Chapter 12
Matt
Mom …
“Aron—”
“Already on it.”
His phone beeps as he types a frantic message. Seconds later my phone buzzes, along with every phone in the Syndicate. The message is simple: a set of coordinates, along with the words “We want Lucinda alive.”
Resting my elbows on the desk and my head in my hands, I groan with frustration. “I just wanted some fucking sleep.”
Aron’s hands grab my shoulders, kneading the tense knots forming there.
“How’s the headache? We have at least a couple of hours before your mother’s brought back here, and they’ll probably rush her to the doctors first thing.
There’s no telling how long it will be then.
Turn off your phone, lie down, and get some rest.”
“Rest? Our nutjob of a sister is at large, and my mother lies on death’s bed. From the looks of that wound, it’s a gamble if the smoke from the fire will kill her before the infection does.”
He freezes mid-massage. “I’m sorry, Matt.”
“Don’t be. At the time, we thought Mom was the biggest threat in the room.”
“Yeah. Who would’ve thought it was my sweet, psychotic wife?”
As he resumes tending to my shoulders, I sit and muse about our next steps.
With Emily on the loose, our carefully laid plans might go up in smoke as quickly as the shack will.
To say that she’s a wildcard would be an understatement.
I’ve worked with my share of sociopaths and murderers in my day, but Emily’s on a whole other level.
At least with them, I could predict their actions. There was a pattern to their insanity.
The only pattern with Emily is chaos.
I’m not sure when Aron’s hands shift from a functional massage to an erotic rubdown, but it’s a welcome change.
“Mm … To what do I owe the pleasure?”
His warm breath ghosts across the back of my neck. “You haven’t begun to know pleasure yet.”
“Aron … my ribs …”
One hand snakes down my chest, stopping briefly to tweak a stiff nipple before venturing farther south. “Are your ribs okay sitting in this chair?”
“Yeah …”
“Then sit. I’ll take care of the rest.”
Aron’s hands disappear, and suddenly the chair jerks back away from the desk. I grab the armrests in shock at the unexpected movement, my feet dragging on the floor as the chair spins around. He steps between my spread legs and puts his hands on my thighs.
“Relax, my don, and enjoy it.”
Relax? I know one part of my body that absolutely cannot relax right now.
Starting with my neck, Aron kisses me with hungry lips.
As his mouth moves down my body, he slowly lowers to his knees before me.
My cock throbs with each kiss, and I realize I had thrown on a shirt for the video call with Emily but no pants.
No underwear. My dick stands tall and free, ready for Aron.
He lifts my shirt, pushing the hem up until my stomach and chest are exposed.
Those devouring lips tease each nipple, joined by his tongue, and I let out a soft moan.
Deft fingers trail up the underside of my cock while his mouth works my chest and abs.
Aron wraps his hand around my shaft and slowly, gently rubs my head with his thumb.
My hips buck at the electrifying touch, but he uses his other hand to hold me down.
“Uh-uh. Hold still.”
I shudder and sigh as his mouth gets to my hips. He kisses one hipbone, then the next, lifting his head each time to avoid touching my cock with his mouth. It’s the most vicious of teases, the worst possible torture, and I love it.
When his tongue finally flits out to lick the precum off my tip, I’m a shuddering, moaning mess.
Gripping the arms of the chair, I cry out as the wet muscle comes in contact with me, then watch as first the cum, then my cock disappears down his throat.
Aron hums against me, and if it wasn’t for his strong arm across my hips, I would have come clear off the seat.
His fingers dig into my hip, keeping me steady while he bobs and sucks.
Warm, wet saliva drips down my shaft, spread all over as he pumps with his hand.
The sucking. The slurping. The moaning and groaning. Dear God in Heaven, Aron was made for this.
“Fuck … Aron, I’m not gonna make it much longer …”
His throat vibrates—vibrates—around me with his growly chuckle, and that does me in.
Cum oozes out of his mouth when I climax. It’s just too much to swallow, and he only has himself to blame for that.
Before Aron has a chance to wipe his mouth, I grab a handful of his thick hair and pull him off his knees for a kiss. I don’t even care that my cum is still smeared all over his chin; I need this.
I need him.
One shared shower later, and we’re back in bed together. We lie face to face, and I stroke his stubbled cheek as he stares into my eyes. After everything we’ve learned in the past few days, I wonder if he’s as enamored with my eyes as he used to be.
“Sapphires …”
It’s barely a whisper, so soft I almost can’t understand what he said. Once I process the word, I can’t help but smile. “Still?” I say. “Despite everything?”
“I told you that I used to see your face when I was with Emily, right? Well, it’s never been the other way around, Matt. It’s always been you. I don’t associate your eyes with Emily or even Lucinda. They’re yours. Your eyes that I’m looking into.”
My thumb brushes across his lips. “It doesn’t bother you that our sister has the same color eyes?”
Aron kisses my thumb and rubs my hip. “Not one bit.”
