Chapter 24
Chapter Twenty-Four
Matteo
The convenience of Sophia getting a headache just after being alone with her up-to-no-good brother wasn’t lost on me, and neither was the sad, almost panicked look on her face when I asked her if anything was wrong, but I didn’t push it.
She was hiding something from me that was clear, but backing her into a corner wasn’t going to help matters.
I would just have to dig deeper into her time in London.
There were still massive holes in her life that I hadn’t been able to fill.
Whole months, where there was no sign of her, and something was telling me that those months were the key to it all.
Leaving her alone when she was in the same apartment as me was next to impossible, but if I went to her, then I would ask her again, and she would lie to me again, and that would just make me angry.
Instead, I left her in her bed and went to my office. Gio had been here for hours, according to the call I had received from Luka that had me rushing back. That was hours where they could have spoken about what they were up to.
The cameras, discreetly placed in each room, would tell me exactly what they had discussed.
Not that I really thought they would discuss anything critical. Gio was many things, and I wouldn’t call him a clever man, but he wasn’t purely stupid either.
As expected, I found nothing. There was a little tension at first, but then they began talking about their childhood, and the mood had shifted.
It was all like that right up until he had left, and then something had happened.
He had whispered something in her ear that the camera’s audio couldn’t pick up, and she had paled like he had threatened her life.
Could that be it?
No, I knew that if Gio was threatening her life, Sophia would tell me. She wouldn’t want to, but she would because she knew I would protect her.
So it was something else. Something in her past that was causing her to be so hot and cold.
Closing the laptop and locking the office door behind me, I went to the bedroom only to find her curled up on her side and fast asleep.
Standing in the doorway, I stared. Even fast asleep, she still had that unreadable look on her face. Like even her dreams were haunted by worries.
Padding across the room, I brushed her hair back from her face.
“I’m going to pop out, feel better soon, princess.
” Without thinking about it, I brushed my lips against her forehead.
“I love—" I froze before I could say the words out loud. Even if she was asleep and couldn’t hear me, I couldn’t bring myself to say them.
She didn’t even stir. A small snorting snore was the only answer I got. But it wasn’t the answer I needed, and I wouldn’t find that here. I needed to go deeper, and that would mean asking around in enemy territory.
In Gio’s territory.
And that came with its own dangers, but they were dangers I was willing to take if it meant I found out the truth.
Two hours and three bars later, I found myself in the dingiest, most rotten-smelling gentleman’s club that I had ever set foot in.
It wasn’t that the place was filthy, but it was. It was the blatant corruptness of the place. Sexual acts went on in plain sight, and I was sure I saw some girls that were clearly underage being led into a back room.
My eyes snapped away. This place had to go. I wasn’t a good man, I’d never been a good man, but even a man like me had some morals. Children and unwilling women were people I would always protect.
This place would be closed by the end of the week, even if I had to torch the place myself.
The seat I sat on was some cheap wipe-down faux leather that creaked when I moved and smelled strongly of vomit and things I didn’t even want to think about.
“Get you a drink, darling?” A hand, with long, bony fingers and too-long sparkly nails, came down on my shoulder. I stared down at it for a second before shaking my head. “I’m waiting for someone.”
Actually, I was waiting for several somebodies. All of them were on my payroll, but none of them were exactly trusted. They were bottom feeders, but they might have some information for me.
The hand on my shoulder tightened, and a woman in a skin-tight silver dress that matched her nails slid in front of me. Her eyes widened in shock when she saw me. I didn’t know whether that was because she recognized me or if she just wasn’t used to men like me being in here.
“Then how about,” bending over, she displayed her large and clearly fake tits for me, “a dance.” The hand on my shoulder slipped down my chest, and I had to catch it before it got too low.
Even if I hadn’t had the most beautiful woman in the world waiting in my bed for me, I wouldn’t be interested in her brand of sex. Just the feel of her hand through my clothes made me feel dirty.
I would definitely need to shower before I got into bed with Sophia.
“I’m waiting for someone,” I said again and pushed her wayward, roaming hand away. She didn’t flinch. “I heard, but I could help you pass the time.” Again, she touched me. Only this time, she slid onto my lap. Her legs were crossed over mine.
“I wouldn’t even charge you.” She nibbled at my ear.
I was all for powerful women, but this wasn’t that. This was desperation. “Actually, I’ll take that drink instead. Scotch, no ice. Best one you have. Be a good girl and go and get it.”
She scurried off, and I fell back to looking around. But not at the scantily dressed women on the pole or gyrating on customers’ laps. There was one face in particular that I was looking for. I found him on my second sweep, just as he stepped down into this dungeon.
Lifting his hand, he waved and wandered over, grabbing a dancer by the ass on his way over. The men who followed him were even worse.
They were playing at being what I had been born being: dangerous.
“Gio.” Scraping a chair to my table, he fell into it. “I have to admit I didn’t expect your call. What brings you to my little slice of heaven?”
He motioned around like this place was everything a man could want, and I had to hide my revulsion. “I heard you might have some information for me.”
