Chapter 41
Matteo
Ibarely make it down the corridor without staggering. Every breath I’m taking is burning my lungs. I took my eyes off the room for a minute, if that, and I’m now paying the fucking price. My body’s starting to feel too heavy for me to even keep myself standing.
The moment the heavy door slams shut behind us and we’re away from the crowd, I lose the careful mask I wore on the dance floor. Aoife’s still clinging to me like she thinks I’m leading, but I’m not. I’m just… holding on.
I can hear the music fading behind us, my arm slung over Milo’s shoulder, Aoife on the other side of me, trying hard to hold me up, but it’s not easy when I’m double the size of her.
My vision blurs at the edges. The pain’s no longer sharp; it's spreading like fire licked from a bottle. My ribs burn where the blade nicked me.
No. Not a nick. I know what a clean wound feels like.
This… This is something else.
“Matteo, not much further. Come on,” Milo snaps at me, because it’s becoming too hard to lift my feet to fucking walk.
We reach the dorm.
I collapse on the bed. Aoife’s eyes go wide with panic, but I can’t speak. I lean forward and throw up.
Once. Twice. The second time, it’s darker.
Metallic.
Fuck.
Aoife is kneeling in front of me, wiping my mouth with a towel, but my body’s shaking so hard I can barely hold myself still.
“Matteo? Talk to me.” I hear Milo from somewhere in the room.
But I can’t talk. My jaw is locked tight.
Milo’s eyes hit the spreading stain on my shirt, deep red blooming with something darker around the edge.
“Fuck,” he mutters. “That’s not just blood.”
“Move,” Leo shouts, and I hear the door shut again, Leo steps into my view, but it’s starting to blur, what the fuck did they give me? His eyes sweep over me in a second. “Shit. That blade was poisoned.”
I manage to lift my head, or at least I think I’ve lifted my head off my bed. I don’t even know what my body is doing. “Say that again?”
Leo’s already pulling gloves on, digging through the kit he brought. “The wound’s too small for how fast your symptoms are spreading. This wasn’t just a hit. It was meant to drop you where you stood.”
I laugh, bitter and short escapes me. “Well, it’s working.”
“You’re burning up,” Aoife whispers, brushing my hair off my forehead. Her hands tremble. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Because I‘m not showing anyone they’ve fucking won.”
Leo glances at her. “He wasn’t bleeding bad enough for anyone to notice, which means the blade was coated. Probably contact toxins. You absorb it as soon as you’re cut. That’s why he’s vomiting.”
“What do we do?” Marco asks.
“We try to counter it. Keep him breathing. Then we find out who the fuck did this. Number one on the list is the Irish.”
Leo rips the fabric of my shirt open. Aoife flinches when she sees the wound. It’s small. Too small for the damage it’s doing, but I can’t see what it’s doing to my skin, because I can’t lift my head to see.
“Hold him down,” Leo tells my brothers.
Hands slam onto my shoulders and legs. I roar as Leo presses gauze soaked in something cold directly onto the cut. My back arches off the bed. Everything burns. Fuck, everything is on fire, and taking me down in arches, at the moment.
Aoife grips my hand like she’s trying to pull me back from death.
I let her, but it’s not fucking working, this is pain I’ve never been through and never want to go through again.
Leo meets Marco’s eyes. “This wasn’t random. This was planned. This was the Irish, they wanted him to fall, and fall quietly. They know the fight is coming, they want him weak, and then he takes their locked away Princess. She’s the only reason they need to hurt him.”
I open my eyes as much as I can, and I see the rage in Marco’s jaw which tells me all I need to know.
“We’re going to find them,” Milo snarls.
Leo leans close to my ear. “You have a few hours before this spreads too far. If this doesn’t hold, we’ll have to call in someone higher up, someone who deals in things darker than poison.”
“Call whoever the fuck you want,” I rasp. “Just don’t let them touch her.” If they’re trying to get Aoife back, they need me to be weak.
Aoife’s face crumples. I squeeze her fingers weakly.
“I’m not dying, little lamb,” I whisper. “Not yet.”
But inside me, something cold has settled.
And if I survive this, if I make it through the night.
Whoever did this will wish they hadn’t missed.
Somewhere between agony and clarity, the rage sharpens, and it wakes me from my sleep.
They’ve crossed a line.
The blade was never meant to kill me outright; it was meant to break me slowly. Poison in the bloodstream, a quiet collapse. The kind of death that looks like weakness. The kind that gets whispered about in halls. "Messina, brought down by a dance."
Cowards.
Leo's voice cuts through the haze. “The antitoxin’s holding. Barely. But we don’t know how long you have before another dose is needed.”
