22. Mateo
22
MATEO
F ilippo Ricci is bound to the chair with zip ties and wire. He’s sweating through his shirt, even though the room is cold. Blood runs down his forearm, dripping from the broken angle of his wrist. Rafe snapped it clean twenty minutes ago with the flat of a pry bar. It wasn’t for punishment. It was to get him ready.
He didn’t cry out when the bone went. Just a sharp, muffled grunt. But now the panic is setting in. He’s breathing hard, his shoulders hunched, his face pale. Both hands are shaking as he tries to cradle the broken one, though there’s nothing left to protect. The damage is already done.
I lean over the steel table between us. My arms are crossed, pistol resting in my grip. The table is stained, its surface mottled with old brown splatter and fresh smears from earlier hours. Not all of it is his, but more will be soon.
“This is simple,” I say. “You planted the charge. Now tell me who paid you.”
He licks his lips and swallows. His mouth is dry, cracked at the edges. His pupils are too wide. He still thinks if he talks slowly enough, he’ll walk out of here with all his bones intact.
“No one paid me,” he mutters. “I just set the trigger. I don’t even know who?—”
I bring the barrel of the pistol down hard into his thigh. The sound is dull and heavy, a solid hit that jerks the whole chair. His body flinches violently, a strangled breath catching in his throat.
“Don’t lie to me.”
“I’m not?—”
“You’re not smart enough to plan it. You’re not loyal enough to stay quiet. That means someone paid you. Now say their name.”
He grits his teeth and stares at the floor, his eyes twitching with hesitation. The fear is already turning the screws. He won’t last long. That’s good. I don’t have the patience tonight.
“Lorenzo Cappa,” he finally says. “It came through a handler. I don’t know if the orders were his, but the name was in the message.”
I don’t move the pistol. “What was the job?”
He tries to slow his breathing, like self-control will help. It won’t. He shifts the broken wrist again and winces sharply. “It wasn’t supposed to kill anyone. That wasn’t the point.”
“Then what was?”
“They wanted to breach the perimeter. Scare the house. Show weakness. It was about making a statement. Drag your name before they gut it. That’s what I was told. Humiliate the Rossi family before the kill.”
“And the woman?” I ask. “Was she part of the plan?”
The silence that follows is its own answer. Then he nods once and speaks low. “Yes. They want to send a message.”
My grip on the pistol tightens until I hear the soft creak of the metal shifting under strain. The sound changes the pitch of his next breath. His voice breaks.
“I didn’t know she’d be there. I didn’t know about the kid. It was just supposed to be a scare.”
“You picked the gate,” I say. “You timed the charge. You set it to detonate while she was walking her son to the car.”
His head jerks from side to side, desperate now. “I didn’t trigger it. I swear. It was remote. I planted it and left. I was paid to place it and report. I didn’t have the timing. I wasn’t even supposed to be near the estate.” His eyes meet mine. He’s looking for mercy, but he’s not going to find it.
I step forward, keep the pistol pressed to his leg, and pull the trigger. The shot blasts through his kneecap, splintering bone and cartilage. The chair bucks beneath him, metal scraping across concrete as he lets out a scream that tears through the room. The blood comes fast, dark and steady, spraying across the floor and pooling beneath the chair in a wide fan of red. His screams fade into wet sobs, his chest rising and falling in ragged bursts as the pain overtakes him.
“You followed the wrong man's orders,” I say.
Rafe steps forward from the wall, face unreadable. He kneels beside the wrecked leg and inspects the wound with clinical focus. Then he opens a field kit and applies a clamp to slow the bleeding. Filippo flinches violently, his sobs now guttural.
“You’re not going to bleed out,” Rafe tells him. “Yet.”
I lay the pistol on the table and wipe my hands clean on a towel already red with someone else’s mistake. The weight in my chest doesn’t lift. It just shifts.
“I’m done here.”
I turn away as Rafe goes back to work. He doesn’t look up, doesn’t speak.
Outside, I close the door behind me and leave the screams where they belong. The men who planted that bomb want to humiliate me. They want my name dragged into the street, want fear to sink into the walls of my house. They think threatening my wife would start the fire.
They are wrong. The message didn’t land the way they wanted. But mine will.
The walk from the interrogation room to the lot behind the facility is short. I take it slow, not because I’m tired, but because the place carries a weight I don’t shake easily. It used to be a textile import hub, long before we bought it out. Concrete walls, reinforced entry, no street visibility. The drains work faster than the police do.
It’s where we bring people who need convincing.
Where Rafe finishes the things I start.
He stays behind, the echo of his steps swallowed by the heavy steel door closing behind me. The lock clicks once. The sound carries.
The car’s already waiting at the gate. Alessio’s behind the wheel. He doesn’t speak. He just checks the rearview mirror, puts the vehicle into gear, and drives. The engine hums low, smooth. No one plays music on these rides. There’s no need to fill the silence. It’s not meant to be comfortable.
We take the back roads and pass through a checkpoint I built three years ago, before the city expanded and swallowed it whole. The guards on duty open the gate without stopping us. They know my car's plate.
By the time we reach the estate, the sun’s low and the sky’s darkening fast. Light bleeds over the trees in amber streaks. I step out without a word and walk toward the house.
Inside, the house smells like Lila's perfume. The feminine aroma makes the place feel different, like home.
I find Lev in my office. He’s small at the desk, perched in the chair I rarely let anyone else sit in, one knee pulled up under his chest, the other swinging lazily as he flips through one of the ledgers I left out this morning. His fingers skim the edges of the pages like he’s looking for something. There’s a stack of colored pencils beside him. He hasn’t used them.
He looks up when I enter. “You didn’t lock the drawer,” he says. “So I thought maybe I could look at your number pad.”
“You can look.”
I close the door behind me and lean against the frame. The boy’s sharper than most adults I’ve worked with. He doesn’t waste energy on what he can’t control. He flips the page, stops at one with a red-marked column and two underlined names.
“Are those the bad guys?” His finger taps on the names written there, one of them belonging to the man Rafe is cleaning up right now.
“Some of them.”
“What do you do to them?”
I cross the room slowly, reach for the ledger, and close it before he can turn another page. “I take care of it.” I know he reads. He doesn't need to see that so young.
Lev nods once. “Okay.”
He doesn’t ask what that means, doesn’t push, just accepts the answer like it’s the most natural thing in the world. Most kids would be bored with red ink in ledgers. Lev traces it with the tip of his finger, calm as breath, no fear, just curiosity.
He’s five, and he already understands the value of silence. This house feels different when he’s in it. Not softer—just clearer. Like there’s something left worth preserving.
I reach over, ruffle his curls, and watch him settle back into the chair.
He belongs here more than I ever did.