17. Lila
17
LILA
W hen I wake, Mateo's already up. The sheets next to me are still warm, pushed back like he only just stood up. I can hear the water running in the bathroom. My mouth’s dry. My body aches in places that aren’t from sleep. The word stuck in my head hasn’t left since last night. Collateral .
I sit up, push my hair out of my face, and blink against the gray light bleeding in from between the curtains. My robe’s hanging over the back of the chair. I pull it around me, cinch it tight, and walk barefoot to the bathroom doorway.
Mateo doesn’t close doors behind himself. He’s used to living alone, used to the house working around him. I hear the tap shut off, followed by the dull slide of a drawer. I smell the water—hot and heavy with soap—and the faint trace of sharp, expensive cologne that always settles in the corners after he’s been in the shower.
I stand in the doorway for a moment, not saying anything, watching him. The mirror is fogged, the sink wet from where he leans. Mateo stands at the counter, towel slung low around his hips, hair dripping, head down while he brushes his teeth with slow, even movements like nothing about this morning feels different.
But it does.
Something jagged hums in the silence between us. It’s not tension, not heat, just inevitability.
He doesn’t glance up when I step in to brush my teeth, doesn’t speak when I move behind him to grab the cup off the counter. We move around each other with mechanical precision, like pieces of a clock trained not to collide. Anton and I never had this, but Mateo doesn't seem irritated by it.
He finishes before me and by the time I come back out, the towel is gone and he’s fully dressed—dark slacks, fresh shirt, sleeves rolled, wristwatch already buckled. He smooths the hem down and slips something into his jacket pocket before walking past me like he hasn’t been on my mind every second since he called me collateral.
The bed’s still messy. I sit down on the edge and pull the blanket tight across my lap, listening for his footsteps down the hall. When I hear the front door shut a few minutes later, I finally let my shoulders slump. Not because I’m relieved he’s gone. Because I don’t know what I would’ve said if he stayed.
I lumber out of the room, down to the kitchen past Lev's door where he snores lightly. Coffee sounds good but doesn't sit in my stomach well. Anton warned me that fucking with him would be the end of me, long before he got me pregnant with Lev, long before he forced me to wed him. I think of that night sometimes, when he tried to make me leave and I foolishly stayed, against his wishes, against my mother's wishes.
Now look at me… The bullseye isn't just on me now. It's on Lev too. Collateral… What does that even mean? Until he ends this? I don't know what Mateo thinks he can do when an entire criminal enterprise is coming for me, and for what? I have nothing they want. Nothing but Anton's blood—but why do they care about Lev?
It’s just past eleven when I ask to see the panic room again. Mateo showed it to me after the forced marriage ceremony that felt about as romantic as signing a mortgage. It was chucked in with a tour of the house and the strict warning about which rooms were off limits. But I didn’t pay close attention. Now I want to know.
Rafe doesn’t ask why. He just punches in the code and stands back while the seal hisses and the door releases. I step in before he can offer to show me again.
I need to memorize it. All of it. The door, the manual override, the vent. Everything.
Rafe stands silent. His fingers stay clear of the wall. He doesn’t hover. His job is to protect, but I feel more like he's a jailer ensuring I don't break rules.
I walk the perimeter—twenty-one steps around, eleven across, nine to the wall panel. The manual lock is stiff. I test it twice. There’s a line of backup batteries sealed behind a steel hatch. I count them, check expiration dates. I test the vent lever, pull the grate, measure the steps in my head between the cot and the first-aid kit, then the cot and the water tank.
The air is still but the room isn’t silent. I can hear my own blood moving past my ears, hear every breath like it’s being filtered through water, like I’m drowning. All of this feels overwhelming. A man who has to have a panic room lives a life I'm not sure I want to be a part of, but I stop to reason that the purpose of that panic room is for safety—safety he wouldn't need to worry about if I weren't here. I'm the one with the target. Lev and I are the collateral. Not Mateo.
When I step back out, I don’t thank Rafe, and he doesn't comment.
I take the long way back to the main floor, just to let my heartbeat even out. My hands are still damp with sweat when I reach the kitchen.
Lev is playing in the toy room. The housekeeper confirms it without being asked, tells me he was “smiling, chattering, pockets full of cereal.” I nod. She smiles politely and leaves me alone again as I sink onto a stool. My stomach feels raw from eating itself alive in agony all night. Coffee stayed down, but I couldn't even choke down toast this morning. Now I know if I don't eat, I’ll regret it.
So I dice vegetables too quickly, burn the first round of onions, add too much oil. The skillet hisses, and I scrape the bottom with the wooden spoon until it looks salvageable. I add beans, broth, and salt and let it simmer.
The smell fills the kitchen, making my mouth water, and I plate it and set the table out of habit. One bowl. Then another. I don’t know if he’ll eat.
When Lev comes barreling into the room, he’s smiling like nothing in his world has changed.