I nod, jaw clenched, and no words escape, because what is there to say. Nothing.
Marco’s pacing now. Milo’s already on his phone, to whom I don't know. Aoife’s still by my side, silent, hand wrapped in mine like she’s anchoring me to the bed. I glance down at her thumb moving over my wrist, slow, steady. You can see the worry on her face.
“She hasn’t left your side,” Milo says, not looking up from his call.
Aoife meets my gaze and there is nothing more beautiful than her face. She leans closer, brushing her forehead against mine.
“I’ll kill them,” I whisper. “Whoever it was. I’ll kill them for touching me, and I’ll bury them for scaring you.”
Leo clears his throat. “I’m going to stay until sunrise, just to make sure you don’t go into shock. But you need to stay awake. Talk. Think. Anything.”
“I’m fine, and my eyes won’t even stay open,” I lie about being fine, reaching for a cigarette with a trembling hand. It takes me two tries to get it lit.
Marco leans against the wall, arms crossed. “So, what is the plan?”
I blow out smoke. “I need to call Grandfather and tell him about this.” There is no point coming up with a plan until Father and Grandfather know about the attack.
Because if they knew they would be here now, plus Leo won’t say anything because they will be pissed he wasn’t watching us, and my brothers, well they don’t want the headache.
“Aoife’s been getting messages. They told us they have a plan and will attack.
We just didn’t think they would do it in school, because of the…
of the rules.” Whatever they put on the knife, I don’t think it’s finished with me yet.
I close my eyes for a moment and listen to the conversations happening.
“No one ever attacks on school grounds; they know what will happen.” Milo is the first to comment, and then I hear Leo.
“But we don’t have proof it’s them, so they will deny it.”
My pulse spikes, not from the poison this time, but because Leo’s right.
I sit up, and the nauseating feeling hits me again. I fall back against the pillow, closing my eyes for just a second.
“You good?” Milo asks.
“I’ve never been more ready to finish this war.”
The poison may be slowing my body, but it’s cleared every doubt from my mind.
There’s no more waiting. No more walking the edge.
I reach for my phone with a hand that barely listens to me. Aoife tries to stop me.
“Matteo,” she whispers, “don’t call them yet. You’re still—”
“No.” I don’t look at her. “They need to know, Leo’s told them, but I need to talk to them.”
She doesn't answer, and I put the phone to my ear, and wait.
One ring.
Two.
“Matteo,” my grandfather’s voice comes through the line. Calm. Steady. Death wrapped in an Italian accent.
“They tried to kill me.”
Silence. Long. Cold.
My father’s voice cuts in; he’s there too. Of course he is.
“What happened?”
I breathe in, exhale slowly. “Someone at the Academy used a poisoned blade. I was stabbed. Leo handled it. I’m stable for now.”
“Irish?” my father growls.
“We don’t know yet,” I say. “But who else would it be? I have the trial final fight with them; they want me weak.”
My grandfather speaks again, slow and deliberate. “Are you still fit to fight?”
I stay silent for a moment, because I don’t know. “I don’t know when the fight is, but I’m not going down easy.”
“Can you still kill?”
I glance at the blade on my nightstand. “I’ve never wanted to more.”
“Good.” That earns a soft breath on the line. A sign of approval. Then I hear my father, with anger. “We come the day after tomorrow.”
“What?” I sit up straighter despite the burn in my side, and I have to bite down the cuss words I want to scream right now.
“You were attacked in a place we trusted. That trust is broken,” my grandfather says. “Your brothers will keep watch. You will rest. Then we move. If they want war, we won’t give them whispers.”
“We’ll give them thunder,” my father finishes.
Aoife’s eyes meet mine. Wide. Shaken. I can see the apology there. The worry. The fear that she’s the reason for this.
She’s not, we both knew it was wrong, but stayed together. This is both of us.
But I’ll kill anyone who makes her believe it.
“Grandfather, Father,” I say low into the phone. “Bring fire.”
I hang up.
The room is quiet again, only the sound of my breathing and the distant whisper of Aoife moving toward me. Her hand brushes the side of my face as I close my eyes.
I couldn’t get out of bed yesterday. Leo didn’t leave my side.
My brothers went about their day, mainly listening to rumors about the dance, whether anyone saw anything, but nothing.
No one is owning up to attacking me, but we don’t need anyone to.
The Irish will get theirs, and I’m the one who will make them regret it.
This morning, I still needed help. I’m not back to normal, I don’t even think I’m halfway there, but I’m showered and standing with my brothers and Aoife at the top of the school stairs. Well, I’m leaning more against Marco, as I can’t even hold my own weight.