13. Lila
13
LILA
T he first crack of noise cuts through the house like a warning. I pause at the kitchen sink, sponge in hand, and glance at the window. A second burst follows. Then a third. Each one is louder than the last and paced too evenly to be random. I turn off the water and wipe my hands on a towel. The sounds continue in short, brutal intervals. Voices call out in clipped commands. The shouts do not carry words I can make out, but the tone is unmistakable. Whoever is speaking is not practicing conversation. They are issuing orders.
I move through the hallway and stop at the bottom of the stairs. Lev is in the bedroom upstairs. I hear nothing from him, which means the headphones are probably still on. I told him to wear them while he worked on his drawings. He was happy enough and settled on the carpet with his notebook and markers. I should go check on him now, but I keep walking toward the back of the house.
I reach the garden door and pull it open. Heat and smoke press against my face enough to sting the back of my throat. The lawn has changed since this morning. Crates and barriers have been arranged across the yard. Men in combat gear move between them in coordinated patterns. They crouch, sprint, signal, and fire. I see one of them take cover behind the fountain, and another raises his rifle while giving a silent count with his fingers. Their movements are not exaggerated or for show. These are real tactics.
Mateo stands at the edge of the garden. His sleeves are rolled and his jaw is set. He watches the drill in complete silence. His hands rest on his hips. He does not speak or give orders. He observes as if the outcome is already known.
I walk toward him with steady steps. My shoes crunch against the gravel path that cuts between the grass and the hedges. And he snaps his head up, then looks back at his men. “What is this?” I ask.
He does not turn when he replies, “Drills.”
“You said you would keep the live training away from the house.” I cross my arms over my chest indignantly. He has no clue how this is dangerous for Lev, or he doesn’t care.
“I changed my mind.”
“You didn’t tell me.” Even Anton wasn't this stupid. A boy as young as Lev needs to be protected from this sort of shit.
He finally turns to face me. “I don’t report to you.” His eyes are dark, narrowed on me.
“My son is upstairs.”
“I know where he is.”
“He shouldn’t be listening to this.” I throw my arm out in a gesture toward the yard, and he scowls.
“He’s wearing headphones.” Mateo actually rolls his eyes at me, as if firing off canons in the back yard of his suburban home is normal. As if I'm the idiot and not him.
“That doesn’t make it better.” My blood is boiling.
“It makes it quieter.” One eyebrow rises as he turns back to his men again.
His voice does not rise, but the edge is there. I stare at him and resist the urge to shout. Yelling at Mateo rarely accomplishes anything. He has already decided he is right. I take a slow breath and speak again.
“This is not a military base. This is a home.”
“This is a target.” His words land without hesitation. He does not blink as he says them. He locks eyes with me and glares down his nose, and I take his point. I'm well aware of the mess I'm in, both with my mother and with Anton's enemies. Mateo has brought me here at his own peril.
“You think that justifies everything?” I gesture with my hand again, unable to stop myself. I'm too mad to stand still.
“It justifies enough.”
I shake my head. “He’s five. He should be learning to read, not how to tell a real gunshot from a blank.”
Mateo glances toward the line of trees at the back of the property. Another round fires. Two men break into formation and fall low behind the hedge wall. “He should be out here learning with them,” Mateo says.
I take a full step back. “He’s not yours.”
“He is now.”
“No. You don’t get to take him just because you buried his father.” I'm already backing away, hugging myself.
“I get to protect him because no one else will do it right.” His words cut clean and fast. He believes them. That is the worst part. He thinks this is protection. He thinks every order and every tactic keeps us alive.
“I told you someone was following me.” My voice is quavering in anger and fear. I just want this all to go away.
“You told me after the fact—when I caught you.”
“I didn’t know what I saw.” I'm lying. I knew what I saw when I saw it. I just didn't want to believe that Mateo could be right.
“He did.”
I swallow hard. “I…"
“And you didn’t call me.” Now Mateo's focus is entirely on me. His men aren't shooting. They stop and stare at us, waiting for his command. I'm shivering, but I’m not cold.
“Because I knew you would react like this.” Now my voice is meek, cracking under the pressure.
Mateo steps forward. The smell of smoke lingers on his shirt. His eyes are dark and steady. “I told you, not telling me is how people die."
I don't have any emotional energy to respond to him. I let defeat settle over me and decide the only way I'll keep my son from this is to protect him myself. I march back into the house, slamming the door, and take Lev's snack up to the playroom, where I crank up the music and Lev and I have a dance party. If Mateo is going to act like an ass, I can act like one too.
