Chapter 7
Matteo
It’s funny how the mind keeps score, even when you pretend not to care.
My penthouse is full of reminders of many things. Yet, it’s the note of Raven’s perfume that refuses to fade from my couch and bed.
I reach for the silver flip-top lighter that should be on my coffee table, fingers closing around empty air for the hundredth time this week. The absence burns worse than the flames it once held.
Seven fucking days since she took it—seven days of phantom weight in my pocket where my father’s lighter should rest. I’m not used to wanting things back. Usually, when something’s taken from me, I just take something bigger in return.
An eye for an eye leaves everyone blind, but I’m already halfway there, so what’s one more socket to empty?
My phone buzzes against the glass tabletop, skittering across the surface like a dying insect. I snatch it up, thumb swiping across the screen with more force than necessary.
Vito: Raven’s back in the nest. Just spotted entering her apartment building.
A smile stretches across my face, pulling the scars tight along my left cheek. I can feel the difference between normal skin and damaged tissue—one gives, the other resists. Like people. Most bend when I apply pressure. Some resist until they snap.
Me: Keep eyes on her. Don’t engage.
Stretching, I grab my tablet and wait, its screen reflecting the storm clouds gathering outside my penthouse windows. Fitting weather for my mood. I tap in the passcode and open the folder labeled Carter, L.R.
The employee file Holston sent over glows with sterile professionalism.
Name: Lena Raven Carter.
Age: 28
Education: Georgetown graduate.
Then come the performance reviews that read like love letters.
Exceptional client management, innovative problem-solving, and an unparalleled ability to diffuse tensions.
There’s a professional headshot attached to the file. Blonde hair swept into a sleek ponytail, warm brown eyes that reveal nothing, perfect red lips curved into what passes for sincerity among people paid to lie.
So different from the woman with her legs wrapped around my waist, head thrown back, throat exposed.
Beneath the corporate bullshit lies my real work—a separate folder I’ve cultivated over the past week. I tap it open, and Raven’s life unfolds before me in exquisite detail.
Born Lena Raven Carter in Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia. Upper middle class, not wealthy enough to be untouchable but comfortable enough to be soft. Her parents are still married—how fucking quaint.
Father: Henry Carter, investment banker at Weston Financial Group.**
Mother: Victoria Carter, part-time art gallery coordinator.
Twin brother: Leo Carter, architect.
The asterisks next to her dad immediately catch my attention, and I scroll to the bottom for the footnote.
Henry Carter served in the army. He left when wife Victoria Carter was five months pregnant.
Skills: knife retention and survival knife usage.
I scroll through financial records, medical histories, school transcripts. Every life leaves a paper trail, and hers is far from the first I’ve followed to its source. Her credit score is excellent. Her dental work was extensive during adolescence. She had her appendix removed at sixteen.
The next folder contains surveillance photos—nothing sophisticated, just what my men could gather on short notice.
Henry Carter leaving his office building, briefcase in hand, checking his watch with the punctuality of a man who’s never had to worry about whether he’ll make it home alive.
Victoria Carter in gardening gloves, kneeling among flowers that probably have names I don’t give a fuck about.
Leo Carter exiting an architect firm.
The pictures are my insurance policies. Pressure points. Places where, if I press hard enough, Raven will feel the pain from miles away. But it doesn’t need to come to that. Still, it’s nice to be prepared.
My eye socket throbs beneath the patch, a dull ache that’s become as familiar as my own heartbeat. I remove the patch, rubbing at the hollow where gray used to mirror gray. The prosthetic sits in its case beside me—I only wear it in public.
Here alone, I prefer the honest emptiness.
I crack my neck, roll my shoulders back, and feel vertebrae shift and realign. One week of obsessing over this woman. One week of thinking about the curve of her ass, the heat of her cunt, and the audacity of her theft.
No woman’s been in my home before her. I don’t bring women here—I fuck them in hotel rooms, in the private rooms above the Leone Room, in their own beds before I leave them wondering if they dreamed me.
But Raven… I brought her here. Gave her access to my private space. And she thanked me by taking the one thing that mattered. Fuck, the recklessness of her actions has me hard all over again.
Waiting one week for her to come back hasn’t settled the inferno inside me. If anything, I’m obsessed with Raven by now. I want to know everything there is to know about her, sink my cock into her again, and hear her thank me for letting her live.