He shows me a paper he colored, a volcano, bright red and orange with tiny scribbled people running down the sides like ants. He explains the whole story to me while he eats—how the lava only burned the bad guys and how the good guys had shields made of candy.
I nod. I say all the right things as I eat slowly, chewing each bite thoughtfully. He doesn’t know I’m barely hearing him. He's blissfully unaware of what's happening around him. I wish I could be that way, that I could live in happiness and naivety the rest of my life and be free. I know too much. First, my mother attempting to take Lev from me, and now this.
After he’s done, I rinse his dish. He runs off to find his puzzle tiles. I stare at my bowl, only half-eaten. If I keep this up I'm going to be malnourished. It isn't healthy, but I have no appetite. Fear has stolen it from me.
I’m washing the last dish when I hear the door open again. Mateo doesn’t say anything when he steps inside, just closes the door behind himself and looks at the counter.
“You forgot to arm the side entry,” he says.
I set the pot down and reach for the towel. “I checked it.”
“You didn’t engage the deadbolt.”
“The staff were there. I was in the kitchen. The door never even opened.” I never opened it. I was in the panic room checking it out when the grocery delivery came. It was his maid who did it, not me.
“It doesn’t matter.” His growl is dark and angry. He moves past me toward the refrigerator and I have to step aside to not be plowed over.
I turn. The dishrag twists in my hands. “I’m not trained for this. I didn’t sign up for it.”
He steps closer. “You did. The second you took Anton's name. Now it's my name…” He stares into the fridge like he's hunting something. I wonder if he ever has a normal expression on his face. I want to throw something at him and wake him up, let him see that not everyone carries a gun and has to look over their shoulder.
“No,” I snap. “You forged a signature, handed a paper to a judge, and decided what I was worth.” My chest is heaving. Yes, I signed the formal document, but the marriage license wasn't my idea. I didn't get to be part of the planning committee for that.
He doesn’t flinch.
“You said I’m collateral.” I throw the towel down. “So don’t pretend this is about protection. You’re not saving me. You’re using me.”
“I’m keeping you alive.”
“For now,” I say. “Until it stops being useful.”
He takes two steps forward, and the space between us collapses. His voice lowers, not in volume but in temperature. “If I hadn’t stepped in, you’d already be buried under a court order with your son in a school that teaches him how not to remember you.”
“I never asked you to fix it,” I say.
“No,” he agrees, “but you benefited.”
My heart beats hard against my ribs. I taste iron on my tongue. “What do you want from me?”
He doesn’t answer. Just stares. We’re inches apart now. I can feel his breath. Smell the soap from this morning. I’m waiting for him to move, to touch, to snap—but he doesn’t. I stay rooted to the floor until the dishwater starts to go cold.
He turns back toward me. “Do you really want that answer? Or are you fishing for an apology?"
“Neither,” I say. “I just want to know which version of you I’m supposed to trust.”
He doesn’t move.
I turn and hang my head. I know what I feel in my chest, but my head is saying something different. “You say you’re protecting me. That I’m safer here. But the people trying to hurt us—they’re still out there.”
“They are.”
“And your answer is what? To keep me in the dark until something breaks through the gate?” The shroud of terror I'm living under is suffocating. I think of taking Lev, of packing him up like we're going to school but having the driver drop us at the park, taking public transportation out of town, or to the edge of town. Calling Marcella. If I'm with her, my mother won't hurt me, I hope.
He walks forward slowly. “I’ve kept it from breaking.”
“Then what happens when it does?” I ask, turning up to meet his gaze.
He stops in front of me. “Then I handle it.”
“By turning me into a soldier?” I spit. “That’s not protection. That’s indoctrination.”
He leans forward slightly, enough that I have to tilt my chin to keep eye contact.
“Lila,” he says. “I’m not trying to make you into anything.”
“Then why keep me here? Am I your prisoner now? A soldier? What is Lev?"
His eyes narrow. “Because out there, they wouldn’t ask if you were afraid. They’d assume you were and use it.” Now his tone softens. I hate it. I hate this side of him. I've seen it when we fuck, when he looks into my eyes. It's too kind, too real. It's how Anton hooked me. I feel myself being drawn to him, and I hate myself for it.
“And you don’t?” I swallow hard, preparing for a smack that never comes. Anton would've definitely used my fear to control me.
He shakes his head once. “I don’t have to.” His eyes clear, face calming from rage to something less violent.
I hold his gaze.
Neither of us moves.
Finally, he says, “If you really want to leave, tell me.”
“I can’t leave,” I whisper. “Not without Lev.”
“And he’s safer here.” Mateo's words prick my heart. He's not going to let me take him. I knew it.
He doesn’t say Lev is safer with him.
He doesn’t have to. I know he is. I can't protect my own son.
I stare at him for another long second, then push past him.
I walk out of the room, up the stairs, across the tile with bare feet, cold and aching. I step outside into the afternoon air on the terrace and don’t stop walking until I reach the railing and the metal chair nested beside it. I sit. I breathe. I don’t cry.
Collateral .
Until he ends this…