Chapter 31
Chapter Thirty-One
Matteo
Two Weeks Later
Anya has only been home for twelve days and already she has me panicking. Aside from one text message, she hasn’t talked to me at all today—and it’s nearly mid afternoon. That hasn’t happened once since we became friends, save for the time she spent in inpatient care.
Anya
Having a bad day today, might not be able to call later.
She messaged me so early in the morning that I didn’t reply until two hours later, and she hasn’t even read my messages.
I may have gone a bit overboard, texting her four different times throughout the day, but I couldn’t help it.
She’s been unresponsive for too long, so it’s time for me to call in the big guns.
I need help making sure Anya is okay before I lose my mind.
Only, when I go searching for my father, his office is empty. He isn’t anywhere else in the house that I can find him, and a large part of me is starting to panic. I’m pacing in the hall outside of his office when my text to him to ask where he is goes unanswered as well.
“Are you having some kind of breakdown?” Apollo calls out through his open office door. He’s packing up the last of his shit to move it into his new house—a mini mansion of his own built in the back yard.
I was glad to see the construction being done these past few months, elated that Rayna is taking him out of the house now that they’re married. He’s a pain in my ass, and his snarky taunt while he notices I’m in distress is the perfect example of Apollo being Apollo.
“Fuck you,” I huff, dragging a hand down my face. “Where’s Dad?”
“Out.”
Completely useless information.
“Goddamnit,” I hiss, frantically typing another text. I don’t talk to whatever God may be out there often, but right now, I’m fucking praying that Anya will respond.
Matteo
I’m freaking out over here, Anya. Please message me back.
“Out where?” I ask, eyes lifting back up at Apollo with what’s probably a pathetically pleading look. “When’s he coming back?”
“He went to see Emilio,” he replies, not at all sounding concerned for my panicked state. “Is there a reason you look like you’re going to pass out and break your phone from holding it so tight?”
“Like you give a shit.” Ignoring his comment, I start pacing again. I need to do something and moving back and forth in this hallway is all I can manage. I’m seconds away from saying fuck it and getting on a plane to California without permission.
“Spare me the dramatics,” Apollo snaps, pulling my attention from my phone. Still no response. “Tell me what has you so worked up. If Dad can help you, you know I can too. You’re stressing me the fuck out with all your pacing. So, what is it?”
I stare at him for a moment, trying to see if he actually wants to help me.
Blowing out a heavy sigh, I decide that I don’t have a better option.
Apollo may be a stiff, boring jerk, but he’s a problem solver, and he loves to make everyone love him.
Maybe his perfectionism will come in handy right now.
“Anya has gone radio silent.”
His eyebrows twitch, dipping inward. “You’re working a dent into the floor because your little friend isn’t texting you back?”
Rage like I’ve never felt toward him begins to burn. “You’re a fucking prick. I should have known you wouldn’t be helpful,” I spit, fists clenching. Spinning on my heels, I’m ready to go straight down the stairs and make my way to the fucking airport.
A loud, resigned groan stops me in my tracks.
“I’m listening, Matteo,” Apollo grunts, leaving no room for doubt or argument. “Why are you freaking out that she hasn’t responded? Do you feel like she might be in danger?”
Hesitant, I move toward my brother’s office, approaching him slowly.
I swear to God, if he makes me regret this, I’ll hit him.
I won’t tell him that Anya just got out of inpatient care; as far as I know, none of my family—besides Nico the stalker—know about that.
I have to tell him I’m worried that she might hurt herself, though.
In the most delicate way I can muster while I’m in this anxiety-riddled state.
“You know what happened to her, yeah?”
He blinks. “I’m familiar, yes.”
We both know that he was there the night I learned about it, but I don’t know how else to start this conversation.
“I’m only telling you this because I’m going out of my fucking mind right now, Apollo,” I preface, voice genuinely shaking. “What I’m about to say stays between us. Barely anyone else knows.”
He dips his head in a firm nod, and gestures for me to continue.
