, not from the cold. I tuck her into my side, one arm tight around her. “They won’t touch you,” I say. “Not while I’m breathing.”
The sound of thunder finally cracks the sky.
I draw a deep breath and kiss the top of her head. “Let’s get back, I need to tell them about the messages.”
She looks at me, then nods. I don’t know what’s going on in her head at the moment, and I could push the subject. I don’t, but I need her to tell me what's going on, in order to settle the doubts praying on her mind.
Taking her hand, I help her off the edge and wrap my arm over her shoulder pulling her closer to me.
“Come on little lamb, fight the world with me.” I kiss the top of her head again, and she leans in closer as we head back down the stairs.
Back in the dorm, the storm moves inside with us. The three of them turn to face me, and they already know something is wrong.
I drop the phone on the table and tell them about the messages.
Marco is the first to talk. “Gone? What do you mean gone?”
“Not sure what part of gone you don’t understand. Gone, like you do.” I’m not sure if I’m explaining this correctly to these two, I mean it’s simple, the message is fucking gone.
“Encrypted?” Milo frowns.
“No idea,” I say. “They vanished like they were never sent.”
“Could be the Irish. Could be someone else,” Marco mutters.
“Or someone on our side,” Rosa adds. “Watching from the shadows, you did say they might ask for a favor, because the family is powerful.”
Now that’s the part that did get my attention, it’s someone who knows the family, but is too scared to come to us now.
“We do have a lot of power not just here, but all around.” Milo looks at the phone to make sure the messages are one hundred percent gone, and I’m not going crazy.
“If you want help, ask for it,” Marco snaps, and I agree with him.
Aoife looks pale, but there’s steel in her eyes. She will become a Messina, and she will show the world she won’t fear anyone. One day they will all know her name and not say a bad thing about her.
“Either way,” I start, “someone just told us they are planning something and to watch our back, and I believe them.”
I have no idea why, but whoever has been sending Aoife messages has always warned her about something and never put her in danger. Now they know who the family is, I don’t think they will risk being in our bad books.
Now we have to wait to see what their move is.
The late morning sun is warm on my skin as we lounge around the sprawling Messina garden. A cigarette burns slowly between my fingers, and laughter echoes under the canopy of vines that have been climbing these stone arches since before I was born.
Remo and Ricci are arguing about whose tux looked sharper last year, while some of the others are trying to convince everyone they have a date lined up for the dance already. Bullshit, of course, but it made for good noise.
“Are you wearing the gold number again, Remo?” I ask, taking a drag from my smoke.
“I looked good in it, admit it,” he shoots back, fixing his collar like he isn’t sitting in a wrinkled uniform.
“You looked like a rich cannoli,” Santino adds, and the garden breaks into another wave of laughter.
Aoife is sitting beside me on the stone bench, legs crossed, playing with the hem of the skirt of her uniform. Her hair is down, a little wild, catching the breeze like it belongs here. Like she belongs here.
“You bringing her to church this weekend?” Ricci asks, gesturing with his cigarette toward Aoife.
“Obviously,” I reply before she can even open her mouth.
“Then she’s gotta dress to impress,” Rosa grinned, tossing a grape at Aoife’s head. “No pressure.”
My family might not be a hundred percent behind this, and they will always be watching her, waiting to see if this is all a game.
Aoife laughs, ducking, and for the first time I see her smile without fear buried behind it, and fuck it’s a sight I like. She needs to smile a lot more.
My cousins seem to be warming up to her now, slowly but genuinely. She holds her own in conversation, throws a few good jabs back at Marco, and even manages to make Rosa snort with laughter, and that’s not easy to do.
I still see her looking at me to make sure she’s not saying anything out of line. One thing she will learn from us, we’re a family who joke with each other, and once she’s confident, she needs to have fun with everyone.
It should feel like peace.
But even in the sun, my mind is dark.
The final trial is coming.
Leo’s warning about the Irish choosing their killer haunts me. I don’t know his name. Don’t have a face. But I can feel him getting closer. Every good moment now feels like something I’ll have to pay for in blood.
I glance at Aoife, still smiling, still laughing, and I wonder if this peace is what they’ll try to steal from me next.
I crush my cigarette into the ashtray and light another.
I’ve always been a smoker, but never the amount I have been smoking the last week. Maybe it’s to calm the storm that’s building around me, or to keep my hands busy from two things. Touching Aoife all the time and wanting to punch someone.
Seems like we’ve been out here for hours laughing and joking, that the edge of the sky is bleeding orange and red across the garden’s stone courtyard. Sunset is coming, and it should be a good moment.
Marco’s making jokes, Remo teasing back, and for once, the Messina garden feels like a haven.
But the mood fractures.
I feel them before I see them. The air tightens, like it knows something’s coming. Conor O’Brien steps out from the ivy gate, flanked by two of his Irish lapdogs. His eyes are on Aoife.
Marco’s up before I am. “Well, well…” He laughs, folding his arms. “Look what the famine dragged in.” I grin.
“I just want to talk,” Conor says.
“Not happening.” The words are out of my mouth before I even stand. I rise slowly, deliberately, placing myself between him and Aoife.
Conor’s eyes lock with mine, cold and bitter. I don’t back away.
“You want to talk to her?” I say, voice razor-edged. “Talk. But you do it with us right fucking here.”
Aoife stands, but I catch the shiver that moves through her. Conor notices too, and it fuels something cruel behind his eyes. She stands next to me, and I take her hand in mine, to stop them trembling and to show her I’m right here with her.
“I thought you were smarter than this,” he says to her. “You think this ends with flowers and a fairytale? You’re nothing to them.”
I step forward, and Aoife’s hand brushes mine, like she knows I’m about to lose it.
“Next time you talk to her, I want you to remember something.” I move into his space, nose almost touching him. “Remember this… Because of you and your family, she jumped off the roof behind you and if I hadn’t been there to catch her, she’d be dead.” I take a small step back, to see his reaction.
Silence.
Conor’s mask slips for a second. Just a second, but I see it. The guilt. The fucking shock.
He turns to Aoife. “Is that true?”
I push him hard and he stumbles back.
“She doesn’t owe you a single word. Fuck off before I hurt you in ways that’ll leave you screaming for weeks.” It’s taking everything in me not to punch him, and that’s mostly because no fighting on school grounds. It’s the number one rule of Blackstone.
The garden stills. Even the birds stop singing.
Marco and Milo stand between Conor and me, no words needed.
Conor keeps his eyes on me, before looking back at Aoife and something in his eyes changes, but I have no idea what.
“Watch your back Aoife, something around the corner can come at any time.” I go to take a step closer to him, not liking the words, but he finally backs off.
Anyone who touches her will bleed.