Talk of Emily brings my headache back to the surface. I let go of Aron’s face and rub my temple, rolling onto my back and throwing an arm across my eyes. “She’s going to be a pain to deal with. I’d almost rather go up against the entire Empire alone than face whatever she ends up planning.”
“We’ll deal with her together. Later, though. Go to sleep, already!” He playfully shoves me, then turns out the lights.
* * *
I don’t know how long I slept before our guard started banging on our door, but judging by the depth of darkness outside, interspersed by bolts of lightning, it hadn’t been long.
“What the fuck do you want?” Aron yells. He’s already halfway dressed, which tells me he likely didn’t sleep at all.
“Hypocrite,” I say as I get out of bed. “Did you even catnap?”
“I’m a former guard,” he says. “I don’t need sleep.”
“Sorry, my dons, but we thought you’d want to be notified when they brought Lucinda back.” The response, muffled by the door, sounds frantic. Either the guard on duty is not accustomed to waking mafia dons from a dead sleep, or something’s wrong with Mom.
“Where did they bring her?” I shout as Aron tosses a suit at me.
The tense pause is unnerving. “Th-the doctors. Dr. Nilczek, he—well, he said to get you right away.”
That doesn’t bode well. I rush to dress myself, letting Aron fix my tie while I button my suit jacket.
Something tells me Mom doesn’t have much time left, if any.
Dr. Nilczek knows better than to have me woken for something that’s not emergent.
Unfortunately, appearances must be kept up, so I can’t just run down to the physicians’ wing bare-chested in sweatpants.
The closer we get to that wing of the mansion, the grimmer the faces we pass become. Something’s wrong with Mom, but no one seems inclined to be the first to tell me.
We turn the corner, and as soon as I see Dr. Nilczek in his blood-and-pus-covered scrubs, I know.
My mother didn’t make it.
Aron grabs my upper arm as though he expects me to break down, but I simply pat his hand and shake my arm free. I’m not a ten-year-old boy anymore; I’m a don, and I have to act like one.
Dr Nilczek gives us a curt nod as we approach. “Don Matteo. Don Aron. This way, please.”
Memories of the night my mom’s car exploded come flooding back, only this time, my dad’s not here to tell me to go to my room. I’m the only person who can handle this. Even Aron knows that this isn’t something he can do for me, though I’m sure he would if I allowed it.
We follow the doctor back to an exam room, which is really just a modified bedroom.
There hasn’t been enough time to properly renovate this part of the mansion into an adequate hospital wing.
Dr. Nilczek pulls back a curtain, revealing Mom’s body lying on a bed.
There’s a sheet covering her up to her neck, likely put there for modesty’s sake, but even with the grey pallor and the unkempt hair, I’d recognize her anywhere.
“I did what I could, Don Matteo, but the infection was too widespread. It appears that someone, um …How do I put this? Tampered with the wound.”
That tracks with what Aron and I already suspected. Mom wasn’t shot long enough ago to have died from sepsis, but if my sister was poking and prodding the wound like she did on the video call, it could have easily spread and worsened any growing infection.
“Don Matteo?” Dr, Nilczek interrupts my introspection. “What should we do with the body? We can’t exactly open her original grave without rousing suspicion.”
“That’s a good point.” Aron scratches his chin, which still needs a good shave. “What do you think, Matteo? Should we bury her somewhere? Cremate her? I’ll follow your lead on this one.”
Considering Mom’s … unorthodox method of dissolving her marriage to my father, combined with their practice of the Catholic faith, I can’t really cremate her.
“We’ll bury her,” I say, “but no ceremony. An unmarked grave somewhere on the property.”
With that decision made, I turn my back on my mother for the last time. I want to head back to bed, but Aron stops me halfway out the door.
“Wait, Matteo.”
“Yes, Aron?”
He steps closer and puts a hand on my shoulder. “We need to discuss what to do with Emily. The Syndicate will need a verdict on her after this.”
Damnit. Will I ever get any sleep tonight?
“We’ll convene in the morning. For right now, the hundred-million-dollar price stands.” I pause as I remember my sister’s reaction to being drugged and kidnapped. “Approach her with extreme caution.”
Percy clears his throat behind us as we head back to our bedroom.
“Yes, Percy? You have something to say?”
“Enzo … Dr. Nilczek said his body—” Percy swallows audibly. “He said she tore his arm off and ate him.”
Without looking back to see his expression, I nod. “That’s right.”
“But Enzo was our best. What if—”
Aron cuts him off. “We’ll be fine. Enzo underestimated Emily. We won’t make that mistake.”
We leave Percy with that thought as we shut the bedroom door and go back to bed.
Before Aron’s return as my co-don, we used the adjoining servants’ suite for Cinder and her guard, Gia.
It allowed us to keep up the appearance that Cinder and I were dating while giving Aron and I some much-needed time together.
Now that our secret is out, we don’t have any reason to let our guards use the suite.
The rooms sit empty, and I wonder if we’ll ever get the time to renovate them into a panic suite or private gym.
With Emily on the loose—and on the warpath—I worry we’ll never get the chance.