“She tried to end it all…several times after that night happened. Her dad kept her on lockdown after the first two times, and she hasn’t tried in over a year or two now. But when she has bad days, she still thinks about it sometimes.”
I swallow so thickly that it hurts. I don’t know if that’s still true. I have to believe that she doesn’t consider hurting herself since coming home from her two months of care. She’s been feeling so much better, but I haven’t seen her in person, and plenty can be concealed over the phone.
“She’s having a bad day, and now she’s not answering.”
Apollo blinks, and then without a word grabs his phone off his desk. I watch in astonishment as he scrolls on the device, completely ignoring me. How the fuck do you just ignore information like that?
“What are you—”
He flings his hand in the air and presses the cellphone to his ear.
“Anton Morozov,” Apollo says and suddenly it all makes sense. He wasn’t ignoring me, he was working as quickly as possible.
Breath whooshing out of me in relief, I drop down into the chair across from Apollo’s desk, giving him my full attention. Of course he would have Anton’s personal phone number. He’s basically the head of the family, even if it hasn’t been made official by Dad’s retirement yet.
I hear a muffled male voice before Apollo speaks again.
“Do you have eyes on your daughter currently?”
More muffled sound.
“Check on her,” Apollo says, his tone full of command rather than suggestion. “Matteo is concerned for her current mental and physical health.”
Seconds pass without a word from Apollo, the intensity of waiting almost becoming suffocating. Eventually, Anton’s deep muffled voice is audible again. My brother hangs up the call without replying and my heartbeat hammers in my ears, pleading with him to say something—anything.
“She’s sleeping,” Apollo says, ending my internal torture. The weight of the world lifts off my chest and I can fucking breathe again. “Apparently, she asked her doctor for her emergency pill?”
“She did?” I ask, even more relieved than before.
“She told me that she never really asks for it.” At least she didn’t before the program.
“Normally someone would notice that she’s gloomy and offer it.
Sometimes she’ll reluctantly take it, but it makes her feel really tired.
” I breathe out, smiling with pride for my friend. “Shit, okay, that’s really good.”
“He said as much,” Apollo agrees, nodding. “He credits you for her progress and says that you’re off probation now?”
If he credits me for her progress, it’s because he credits me for inspiring her to seek more care. One man alone can’t rebuild someone who’s been as hurt as Anya has, but I won’t pretend that I don’t think our friendship helped her take the next step in her recovery.
If Anton Morozov wants to give me any credit for his daughter’s healing, I won’t deny it. I need as many brownie points as I can get from the man. Especially since his bloodhound brother acts like he’d like to carve out my heart and eat it, no matter how much his wife and his niece vouch for me.
I’m smiling to myself as I explain, “He won’t keep a hand on his gun when he sees me now. He’s starting to love me already.”
And he’s going to give me his fucking phone number after today, that’s for sure. I’m going to ask Anya for Irina’s as well. Or hell, maybe I’ll fly out there and collect all of her family’s phone numbers myself. It’s been long enough of letting her settle in, I think.
Part of me wonders if she would be having a bad day if I was there with her. It might be cocky or irrational to think that my presence alone could keep her happy, but I would do anything to make it true.
Apollo tilts his head at me, curious. “Are you hoping to turn him in your favor? Perhaps to become a son-in-law someday?”
“We’re just friends. It isn’t like that.” The denial is quick and tastes bitter as I get it out. He doesn’t need to know how it is between Anya and I.
No one should be reading into our relationship, especially not while I’m still unsure how she even feels about it. I won’t have anyone tease me for my devotion to her, even if she only ever wants to be my friend.
He shrugs. “Whatever you say.”
“Thank you for helping,” I mumble awkwardly, maybe even begrudgingly. I can’t put into words how much relief he’s just given me, but he’s still Apollo and he was still an ass when I first spoke to him.
“You’re not so bad, when you want to be.” It’s the most grateful I can sound without saying something that will make me cry. He really helped me today, rocky start or not.
“Perhaps married life is softening me,” he suggests, almost smirking. “Rayna calls me a prick enough for the both of you. I have no need to irritate you on purpose.”
