Chapter 1 #2
“Mr. Russo, can you hear me? We’re going to put you under now. You’re going straight into surgery.”
I want to tell her I’ve been under plenty tonight already, but my tongue is lead in my mouth. Someone attaches monitors to my chest; the steady beep of my heart is oddly reassuring.
Still beating. Still fighting.
The gray-haired doctor returns with a syringe, the liquid inside catching the light like liquid diamond. “Count backward from ten,” she instructs.
Ten. The ceiling swims.
Nine. My body feels suddenly weightless.
Eight. I think of fire, of rebirth, of vengeance.
Sev…
Darkness claims me completely.
Time becomes a strange, elastic thing in the weeks after the explosion.
I surface through layers of sedation like a diver fighting against crushing depths, only to be pulled under again by the next surgery, the next dose of morphine.
Pain is my only constant companion—sometimes dulled to a distant throb, sometimes sharp enough to tear screams from my throat that I refuse to let escape. My left eye is gone. That much I understand from the hushed conversations around my bed when they think I can’t hear them.
“Unsalvageable,” they say, as if parts of me are inventory to be written off.
During brief moments of clarity, I catch fragments of the world continuing without me.
Rafe’s voice, unusually subdued, “This was personal.”
Remus, his controlled fury evident even through the haze of drugs. “The footage shows one man. One. Fucking. Man.”
Doctors with their clinical assessments. “The grafts are taking well on his torso, but facial reconstruction will require…”
I drift on an ocean of pain medication, sometimes sinking, sometimes floating to the surface just long enough to remember that I’m not dead. Someone wanted me that way, though. The thought circles like a shark in the dark waters of my mind.
When I finally break through to full consciousness, sunlight streams through half-closed blinds, creating bars of light across the private hospital room.
The bandages covering half my face have been reduced to a padded eye patch. The burns on my chest and arms have transformed from raw, weeping wounds to tight, shiny skin in mottled shades of pink and white.
Every muscle screams in protest as I sit up, but I manage. My body feels like a poorly reassembled puzzle—all the pieces technically there but not quite fitting together anymore.
Ha, Enzo would love that analogy.
The door opens, and Remus walks in, followed by Rafe. They stop short when they see me upright.
“Look who decided to rejoin the living,” Rafe says, his casual tone belied by the relief in his eyes.
Remus approaches the bed, his gaze clinical as he assesses my condition. “The doctor said you’d be out at least another day.”
“Doctors,” I rasp, my voice rusty from disuse, “don’t know shit about Russos.”
A ghost of a smile touches Remus’s lips. “Apparently not.”
I gesture toward the water pitcher. Rafe pours a cup and hands it to me. The simple movement sends pain lancing through my skin.
“How long?” I ask after sipping the water. It feels like heaven against my parched throat.
“Five weeks,” Remus answers. “You’ve been in and out. More out than in. Three surgeries for the eye socket, four for the burns. One to remove shrapnel from your abdomen.”
I process this information dispassionately, as if he’s talking about someone else. Five weeks of my life, gone. Burned away like so much else.
“Enzo’s almost here,” Rafe adds, settling into a chair beside the bed. “Should be here within the hour.”
I raise my eyebrow—the one I still have. “Am I dying and nobody told me? Why’s Enzo coming?”
Remus doesn’t smile at the joke. “He’s been here three times already. This makes four.”
That surprises me. Enzo doesn’t leave Washington unless absolutely necessary. His presence means this isn’t just about me—it’s about the family. About our collective response.
As if summoned by our conversation, the door opens again. Enzo enters, his tailored suit as impeccable as always. Behind him comes Piper, her expression a careful mask that doesn’t quite hide her concern.
“Matteo,” Lorenzo says by way of greeting. “You look like shit.”
I feel a laugh bubble up, surprising in its genuineness. “Should see the other guy. Oh wait, you can’t. We don’t know who blew me up.”
Piper winces slightly, but my cousin’s lips curve in appreciation of the dark humor. He moves to the window, subtly checking the view before turning back to the room.
“Now that we’re all here,” Remus says, “we should discuss what we know.”
He reaches into a leather portfolio and spreads photos across the foot of my bed. Surveillance stills, grainy but clear enough.
The docks. My car. A man I don’t recognize.
“This was taken twenty minutes before your meeting,” Remus explains, tapping one image. “He knew exactly where you’d be parked and which car was yours. He even knew when to set the charges.”
I study the photos with my remaining eye, memorizing faces, builds, the way they move. “The contact never planned to show.”
“The contact doesn’t exist,” Enzo interjects, his voice flat. “We’ve checked every angle. The number you were calling? Burner. The name? Ghost. The entire setup was manufactured to get you to that exact spot at that exact time.”
The implication settles over the room like smoke—thick, choking, impossible to ignore.
“Someone gave them your schedule,” Remus states, voicing what we’re all thinking. “Someone with access.”
The betrayal isn’t surprising. In our world, loyalty is currency, and currencies can be counterfeited. What’s surprising is that anyone thought they could do this and live.
“We found one thing,” Rafe says. “Some ashes were arranged into a shape.”
I scoff. “Oh, no. Not a shape. Whatever will I—”
“Shut up,” Remus barks. “It could be important.”
There’s a lot I don’t remember from that night. But the one thing I remember clearer than anything else, is the fucking burning circle. It obviously means something. But I’m not going to sit around and discuss it. This is fucking personal to me, and not the family.
“We’re handling it,” Rafe assures me, his voice dropping to the dangerous register that means bodies will soon be cooling somewhere in Cleveland.
I touch the edge of my eyepatch, feeling the emptiness beneath. An emptiness matched by the hollow sensation in my chest that has nothing to do with physical wounds.
Someone thought they could burn me out of existence, just like the fire that took my parents. They failed.
Twice now, flame has tried to claim me. Twice, I’ve emerged—scarred, yes, but alive.
“Fire,” I murmur, almost to myself. “It always comes back to fire.”
Enzo watches me with sharp eyes. He understands better than most my relationship with flame.
“Maybe this could wait,” Piper says, her voice gentle but firm. “Until Matteo’s—”
“When we find the person or persons responsible,” I say, “they’re mine. Mine to end. Mine to burn.”
No one argues. In another family, there might be platitudes, attempts to dissuade vengeance. Not with Russos. We understand retribution. We respect it.
Remus nods once, the gesture’s somehow more binding than any contract. “The family stands with you. One bleeds, we all bleed.”
“One burns,” Rafe adds, “we all burn.”
I lean back against the pillows, suddenly exhausted but clearer than I’ve been in weeks. The pain medication is wearing off, leaving my mind sharp even as my body throbs. Good. I need the pain. Need the reminder.
The fire tried to take me twice now. Instead, it’s forged me. Hardened me. The flames that scarred my body as a child and now mark my face have never been my enemy—they’ve been my creator, my destroyer, my rebirth.
I will find who did this. And when I do, I’ll show them that playing with fire doesn’t just risk getting burned.
It guarantees it.