* * *
The house is quiet. Dinner passed without incident. Lev fell asleep before I finished reading the second story, curled up with one hand resting on the spine of his drawing book. I turned out the light and left the door cracked just wide enough to hear him breathing. The hallway outside is still, but I can feel the tension in my body from earlier.
I find Mateo on the roof.
He sits in one of the iron chairs near the terrace wall, shoulders squared, legs stretched out, a cigarette held between two fingers. Smoke curls upward, steady and unbothered by the wind. His jacket is slung across the back of the chair. The sleeves of his shirt are rolled to his elbows. The ember glows when he draws it in, then dims again as he exhales through his nose.
He doesn’t acknowledge me when I step outside, so I cross the stone and sit in the chair next to him. The night air is cold against my arms. I don’t ask why he’s up here. I don’t ask what he’s thinking.
He offers me the pack without speaking. I take one, and he flicks his lighter. I lean in and light the tip, then sit back and take the first drag slowly. I don’t usually smoke, but tonight feels like an exception I don’t need to explain.
Seeing his men running around the back yard playing G.I. Joe made my blood boil, but it also made this all the more real. I was right when I reminded myself that Anton would never have done this around Lev, but maybe there was never a need—never a threat. Maybe Mateo sees a threat Anton never did, and that's why… A million reasons could've prompted his preparations.
For a while, we sit without conversation. The quiet stretches, but it doesn’t feel hostile. It just exists between us. For once, he isn’t trying to control the silence, and I don’t feel the need to break it.
I watch the horizon while the cigarette burns in my hand. The lights from the city below shimmer in the haze, just out of reach. Mateo shifts slightly in his chair, resting one ankle on his opposite knee.
“Anton used to brag about you,” I say. “Said you had no soul. No weak spots.” I bring the cigarette to my lips and take another drag. The menthol lessens the harshness of the smoke, though I still don't see why men do this to their lungs.
He exhales slowly, smoke catching in the slight breeze and blowing away. “That sounds like him.”
“He meant it as praise.”
“Of course he did.” Mateo is callous, probably full of hatred for a brother he never truly felt fit his flock.
“He said you’d never break for anyone. That no one could get close enough.”
He looks at me now. “And he said that while cheating on you.”
So he knew about the affairs? But how could I expect a brother to rat out his sibling? I don’t believe Mateo is any better, anyway. So I nod.
“Yes. Usually with a drink in his hand and a story about how everyone else was weak.”
Mateo gives a dry laugh. It’s brief and humorless. “He wasn’t wrong. At least not all the way.”
I finish the cigarette, press the end into the ashtray, and let my hand rest on the table. “Did you ever want a family?”
He doesn’t answer immediately. He tilts his head back and studies the sky. The stars are faint tonight, half-concealed behind the city glow and partially behind one shelf of clouds moving in off the Mediterranean.
“Never thought about it,” he says. “Still don’t.”
I don’t argue. I lean back in the chair and close my eyes for a moment. The smoke still lingers in my throat, but it feels steadying rather than sharp. I open them again and glance sideways at him. His jaw is tight, and his expression hasn’t changed.
I rest my head on his shoulder without saying anything. His body stays still. He doesn’t look at me, and he doesn’t lean in. He just sits there and allows it.
We stay that way for several minutes. The silence holds, but it no longer feels cold. It’s neutral. Maybe even easy. Never like it was with Anton. He always made a point to make sure I knew how badly I annoyed him.
When I move to stand, Mateo reaches out and catches my wrist. His hand closes around it, not with force, but with enough certainty to stop me. I look down at him. He doesn’t speak, and he doesn’t explain. He tugs gently, and I sit again. This time, I don’t look away.
The air between us shifts, subtle at first. He doesn’t move, but his grip on my wrist lingers longer than it should. I don’t pull away. I don’t want to. The silence that held us a moment ago begins to change, and I feel the edge of something warmer beneath it, something slow and sharp. He looks at me, not with anger or frustration this time but with something I can’t name. It isn’t soft, but it’s steady.
My pulse kicks hard once, and I know he senses it. I can see it in the way his eyes drop to my throat, then rise again. His hand moves from my wrist to the inside of my thigh, and he lightly traces upward toward my groin.
He’s waiting for me to stop him, but I don’t.
I lean in before I think better of it. My body tilts toward his. The space between us disappears by degrees, breath by breath. He doesn’t kiss me yet. He just watches me, like he’s giving me the chance to change my mind.
I don’t speak. I close the gap myself.