My phone buzzes again with another text from Vito.
Vito: Lights on in the apartment. Looks like she’s staying in.
Me: Is she alone?
Vito: I believe so.
Me: Full surveillance until Monday’s meeting. I want to know everyone who enters or leaves. If she so much as orders takeout, I want the delivery guy’s name.
Vito: You got it, boss.
I close the tablet, slide it into the desk drawer. Two days until the meeting at Holston PR. Two days until I watch those brown eyes widen with recognition, with fear, with the slow-dawning horror of realizing exactly what she’s done.
“Monday, Little Thief,” I murmur to the empty room, standing to slip on my jacket. “We’re going to have such fun together.”
I check my watch as I walk toward the elevator. It’s time to handle another problem. Something messier but simpler. Sometimes you need to get your hands bloody to clear your head.
As the elevator doors close, I find myself smiling. The weight of my gun against my ribs is a pathetic substitute for my father’s lighter, but it will have to do for now.
When I’m in my car, it takes every ounce of self-control I possess to stop myself from driving straight to Raven and demanding my lighter back. But somehow I manage to keep my urges in line.
The warehouse looms against the darkening sky, a hulking silhouette at the edge of the industrial district where Cleveland’s forgotten dreams go to rust.
Inside, two problems await me. One sitting in a metal chair with zip ties cutting into his wrists, and another hiding under his clothes in black ink circles. I’m good at solving problems. Especially the kind that bleeds.
The metal door groans on its hinges as I push it open. The stench hits me first. Sweat, fear, and the metallic tang of blood already spilled. “Next time, I want a torture room with a window,” I complain.
My men laugh, and the rat that’s zip-tied to a metal chair bolted to the concrete floor groans. I can forgive him for having lost his sense of humor considering his left eye is swollen shut, bottom lip split and leaking crimson down his chin.
Joey Scott is one of my own guys, and he’s been part of the distribution crew for the past three years. I fucking hate disloyalty in the ranks more than anything else.
“Boss,” Jim acknowledges, shifting his weight. “He hasn’t said much.”
I take my time crossing the floor, each step measured. Joey’s good eye follows me, darting between my face and the floor like he can’t decide which is safer to look at. His breathing comes in quick and shallow bursts. He knows what happens to traitors.
“Joey,” I greet him, voice light as if we’re meeting for drinks. “You’ve looked better.”
He licks his lips, wincing when his tongue finds the split. “Matteo… Mr. Russo… there’s been a mistake. I swear to Christ.”
I circle him once, twice. The collar of his shirt is torn, revealing the edge of something black at the base of his neck. Not a normal tattoo; a perfect circle, partly visible above his collarbone.
“That’s new,” I observe, hooking a finger in his collar and yanking it down. The movement makes him gasp. The circle is complete, solid black, about the size of a half-dollar. Just like the ones on those fuckers’ wrists. “When’d you get the ink, Joey?”
He swallows hard. “It’s not what you think.”
“Tell me what I think, then.” I release his collar and shrug out of my suit jacket, draping it carefully over a nearby stack of pallets. The warehouse is warm, stuffy with trapped heat and the promise of violence.
“It’s just a tattoo.” His voice cracks. “My girlfriend’s into all that new-age shit. Says it represents, uh, wholeness or some crap.”
I roll up my sleeves with methodical precision, one fold at a time. Right first, then left. Joey’s eye tracks each movement like I’m assembling a gun.
“See, that’s interesting,” I muse. “Because I saw the same mark on two people who tried to kill me last week.” I lean in close enough to smell the fear on him. “Coincidence, right?”
“I don’t know anything about that,” he insists, shifting in the chair. The zip ties cut deeper, plastic teeth biting into flesh. “Look, if this is about the shipment last month—”
“What about the shipment?” I interrupt, voice dropping to a whisper.
His single functioning eye widens. “Nothing. Nothing! I just thought—”
“You thought what?” I circle behind him, placing both hands on his shoulders. He flinches at the contact. “That I wouldn’t notice twelve kilos going missing between the dock and the warehouse? That the count would just… magically balance itself?”
“I didn’t take anything!” The desperation in his voice could almost be convincing. Almost.
