Chapter 23 Gianna
Gianna
My head is throbbing by the time we reach my brother’s house. My body aches from the tension it has held since we left Sebastian’s office, unable to relax because none of this feels real.
The slowing of the car has me focusing out of the window as Sebastian leans over and locks my door.
I glare at him, but he shakes his head and points to the front of the house.
When I turn, there are two men in dark outfits coming around the sides with guns raised.
I scoot back into Sebastian’s chest as they get closer, their eyes cold and impassive.
Faces of people who would shoot without asking any questions.
“What is going on?” My voice cracks and Sebastian pulls me tighter to him. I hate that I take comfort in his warmth. I’ve been to my brother’s house plenty of times and never been greeted like this.
A click echoes in the car, letting me know the men outside aren’t the only ones armed. “Want me to go first?” Nico asks from the front seat.
“No,” Sebastian rumbles near my ear, his deep voice sending shivers across my skin. “I’ll go with Gianna right behind me. They won’t shoot with her near.”
I frown. “I’m sorry… Are you using me as a bullet shield?”
Nico chuckles and Sebastian grips my chin, turning me to look at him. “Your brother has already threatened me in the past. He would shoot me on sight. I know he would never harm you, and you chose to come here, mon c?ur.”
“You didn’t have to come with me,” I grit out as he squeezes my face tighter with narrowed eyes.
He gives me a harsh kiss. “I don’t trust him not to kidnap you again, and I still haven’t figured out how he hid you for so many years. You’re not leaving my sight for the foreseeable future.”
I scoff, a humorless laugh barking out. “My brother didn’t kidnap me. I asked for his help to run.”
Nico clicks his tongue. “Let’s not remind each other of the past. It makes his trigger finger twitchy.”
I feel Sebastian's light breath across my temple and a small shake of his chest as he chuckles, and my own lips pull into a smile.
“Scoot,” he whispers, pressing a kiss into my neck, and I fight a shiver as his hands wrap around my waist to move me over his lap.
“Right behind me, Gianna. Stay behind me at all times.”
He opens the door slowly and then moves his hands to the side of the door before stepping out.
“He’s showing them he’s unarmed,” Nico says behind me as the men walk toward the car, guns still raised.
“Should I do the same?” I ask, sliding across the seat and closer to the open door.
“You should be fine.”
I nod, my heart pounding as I step out and practically throw myself into Sebastian’s side.
“Don’t shoot!” he yells out as his arms wrap around me, twisting his body so he’s between me and the men. I can hear the front door of the house opening as I look under Sebastian’s arm to watch my brother come out, a gun in his hand as he hurries across the yard.
“What is going—G? Put your fucking guns away,” Matt snaps, shoving his own piece into his pants.
Letting go of Sebastian, I face him more fully as my brother looks over both of us with a tight jaw. The men at his back are standing there silently, their guns resting at their sides but still in their hands. “What’s going on, Gianna?”
I glance behind him as a woman walks onto the porch. He follows my gaze and curses. “Get back in the house!”
She scowls at him before retreating back inside. Matt turns back to us, his face flushed with anger, and I’m reminded how that stranger may know my brother more than I do. He looks at Sebastian and crosses his arms. “Are you trying to get my sister killed by showing up unannounced?”
I put my hand on Sebastian’s bicep and shake my head so he knows not to respond. “I need to talk to you.”
Matt looks at me, some of his anger fading, and then he scans behind us and jerks his head toward his house. “Let’s move inside, neighbors are nosy.”
My eyebrow raises. “But they don’t question the guards with guns?”
“Inside, Gianna,” Matt snaps, and Sebastian grabs my hip tightly. I know he wants to acknowledge the way Matt spoke to me.
“I need answers,” I whisper softly as we follow Matt, who speaks harshly to the woman and guides her upstairs.
Sebastian calls out to Nico to stay behind, and the men slide back to where they were stationed around the house.
I slip my hand into Sebastian’s and lead him into the living room where Matt is waiting by one of the armchairs. We sit on the couch across from it.
“Do you have bodyguards on me?”
He frowns. “I always have.”
“And are those men from your security company or the Famiglia?”
Matt tenses, his hands clenching the top of the chair as he hangs his head.
Sebastian squeezes my hand in support. Matt sighs and walks to the other chair, sitting and staring at me with a tired expression.
My throat burns and I can feel my eyes prickling with tears. “You said our money was from trust funds, but you’re working with the mob.”
“No!” Matt yells, sitting up straight and throwing Sebastian a glare. “I’m not with the mob, whatever lies he’s filled your head with are wrong.”
Sebastian stiffens next to me and I frown. “So our father isn’t the boss—”
“Capo,” Sebastian corrects and I shush him.
“Capo, and you haven’t been meeting him since you were sixteen? And hasn’t he been the one paying for everything? The father we grew up with isn’t our father.”