His lips are hotter than I expect, coaxing mine open with gentle pressure. My eyes snap shut as he pushes his fingers into my hair, angling my head to deepen the kiss. His tongue brushes mine, tentative and electric. His other hand moves from my thigh to my waist, splaying across the fabric of my shirt like he’s memorizing every curve and dip of muscle underneath. I slide a hand down his back, feeling the strength of him beneath his shirt. He groans low in his chest, and I clench involuntarily.
When he pulls me so I’m straddling him, I feel how hard he is already. Kissing me elicits something inside him that he can’t control. We pull apart, gasping. Our chests are heaving in time with the other as we stare at each other. It feels like the world has tilted on its axis. I don’t know who I am anymore. I’m throwing myself at this man I should hate, but I can’t make myself hate him anymore.
"What are you doing, Mateo?" I breathe, voice barely a whisper.
“I’m only doing what you want me to,” he says, ripping the front of my shirt open. My chest exposed to the night air, I shiver, but I don’t shy away when he reaches for the front clasp of my bra and undoes it.
“Are you going to destroy my jeans too?” I ask him, watching as he admires my peaked nipples before sitting straighter to close his lips around one and suck.
“Maybe,” he says. His roughened fingers trail down my stomach and very, very slowly undo my fly. His lips move to the other nipple, sucking hard enough to leave a mark. I moan as he slides his hand into my pants and finds the damp spot on my panties. “You’re already wet. You don’t want these clothes on… Do you?”
My cheeks are on fire. Mateo's touch is deft, and I can't think straight. He lowers his mouth to my collarbone as his fingers move inside my damp underwear, teasing me mercilessly. "No," I gasp out, arching my back to seek more contact. "I don't want them on anymore."
Mateo rips the rest of my shirt off me and growls in frustration as he tears his own shirt off too. His sculpted chest contracts, and bruised skin glistens in the overhead light as he stands and pulls me to my feet with him. He grabs both sides of my pants and pulls them down, thankfully not destroying them, but he takes my panties with them and I’m left standing there in just my bra which is hanging open in the front.
“Now, where were we?” he asks, worshiping one nipple, then the other.
“We were here,” I manage. My voice is barely recognizable as my own, so breathless and needy. Mateo looks up at me through heavy-lidded eyes and smirks. His hands cup my ass firmly, lifting me then lowering us both back onto the chair. His hard dick presses against my core, and he works to loosen his fly. When he pulls it out, it slides through my moisture and rubs my clit, making me pant softly.
“Better?” he says.
I can only nod as he guides himself to my entrance and pushes inside without waiting, searing me with his heat. My walls clench around him, and I bite down on my lip to muffle my cry. He doesn’t do it gently, either. He fills me completely, rocking his hips against mine, his mouth finding mine again, devouring it hungrily as if he might never get enough. At this angle, he’s so deep I think he may push right through my cervix. The pressure is intense, and I shudder and claw his shoulders.
“Too much?” he asks, but I can’t even whimper at him. “Good…” he groans, driving into me harder. “Now rub your clit.”
His order makes me tense. His voice is so dominant. It makes me want to obey him. I reach between us and find the bundle of nerve endings and press on it, smearing my own moisture around. Mateo slides a hand up my back and tangles his fingers in my hair and pulls it until my neck cranes backward and my neck is exposed. Then he rakes his teeth across my jugular and bites down hard.
I scream, but it comes out all wrong, a muffled cry of both pain and pleasure. My vision whites out for a second, and I clench around him, but he just drives in harder, pumping in slow, steady thrusts.
The sky overhead blurs, my coil is tightening, and when he nips at my chest, then bites a nipple, I feel a surge of arousal pulse through me. That's when it hits me all at once, my orgasm crashing bodily into me, ripping through my body like a tidal wave. I arch my back and scream out as everything goes white-hot around the edges. Mateo pulls my hair harder, bites my flesh until his teeth break the skin, and his hand comes down hard on my ass.
The jolt only makes the orgasm more intense. I’m shuddering, ready to fall off his lap if not for his holding onto me. I convulse and genuinely don't know how long it lasts, but when it’s over, I slump against his chest, panting. His sex drains from me. I didn’t even feel him blow, but it’s there, slicking the space between our bodies, and I’m naked, straddling him.
I straighten, looking him in the eye, and there's a silent knowing between us as I stand and he pulls out. "I'm, uh…" I glance at the door, and Mateo grabs his shirt, handing it to me. I slide my arms in and wrap it around me, snatching my jeans off the stone.
"I should…" I back away, feeling his cum drain down the inside of my leg. Mateo watches me with eyes of steel as I slip back to the door. His dick is still out, gaze trained on me, and I'm the one running away again.
You'd think I'd have learned by now.