Chapter 14 #3
"Then prove it," she snaps. "Because if I give you this… if I give you him…I need to know you’re not gonna use it to save your own ass and damn me in the process." She moves closer, her voice low, furious. "I’m not your leverage. I’m not your pawn. I’m not another fucking casualty in your war."
Her words cut, straight to the bone. "You really think I’d sell you out to save my own fucking skin?" I snarl. "If I wanted to fuck you over, Emery, you’d be lying dead next to Rocco right now." I lean in closer, breath hot against her lips, every word a warning. "Don’t fucking push me."
Her eyes flare, fierce, wild, a spark of fury lighting up the room.
"Push you?" she retorts. "Fuck you, Matteo. How many promises did you break? How many times did you swear you’d protect me, only to feed me lie after fucking lie and shove me deeper into this hell?" Her chest heaves, her rage crackling like a live wire between us. "You don’t get to stand there and act like you’re some goddamn savior. Not after every bullshit promise you fed me just to keep me chained. So yeah... I need proof. Because I’m done choking on your lies. "
"I never fucking lied to you," I rasp, the words dragged raw from somewhere too deep to fix. "Not when it was shit that mattered. Not when it was about you."
Her laugh is sharp, bitter. No humor, just jagged hurt.
"Oh yeah?" she snaps, her chest brushes mine. "Tying me to a fucking chair was your version of trust, Matteo?" Her voice cracks, but she doesn’t back down. Doesn’t even blink. "That was you showing me how much I meant to you?"
She shoves the words between us like knives.
"So don’t stand there and tell me you didn’t lie. Every promise you made to protect me, every word you whispered in the dark..." Her breath shakes, but her stare never wavers. "It all meant nothing the second you chose to hurt me instead."
"I did it to protect you," I snarl, the words ripping out sharp, louder than I mean them to be. "You think pushing you away was easy? You think tying you to that fucking chair was some goddamn power trip? For fuck sake… it was me or them, Emery. You think I wanted to do it? You think I enjoyed seeing you like that?" My eyes burn into hers, every muscle in my body strung so tight I could snap. "I tied you to that chair because if I didn’t… if I didn’t make it look real, my father’s men would’ve stepped in. And trust me they wouldn’t have stopped.
They would’ve torn you apart just to watch you fucking bleed.
" My voice drops, softer, the weight of it punching out of me.
"I did it to protect you, Emery. To buy you time. To keep them from turning you into something you’d never come back from. "
I pause, jaw clenched, breath ragged.
"I chose the lesser evil," I say. "I chose me because at least with me, you had a fucking chance.
" My chest heaves, every muscle locked so tight it aches. "I kept you at arm’s length when we were kids because I had to… Because dragging you deeper into my world would’ve eaten you alive.
" I suck in a breath that feels more like a wound.
"And fuck, Emery... I couldn’t watch that happen.
Not to you. Not to the only good thing I ever had. "
She opens her mouth to fire back, but I cut her off before she can speak, the truth tearing from me before I can shove it back down.
"Because I fucking love you," I growl, the words breaking out of me, cracked and raw. "I did all of it because I love you. And I didn’t know how to love you without ruining you in the process."
She goes still.
Completely fucking still.
Her breath catches, like I just knocked the air out of her with nothing but words.
For a second, she just stands there, blinking at me, unsure if she actually heard me or if her mind’s fucking with her again.
Her eyes flicker. Shock, disbelief, pain…
all crashing together in one brutal, beautiful moment.
The fire in her dims, just for a heartbeat.
The ground’s split beneath her feet, and now she’s got nowhere to stand.
"You..." she whispers, barely audible more to herself than to me.
Her brows knit. Her lips part, then press together again, caught between the urge to scream or collapse.
But then her voice pushes through, low and shaking.
"You don’t get to say that," she says, head shaking, eyes shining with everything she’s trying so damn hard to hold back.
"Not after everything. You don’t get to say you love me... when everything you did screamed you didn’t."
I stare at her, at the way her chest heaves. At the way her jaw’s clenched so tight it looks like it might snap.
But it’s all out there now. No taking it back.
The words I swore I’d never say. The truth I buried so deep I thought it’d rot before it ever saw the light.
But fuck it. If this ends tomorrow… if I step outside and get a fucking bullet like I’m goddamn waiting for, then at least I’ll go down bleeding honest to her.
"I've loved you every fucking day, Emery," I growl, voice shaking, cracked wide open.
Her breath stutters, but I don’t let up. I can’t. Not when it’s the only thing left in me that’s real.
"Even when I wanted to hate you," I rasp, the words ripping out ragged.
"Even when I told myself you were better off without me.
Even when I shoved you so fucking deep into the dark, thinking it was the only way to save you from the worst parts of me.
" My voice breaks, just long enough to bleed.
"I loved you through all of it. Through the fucking silence.
Through the violence. Through the goddamn wreckage of what I became. "
I pause, breathing hard, my eyes locked on hers, the only thing anchoring me to this fucked-up world.
"I didn’t say it to you back then because I thought loving you would destroy you. And maybe it still will. But don’t you fucking stand there and tell me it wasn’t real. That every time I pushed you away, it was me trying like hell to save you... even when it fucking killed me."
She stands there.
Silent.