I pat his cheek, a gentle touch that makes him jerk away. “Joey, Joey, Joey. You disappoint me. I gave you responsibilities. Trusted you with the product. And this is how you repay me?” I move around to face him again. “By stealing from me and wearing enemy colors?”
“I swear on my mother’s life—”
My fist connects with his jaw before he can finish, snapping his head sideways. Blood and spittle spray across the concrete.
“Don’t bring your mother into this,” I advise, flexing my fingers. “She raised a thief, a goddamn traitor, and a liar, but that’s not her fault.”
Joey spits a mouthful of red onto the floor. “I’m not a traitor,” he croaks. “I would never—”
I pull out my phone, swiping to the video I need. I hold it in front of Joey’s face, watching his expression collapse as he sees himself on the security feed—clear as fucking day—sliding packages into his jacket at the warehouse where we process shipments.
“What’s that?” I ask pleasantly. “Looks like you’re taking something that doesn’t belong to you.”
His shoulders slump. Game over.
“It was just once,” he whispers. “I needed money. My kid’s got medical bills—”
My next punch lands on his sternum, knocking the air from his lungs with a satisfying wheeze. “We both know that’s bullshit. The cameras caught you at multiple separate times.”
I beckon to Jim, who hands me a knife. Joey’s eye fixates on the blade, pupils dilating with fresh terror.
“The tattoo,” I press, tapping the flat of the blade against his cheek. “Who gave it to you?”
“It’s not what you think,” he repeats, the words tumbling out faster now. “It’s just a fucking tattoo, man.”
I smile, letting the expression reach my eye. “See, I believe you took the product. That’s obvious. But this?” I press the knife tip against the black circle until a bead of blood wells up. “This makes me think you’re feeding information to my enemies. The same enemies who blew me up last year.”
His breath hitches. “I would never betray you like that. Never! I stole some product, yeah, I admit it. I fucked up. But I’m not a rat. I’m not working with anyone.”
I study his face, looking for the telltale signs of a lie—the micro-expressions, the involuntary swallow, the flicker of the eye. Joey’s scared shitless, but the fear seems genuine. Not the calculated panic of a man hiding bigger sins.
“The circle,” I insist. “What does it mean to you?”
“Nothing!” His voice breaks. “My girl is into astrology and said it represents the full moon, new beginnings. I got it to make her happy. That’s it!”
I press the knife harder, drawing a thin line of blood along the edge of the tattoo. “Funny thing about circles, Joey. They have no beginning, no end. Just like lies. They go round and round until someone cuts them open.”
He’s sobbing now, words spilling out between gasps. “I swear, Matteo. Y-yes, I stole the product. I’ll pay it back. I’ll do anything. But I’m not working with anyone else. I’m not a traitor.”
I straighten, wiping the blade on his shirt. “I believe you.”
Relief washes over his face, pure and pathetic. “Thank you. Thank Christ. I swear I’ll make it right.”
“I believe you didn’t know what the tattoo really means,” I clarify, stepping back. “But that makes you stupid, not innocent.”
I retrieve my gun and check the chamber, a habit more than a necessity. Joey’s pleas increase in volume and desperation, promises of repayment, mentions of his family, appeals to mercy I’ve never possessed.
“The thing is, Joey,” I explain calmly, aiming between his eyes, “even if you’re not feeding information, you took from me. And that’s a death sentence.”
Even with the silencer on, the shot echoes through the warehouse, a pop that silences his begging. His head snaps back, then slumps forward, blood trickling from the neat hole above the bridge of his nose.
The chair legs scrape against concrete as his body spasms once, twice, then goes still.
“Clean this up. Dump him where he won’t be found.” I turn to my men. “Find out who gave him the tattoo. Find his girlfriend. I want to know if he was just stupid or if someone was using him.”
“And the missing product?” Jim asks, already pulling on disposable gloves.
I reach for my jacket, slipping it back on with a shrug. “Calculate his cut over the next five years. Take it from that, give the rest to his kid. Anonymous donation.”
Jim’s eyebrows lift in surprise. “That’s… generous, boss.”
I straighten my cuffs, adjusting them until they sit perfectly against my wrists. “It’s not generosity. It’s morals. I don’t steal from children.”
As I walk back toward the door, I pause. “And find out where he got that fucking tattoo. I want every person with that mark on their skin identified by morning.”