Matt is tense as he continues to glare at Sebastian. “It’s not that simple.”
“Look at me!” I yell. When his head snaps to me, I clench my jaw and lower my voice while keeping it firm.“Then make it simple.”
My brother’s eyes drop, staring at the floor for a moment before he squeezes them shut and slumps into the chair. “It was after Mom and Dad died. That’s when he approached me.”
A flicker of a memory surfaces in my thoughts. How months after the funerals, Matt went from struggling to being more like the upbeat brother I had before their deaths.
I frown. “Is that how we got that new house? You said…” Everything he’s said has always come from our trust funds.
Matt looks up at me. “There was a whole legality thing. We would have been broke in less than a year if he hadn’t stepped in. Most of the money had been tied up in some probate shit.”
Sebastian scoffs. “He does nothing out of the kindness of his heart.”
“No,” my brother says sadly. “He offered to help free up the money and then threw in extra, but he wanted me to start working for him.”
I blow out a breath. “How’d he even know Mom and Dad died? Do you think—is it possible he had anything to do with it?”
His mouth opens and closes a few times, his fingers twisting between his knees. “I’ve thought the same and I don’t know, Gianna. Is he capable of it? Yeah.”
“Then why are you working for him? You have your company!”
Sebastian squeezes my knee. “Please tell me he didn’t invest.”
Matt’s head drops into his hands, and he rubs his face aggressively. “I’ve paid him out, but sometimes, he—look, G. Everything I’ve done is to protect you.”
I huff out an unamused laugh. “Protect me? From what? You lied about everything. You—you. Ugh.” I take a deep breath and tilt my chin to the ceiling, willing the tears back before facing him again.
“You sat there for years telling me over and over how dangerous Sebastian was. How his lifestyle could have killed me and I was lucky to get out when I did. You sat there and trained me to run from the very men you work with!”
“Exactly! I knew how they thought, how they worked, and I did it to protect you,” Matt shouts back, his face flushed with frustration. “You don’t get it because you still have those rose colored glasses on for him. He’s no better than me. Hell, he’s worse.”
I shake my head. “He’s worse? How? Because I’ve been thinking about it and I don’t think he ever lied to me. I think you twisted what I thought I knew and—and like corrupted it. Corrupted all my memories of my time with him.”
Sebastian squeezes me in support while Matt laughs.
“So now I’m the bad guy?”
Swallowing down the hurt and betrayal as he mocks me, I push through to get the answers I need. “Did you send men to kill Sebastian while I was in college?”
His lips thin as he stares at me. I take it for the answer it is.
“And that night I ran, terrified out of my mind, did you know Sebastian had killed a man you sent after him?”
Matt sits there, stubbornly silent.
I throw up my hands. “Nothing to say? I’m begging you to tell me the truth. To tell me that I didn’t spend six years running from a man who would have never hurt me because of the ideas you planted in my head over a circumstance you fucking orchestrated.”
His eyes flash. “Do you not remember the birth control pills you found? Don’t sit there and say he wouldn’t have hurt you.”
“He’s not perfect, not even close, but that’s between him and me,” I admit, my heart still breaking.
I don’t appreciate him trying to throw us off the topic.
“You told me over and over that loving him would bring my death. That loving a man in the mafia was a sure way to the grave, if not by his hands then by his enemies. All while… being the very man you condemned. I don’t understand, Matt. Help me understand.”
He sighs, pulling at his hair. “I can’t just stop, Gianna. Once you’re in, you’re in. If I do what he asks, he mostly just leaves me alone.”
“What does he want?” Sebastian asks.
Matt tenses, but glances at me and his shoulders slump in resignation. “He’s mostly sent me on tasks in Jersey or had me gather some information on men.”
“Do you still have the information about the men he wanted to know about?” Sebastian presses.
My brother nods. “Yeah, I kept it all for insurance.”
“Why? Why continue to work with him at all, Matt? Especially if you had the money to buy him out of the investment,” I ask.
His jaw works back and forth.
“He threatened your sister, didn’t he?” Sebastian offers.
Matt’s eyes close briefly, giving us a small nod.
“Same with the FBI?” I ask because I’m not sure how it all fits in.
My brother’s head snaps to him, then his betrayed gaze returns to me. “N-no, they offered me protection from the Italians… that extended to you.”
“That’s where you got the access to remove her face from databases,” Sebastian says absentmindedly.
I stare at my brother, not wavering from his pleading expression. My nose stings with the need to cry. “Everything you preached… It was a lie, and you knew how I felt about him. Why? You could have… just explained your concerns so I could have made a choice. And you took that from me.”
He swallows. “You would have chosen him. Every time. I just wanted to protect you.”
My eyes shutter and I relax into Sebastian. “I’m so sick of everyone thinking they know what’s best for me.” Shaking my head, I press into his chest. “I want to leave. I got all I need for now.”