Eyes locked on mine like she’s trying to see if this is another lie dressed in desperation, or if I really just ripped my chest open and handed her everything I never had the guts to say.
The silence stretches. Tight. Frayed at the edges.
And then she speaks. Her voice is quiet when it comes.
"Then why didn’t you fight for me?" she asks.
"Why did you let me think I was nothing to you?
" Her voice cracks, but her eyes don’t waver.
"I would’ve walked through fire for you, Matteo.
I fucking bled for you. And all I ever wanted—" she breaks off, swallowing down the ache, "was for you to stay. But you didn’t.
You broke me... and left me to pick up the pieces alone.
" Her hands clench at her sides, fists trembling from the effort it takes to stay upright.
"And now you stand here and tell me you love me as though those words could stitch together what you shattered.
" She laughs, jagged and bitter. "I don’t even know what’s worse…
What you did to me... or the brutal truth that I still fucking love you, even now. "
My chest locks up so hard it feels as if it’s caving in, ribs folding inward, crushing me from the inside out.
Because she just said it. The thing I’ve been dying for and dreading in the same goddamn breath.
She still loves me. After everything. After the lies.
After the blood. After every scar I carved into her skin and her soul.
She still loves me.
It destroys me in a heartbeat. It tears through every wall I built to keep her out. Leaves me standing here, bleeding and desperate and hers.
"I never fucking stopped, Em," I rasp, voice shredded, raw, the words slipping out before I can even think. "Not for a second."
“Never stopped… what, Matteo?” She asks.
"Loving you," I rasp, voice breaking around the words, stripped of every bit of armor I spent years building around myself.
I lift my hand and cup the side of her face. My thumb brushing softly over her cheekbone, like I’m scared she might disappear.
"I tried, Em," I breathe, my forehead nearly touching hers. "God knows I tried to bury it. I tried to hate you. Tried to forget." My thumb trembles slightly against her skin, and I don’t even care. "But it never went away. I mourned you every damn day. And I loved you the whole fucking time."
Her eyes shine, tears trembling at the edges, and fuck, my heart feels like it’s about to tear itself apart inside my chest.
She leans into my touch. Her warmth bleeding into my palm like she’s stitching me back together without even trying.
"I never stopped loving you either," she whispers.
And those four words tear through me harder than any blade, any bullet, any fucking thing this world has ever thrown at me.
Because she never stopped. And for the first time in years.
.. I don't feel alone. Not lost. Not hollow.
Just a boy who's still in love with the only girl who ever mattered to him.
Her eyes flick to my mouth. Just once. But that’s enough. That one look is all it takes to tear the last thread of restraint out of me.
My mouth crashes onto hers, rough, reckless, starving. There’s no control left. No walls. No armor. Just raw, desperate hunger pouring out of me, pouring into her, like I can somehow fuse us back together with nothing but teeth and want.
My grip tightens on her jaw, angling her head back so I can take more. Claiming her the way I should’ve years ago. The way I dreamed about it every night I had to survive without her.
She gasps into my mouth… it’s the sweetest goddamn sound I’ve ever heard. My other hand fists in her hair, yanking sharp, dragging her flush against me until there’s no space left, no room to breathe, no room to think.
She tastes of defiance.
Of forgiveness.
Of every fucked-up, beautiful thing I never thought I’d get back.
My tongue slides past her lips, stroking, teasing, demanding she yield and she does. She softens against me, like she’s melting from the inside. A desperate little moan that tears the last shreds of control right out of my chest.
"You're fucking mine," I say against her mouth, the words harsh, possessive, savage as a brand. It’s not a promise, it’s a fact.
She kisses me back harder, fiercer, her body arching into mine like she’s been waiting years for this, for me to finally say it, to finally fucking mean it.
I growl low in my throat. The sound ripped out of me as I grip her thighs, hauling her up against me so fast she gasps.
But she doesn’t stop me. Fuck no. She locks her legs tight around my waist, grinding her heat against my cock until I’m one second away from losing every shred of control I’m hanging onto.
She’s not even naked yet, and I’m already so hard it’s painful.
I spin us around without breaking the kiss, slamming her back against the nearest wall, needing her closer, needing her everywhere.
Her fingers desperately claw into my shoulders. Her mouth still fused to mine like she’s trying to crawl inside my skin.
And I’d let her. I’d tear myself wide open if it meant she stayed there forever.
"Fuck, Emery," I say against her lips, my voice thick with every filthy, desperate thing I've been holding back. "You feel that?" I grind my cock up into her, hard and ruthless, making sure she feels it. "That’s what you fucking do to me."
She rolls her hips again, slow, filthy, a goddamn tease, grinding down on me with one purpose: to ruin me. To break me open right here, halfway up the goddamn staircase, and leave me begging at her feet.
Every step is its own kind of torture. Her heat pressed tight against me, her body grinding against my cock like she knows exactly how to break me. She’s not teasing. She’s claiming. Dragging that sweet, hot pussy over my cock with every slow grind, every breathless moan against my throat.
She’s daring me. Promising me exactly what’s waiting the second I get her flat on her back.
"You keep grinding that sweet pussy on me like that," I growl, voice rough enough to tear skin, "and I’m gonna fuck you right here on this goddamn staircase."
She moans, soft, desperate, needing it, aching for it.
And fuck… if she keeps moving against me, I just might.