“Possibly.” He shrugged, grabbing at a passing dancer he dragged onto his lap and locked there. “Some of my boys work with your woman’s brother. That’s who you want to know about, isn’t it?”
Mutely, I nodded. Quickly, I took stock of the men who had joined us, wondering which of them was double-crossing Gio. Not that I really cared, but Gio really did need to get a handle on his people.
“She’s a fine piece of ass.” One of them chuckled, a spotty kid with a pockmarked face. “I remember when she was younger.” He whistled through crooked teeth, and I realized he wasn’t a young man at all. He was older than me, but with what seemed like the maturity level of a kindergarten student.
“We used to bust a nut over the surveillance videos of her. All that pretty skin and innocent…”
At my side, my hands clenched into fists. I didn’t even try to hide it. His bleary eyes darted to them and then up to my face. His smile slipped just an inch.
Throwing back his head, he laughed. “Ah, come on, man. Don’t say you acted any different. It was like a badly kept secret that you two were fooling around together before she got sent away.” More laughter. “You got to sample the goods. We only got to watch and imagine what her pussy felt like.”
I moved fast. Leaning across the space that separated us, I fisted his filthy shirt in my hand and tightened it around his throat. “Don’t fucking talk about her like, I paused, “wait, what do you mean it was a badly kept secret?” I hissed. “People knew we were seeing each other?”
“Everyone suspected,” someone else said. “It was the hot topic, especially after her engagement was announced. We all wondered how you would deal with that, and you didn’t disappoint, did you? I think Gio thought it was the end of you and her, but…”
I fell back into my chair, pinching the skin between my eyebrows. “Gio knew?”
“Shit, man.” The man whom I had just attacked sat back, rubbing his throat. “That was really uncalled for. I was just giving you the information you asked for.”
I stared at him coldly. “You haven’t given me any information.”
“You didn’t know? Of course he fucking knew.” The atmosphere changed. It became colder. More dangerous. Not for me. For them, because I was seconds away from hurting someone.
“And then you, or whoever was responsible,” he rolled his eyes, “killed their parents, and she was sent to some aunt in some town in Britain or somewhere.”
My eyebrows slammed down. She was sent away. That’s what he had said. Sent. It made me think she didn't have a choice. That Gio had made her leave me.
Had I been wrong all of these years? Had it all been him, not her, and not because he thought she was in danger?
Had he sent her away to keep her away from me?
“Guess he wanted her to behave herself for once and keep her legs closed. I mean, she was screwing you, so who knows who else she was fucking. Maybe that was the reason her parents were murdered. Maybe it was some jilted lover…”
I launched myself at him with so much force that I sent the chair and both of us crashing to the floor. Curling one hand around his throat, I smashed my other fist down into his face over and over again.
Bone crunched under my attack, blood splattered, and my knuckles split open wide, but I didn’t stop. How could I when he had talked about Sophia that way? Like she was nothing more than a common whore.
“Don’t fucking…” Blow after blow landed on his face until it looked like raw hamburger meat, and then I was being yanked away. “Don’t talk about her like that. I’ll kill you.” Breathing heavy, I straightened, watching as he was helped to his feet.
The look he shot at me from his swollen eyes was full of hatred. “You want to know why your precious woman was sent away? It was because she was a slut, and,” he spat blood at my feet, “her brother knew it. Gio knew that you had fucked his sister and he…”
I moved toward him again, the skin of my split knuckles stinging as I clenched them back into fists.
Some people just didn’t learn, and this man was one of them.
Around him, the others bristled. Their shoulders straightened, but not one of them moved to save their friend from the beating I was going to give him.
Again.
Although he hadn’t learned from the first one, so maybe I needed something more to hammer my point home.
Something more lasting that he would remember forever and prove to those wannabes once and for all that I wasn’t someone to mess with.
I’d taken two steps before he fell silent, although I hadn’t heard a word he had said, so it didn’t really matter.
Two steps was all it took for the words to die on his lips and his eyes to fill with fear.
The whole club seemed to fall silent. The only thing I could hear was the blood rushing in my ears as I let the rage take over.
Moving without really thinking, I pulled the gun from the holster under my arm and let off one loud, echoing shot.
The silence was shattered as the man fell to the floor, screaming. His hands were clutching at his right knee, which I had just blown off with one well-placed bullet.
“Maybe now you will think twice before you try and stand up to me.” Leaning over him, I pressed the muzzle to his mouth, pushing it against the shattered remnants of his teeth. “I think I have made myself clear?”
I didn’t take my eyes from him, but I heard the others murmur their agreement.
“Keep Sophia’s name out of your mouths, or the next bullet I put in one of you will be one you have to swallow.”
Turning on my heel, I walked away. There was nothing else to be learned here from them, and honestly, I already knew enough.
Gio had known. I wasn’t sure for how long, but he had, and he had sent her away to some aunt. Not because he thought she was in danger, but to keep her away from me.
He had torn us apart.
But what else had he done? And why had he forced her away in the first place?
I didn’t know the answers to those questions, but I had somewhere to start looking again. The aunt in England. If I could find her, I could find out the truth.