20. Mateo
20
MATEO
T he reports spread across my desk lay out every number and name with surgical precision. They confirm what I already suspected. The leak is internal—old, embedded, patient. Carlo Mazzanti has been with the Rossi name behind him for eleven years. He has no flagged activity on record and no disciplinary marks. He maintained consistent mediocrity and held access to the things Anton never paid close enough attention to.
His banking trail doesn’t pretend to be clever. Two deposits were routed through a fabricated business in Milan and moved again to a holding firm registered in his wife's maiden name. It links directly to the Madrid transfer. The pattern is subtle enough to blend and careless enough to show arrogance.
I push the report aside and open the secure line. The message is short and direct.
Mazzanti is the target. His location has been confirmed. The order is standard disposal with no theatrics .
I send it and close the channel before the read receipt pings back. The man handling it doesn’t need reminders. He has been waiting on a name. There will be no warning, no confrontation, and no second chance. A traitor with that much time inside the house does not deserve the courtesy.
I close the laptop, set it in the drawer, and slide it shut with the flat of my palm. The lamp stays on. The rest of the room remains dark. I sit back in the chair and wait until I hear the reply come through—a simple word.
Received .
Outside the window, the perimeter lights cast a long spill of amber across the trees. The light reaches just far enough to remind anyone watching that someone is always awake and always watching.
The family bleeds from the inside when no one cauterizes the wound. I’ve stopped pretending that Anton understood that.
I leave the office, locking the drawer behind me. My shoes hit the tile in even strides, each step pulled forward by desire. After a stressful day, there is only one way I intend to relax, and it's with her.
I pass the gallery wall, the hallway corner where Lev left one of his wooden traps half-finished, and the cabinet where Lila keeps her tea.
Upstairs, the bedroom door is open. Lila’s in bed, her back against the headboard, legs curled under her. She has a book in her hands, the spine bent from too much use. She doesn’t acknowledge me when I walk in, but the slight shift in her posture tells me she felt me the second I stepped through the door.
I unbutton my shirt as I cross the room, stripping it off and dropping it over the chair beside the bed. My hands go to my belt next, but I don’t undo it yet. I stand at the edge of the mattress and look down at her. She doesn’t glance up, doesn’t speak. Her eyes stay fixed on the page, like she’s trying to convince herself that I’m not the thing taking up all the space in her chest.
I reach down and take the book from her hands. She lets go without argument. Then I grab her by the knees and pull her down the bed in one sharp motion. She gasps and braces against the sheets, but she doesn’t stop me, doesn’t tell me no.
She never does. Not when I touch her like this. Not when she wants it more than I do.
I press her wrists to the mattress above her head, my weight pinning her down. Her chest rises and falls erratically, dark lashes casting flecks of shadows over those eyes I could drown in and still want more of. “What filthy little thing do you want me to do first?” I ask, low and dangerous. Her answer is a choked sound caught in her throat.
With one hand, I hold her in place. With the other, I undo the single button on her nightgown and slide the neckline lower, exposing a breast. Her nipple is hard, pebbled against my palm as I knead it. She squirms, spreading her legs as I press a knee between them.
“You going to pretend you don’t need this again?” I ask her as I lower my lips to close around her nipple.
I can feel her fighting the pull of me through every stiff muscle in her body. She hates herself for it. Hates me more so. But that’s where we both thrive—in complementary loathing.
I tongue her nipple with a groan, the sound vibrating through her body. Her heels dig in, but I don’t give her an inch of space as I suck harder, teeth grazing her puckered flesh. She moans, and I release my grip on her wrists just enough to cup the back of her head, my other hand moving to my tie, which I loosen and pull off.
When I draw up, her eyes study me curiously. “What are you doing?” she asks in almost a whisper.
The tie in my hands coils around her right wrist, then her left, binding them in place above her head. I leave just enough slack to remind her that she could stop this if she really wanted to. Then I slip off the bed, keeping my grip on the binding, and drag her across the bed until her hands hit the bedpost. The tie hooks easily around it, and I crawl on top of her, straddling her, and tear the front of her gown open.
She hasn’t worn panties, which tells me she hoped this would happen, or maybe that she didn’t want me to ruin another pair. It makes my cock rock hard instantly.
