Chapter 28 Go Away
GO AWAY
Matteo
Cat cracks the door and goes still, eyes cutting over me, then past me like she’s measuring the shadows. I keep my hands up, empty, palms out at shoulder height.
“I’m alone,” I whisper, scared to spook her.
“This is not lying low.” She should slam the door, and I fully expect her to. Instead, she holds it half-open like a shield she doesn’t quite trust. “You’re supposed to be dead, damn it.” Her voice is flat, and a little breathless.
“Best compliment I’ve had all week.”
“Funny.” She edges the door tighter, bare foot wedged against the jamb. “What do you want, Rossi?”
“Sixty seconds,” I reply. My mouth tips before I can stop it, because there’s a ghost of a dance between us that just won’t die. “To talk.”
“Talking hasn’t gone great for us.”
Rain ticks off the porch light and runs off my hood. Her gaze snags on my face, on the bruise caused by the tile I smacked into when she flicked me off like a switch, and something lingers there. Maybe guilt or anger, or a little of both.
“Did you send Donal the photo too?” I ask.
“Why do you care?”
“Because it buys you time,” I whisper, swallowing what else I could say. “And because I like you alive.”
The porch light buzzes. Waves thud the shore like they can argue the coastline into moving. I hear her breathing go shallow.
“Go away.” It comes off a little softer than she probably means it. “Please.”
“If you want me gone, I’ll go.” I tip my chin toward the dunes. “Just not far.”
“You’re tailing me.”
“Following the weather report.” I shrug. “There’s a storm coming.”
“You were never good at staying where I wanted you to.”
Ouch. That one stings. “You’re right. Even though you never put me anywhere I really wanted to leave.”
It lands between us too hot to touch. I keep my hands up. There’s no second shadow, no backup because if I brought any, I knew she’d vanish between heartbeats. She studies me like she knows that too.
“How did you find me?”
I lift a shoulder, not ready to divulge my tracker just yet. “I guess it’s a bad habit. I just know which direction you’ll run. I figured you wouldn’t go to a typical safehouse since it’s where your brother would end up too. Then I got to thinking about that summer…”
She chews on my words, then blurts, almost defensively, “I called Noel. That’s how I ended up here. But she’s not in town.”
Relief punches through me faster than I can hide it. “Good. Fewer witnesses if you slam the door on my foot.”
Cat smiles. Almost. She flattens her lips at the last second as if remembering what we are to each other now.
She starts to push the door, but I don’t move.
The porch light hums again, and I see her clock the fine tremor in my fingers that the concussion she likely gave me left behind.
She presses her palm, quickly, to a spot beneath her collarbone through the sweatshirt.
It’s just a touch, like bracing for something.
I fix my eyes on her face and nowhere else.
“I’ll give you sixty seconds.” She crosses her arms over her chest and glares up at me. “Not a step inside though.”
I nod and obey, like it costs me a kidney.
“I’m assuming you were eavesdropping and misheard me at the safehouse and that’s why you bolted,” I start.
“I was telling Leo I’d hold here until he arrived.
He’s been my personal bodyguard since I was a kid.
I’ve known him forever. I trust him. I didn’t tell Ale I was with you, and it wasn’t a trap. ”
“And the part where you said you had me?”
My throat works. “I did have you. Safe. For once.” A beat. “I should’ve led with that.”
“You should’ve led with a lot of things.” Her voice is tired, not sharp, but it still cuts.
“You’re right.” I huff out a breath. “I won’t give you up to Ale, okay? I swear it.”
Her eyes narrow. “Why not? He’s your cousin, your blood. And I took a shot at his pregnant wife…” Her lower lip trembles. It’s faint but I catch it all the same.
“No.” My voice is resolute. “You took a shot at me and… missed. I won’t let you pay for that.” The wound is all but healed already.
Wind snags my hood and shoves it back. Her eyes catch on the bruise I brought with me. She looks mad at it, mad at me, mad at everything, and I don’t blame her.
“Have you heard anything about Tiernan?” she asks.
“He’s still in the city. Donal, too. Your picture will buy us a few hours, not days.”
“I know. My brother is already asking for your body.” Her gaze drops to my boots, then climbs up my legs, pausing at the hem of the sweatshirt before jerking away like she touched heat. She makes herself meet my eyes and keeps them there.
“I won’t ask where you’re going next,” I breathe. “I don’t need to know. I just—” I reset. “If you need interference, I can run it. I can still pull Donal west, feed Tiernan ghosts, even Ale—”
“And why would you do that?” A test, sharp at the edges.
“You know why.”
“Say it,” she says, and I deserve how cruel it feels.
“I still love you.” I don’t raise my voice. I let it be plain, despite the blade gouging out my insides as I say the words that I buried all those years ago. “I loved you then, and I never grew out of it. I’m bad at letting go of the one thing I did right, even if I did it completely wrong.”
She goes impossibly still again. Her face is a blank mask.
The porch light hums louder. Down the block a screen door slams and a woman swears at the wind. Cat should close me out, but she doesn’t. She just stands there, like I do. There’s another beat and it’s filled with so much…
Her jaw works, and I brace myself for the insults. I want her to scream, to curse at me. I deserve every single one. Even now, I’m not sure she understands why I really left. Maybe, one day I’ll tell her.
“Don’t follow me again,” she whispers. They’re the same words she left on the note. That I ignored.
I nod with a smile that’s also a wince tugging at my mouth. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”
We both hear the lie but pretend we don’t.
She starts to shut the door. I lay my palm flat to the wood. “Cat…” Her name is a quiet plea. I don’t exert any pressure, just leave it there, warm through the paint. Then I ease back and pull my hands up again. See? I can learn.
“I guess my sixty seconds are up?” I finally rasp.
“They were up before you knocked.”
I step back into the halo of the porch light, then into the drenched darkness.
For a second, it feels like the ocean could eat me.
“Lock up, Caitríona,” I call out over my shoulder.
“If Noel shows up, keep her away from here. Outsiders make Tiernan…creative, and you don’t want that on your shoulders. ”
“I know what he is,” she replies, iron in her voice.
I turn to look at her once more. “Right.” I tip my head, the closest I get to a bow. “Goodnight.” Then I take the steps. Sand whispers under my boots. The door stays a crack open and somehow, I can hear her breath over the crashing waves.
“Matteo,” she calls, like she knew I’d hear.
I spin around.
“Thank you.” For the safehouse, the alley, the truth, for coming alone, and leaving now. I hear it all packed into those two words.
I nod, my hands stuffed into my pockets because I don’t trust them not to reach out for her. Dio, I want to touch her. I want to hold her and never let her go. I want to apologize, to beg her to forgive me. Instead, I murmur, “Sleep, I’ll be—”
“Don’t,” she cuts in.
I huff something that might be a laugh if it weren’t so pathetic. “Right.”
I melt into the dark, my steps weighed down with each inch of space I put between us. At the end of the walk, I stop where she can’t see me and listen to the chain slide, then the deadbolt thunk, and the old house exhales. Or maybe that’s me.
My phone buzzes before I get far. It’s a message from Leo asking for an update. Then Ale lights up my screen. Guilt rises as it continues to ring, and I let it go to voicemail. I let them both wait while the tide crawls up the shore, and I tell myself the same old thing.
One more night. One more tide. Then I’ll let her go.
And I pray I’m as bad at obeying as Cat is at asking for help.