I leave her there exposed to my eyes as I stand back and undress. Her thighs glisten with moisture, and I can’t wait to turn that pretty pink pussy bright red with engorgement and handprints.
“Look me in the eye and tell me I don’t own you.” I step out of my pants, leave my socks and shoes heaped on the ground. Her eyes trace over my body, my tattoos and scars.
“Fuck you,” she snips, but she doesn’t mean it. It’s an invitation.
The illusion she's been clinging to drops away, and I see the real Lila emerge. The one who likes it rough, who bites her lip when she's aroused, who moans my name like it's a curse when she comes. She belongs to me—heart and soul—no matter how much she wants to deny it. Her defiance only makes it hotter.
“Say it,” I correct her, running a fingernail down her stomach, leaving a trail of goosebumps in its wake. Her breath hitches as I get closer. “I own you.”
“You don’t fucking own me. I’m not your whore.” Her eyes flicker with defiance, but her body betrays her with its delicious shivers and swollen depths.
“Really?” I chuckle sardonically and grip her ankles, spreading her legs. She acts tough, but she doesn't fight me, doesn’t try to put them back together as I kneel between them.
With a familiar moisture pooling between her legs, Lila takes a steadying breath and hisses out the words. “You don't own me, you son of a bitch. I am not some object you can claim when it suits you.”
I smile a cold, cruel smile as I stroke my hardened cock, swollen with need for her. "We both know that isn't true, Lila," I say, crawling over her again "You want me and you like making it a challenge.” My cock slides up and down her slit through her moisture.
Her eyes are daggers, but they drop to my erection before flicking back up to meet my gaze. My other hand slides between her legs, delving into her moisture, finding her entrance. She moans in spite of herself. I smile wider.
“Tell me I don’t own you,” I say, spreading her wetness over my cock and then over her nipple before dipping my head to suck the drippings from her chest.
Lila gasps, and she looks away but doesn't deny it. She can't. In this moment, we both know the truth—that she's mine, mind, body, and soul.
I take her like I own her—hard, relentless, and rough. Her legs wrap around my waist, her hands wrapping around the corner post. The bed shakes, her body jostles with every thrust, and her core tightens around me like a vise. My grip on her tit tightens, careful not to bruise as I drive into her again and again. She's so wet, so damn wet, and I never grow tired of the sound of our bodies coming together in this collision of lust.
The air is filled with shallow gasps, our harsh breathing, and the creak of the bedframe counterpoint to our frantic rhythm. Her whimpers and the soft pleas for more don’t escape my ears.
"Look at me," I command, and she does. Her eyes lock on mine as our gazes collide, eyes flared with passion and defiance, but no less aroused for it. The two of us are a powder keg just waiting for the spark to ignite and consume us both. “Say I own you…”
“Fuck…” she gasps, but it’s not a protest. She’s so close. I can see it in her eyes.
“Say it!” I bark, feeling the urge in my body to blow any second.
“Damn you, ” she curses before she surrenders. “You own me, alright? I’m yours."
In that instant, my control breaks, and I drive home over and over as I come inside her. I’m unyielding, unforgiving, and she shatters around me. She clenches around me, her legs gripping my waist as she shudders through her orgasm, her breathing ragged in my ear.
The tears are hot on her cheeks but she blinks a few back. I pump into her slower now, placing soft kisses on her shoulders and neck. No woman has ever cried with me during sex.
“You’re a liar,” I say softly. The full length of my body presses down on her as I slide my hand up her arms to find the tie still secure. Her fingers lace through mine. It feels like our heartbeats are one.
When we both come down, I don’t let go right away. Instead, I hold her wrists firmly in place until her heartbeat slows and the tremors subside. Only then do I unhook the ties and pull out of her. Her body protests the loss, but she doesn't say anything as I discard the tie to the side and reach to my nightstand to grab a handkerchief from the drawer.
She lets me mop up the mess of our sex from between her legs, then turns as if she may leave. But I grab her, pulling her backward against my body, and fold the covers over top of us. She lies in my arms until her breathing grows steady, but I know she's not sleeping. She's not pulling away, either, though, and that's a small victory.
I take no pleasure in breaking her.
I just want her to understand the situation she's in, the person she's married to.
When I said she's collateral, I didn't mean to me, and maybe now she'll get the point. I'm here to defend her, not harm her. And with the way things are going, she doesn't even realize how much she needs me.