Ain’t that the truth.
The two of them have never seemed more in love, and I still hear her cursing him out sometimes. I think they like it too much, the freaks.
“Dad says we argue because we’re fundamentally different,” I tell him, wondering if he agrees. “But I don’t think I’m similar to any of our brothers, and we all get along fine.”
“They didn’t help raise you.” He pauses. “I took our mother’s—”
“Alina,” I correct stubbornly. “Don’t call her my mom.”
I haven’t called her that since I was five, and I won’t ever again. I still haven’t spoken to Anya about Alina, and I don’t know that I ever will. I don’t know if my hatred for the woman who gave birth to me will trigger her in some way, knowing that her own mother was a million times worse.
Alina may not have had me tortured, but she made me grow up feeling unloved and unwanted by her while she doted on Leon and my other siblings.
I don’t care how deeply messed up she probably was.
I don’t care how good she was to Leon or how she tried to take care of us when the mood would strike for her.
I came into this world at the worst point of her life, and there was no effort on her end to make me feel like her son. Dad and Apollo are my earliest memories, not the ghost of the woman who could only muster up love for how having a big family made her look.
When she found out she had a terminal brain tumor, she didn’t try to make the most of the end of her days. She didn’t realize life was fleeting and try to love her children for as long as she could. No, she tried to save herself with secret doctor’s appointments and specialists.
And when they couldn’t help her, she killed herself before the tumor could do it for her. Dad doesn’t think I know more than the basics of what happened, but I know everything. I read her autopsy report. I know she could have lived a year more, maybe even longer.
But living for her sons, living for me, was more than she could be asked for. She chose to leave us, and she chose to die. I have no mother, and she made that decision.
“Alina, then,” he concedes. He’s never fought me on my rejection of the woman who abandoned us. “I took Alina’s place in your life. Unfortunately, that meant you ended up with my teenage version of nurturing.”
No shit, unfortunately.
Apollo’s version of nurturing was side hugs after training and telling me to go to bed as if I needed to be told. He wasn’t a mother, but even I’ll admit he did a million times better than Alina did.
“You took nothing seriously, and I needed you to grow up so that I didn’t have to worry about you so much. I made you strong. I would feel bad about it, but Dad let you be yourself where I didn’t.”
I don’t know what to say to that.
“I have always been concerned that your…boisterous personality would get you killed some day. I wanted you to be able to protect yourself. But Dad always knew that you could be lively and lethal. I didn’t understand it, so I wasn’t perfect.
I still don’t understand it, but I hope you can see that I’ve improved.
I thought our arguments have become more banter than anything else over the years, but correct me if I’m wrong. ”
“Maybe you’re not wrong,” I mumble reluctantly.
“You should know that you can come to me with stuff like this,” Apollo says, keeping his tone measured and clear. “It would make me a shitty Capo, and a shittier brother, if I made you feel like I wouldn’t help you when you needed me.”
I try not to react, but the shock I feel is undeniable. We don’t talk like this. Ever. The only emotionally vulnerable conversations had in this house are done so with Jade or occasionally Dad. But Apollo? Never.
“Our personalities clash, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t love you.”
Holy shit.
I can’t help but letting myself smile, wide and enthused. “Fuck, I wish I was recording that. No one will believe me without proof. Matteo Moretti, Apollo’s favorite brother.”
He glowers, but it’s half-hearted at best. “I literally didn’t say that.”
“That’s not what I heard,” I tease, smirking. “Leon and Cassio are going to be so crushed when I tell them they’ve been replaced.” Poor bastards.
He pinches the bridge of his nose, exhaling. “They won’t believe you.”
Rubbing my hands together, I give him a mischievous look. “We’ll see.”
“How about you start helping me carry these boxes downstairs instead of plotting whatever scheme you have cooking up in your mayhem brain.”
Resigned, I sigh. “Fine. But I’m only doing this because helping you is proof that you need me.” Snatching up a couple of boxes, I escape before he can make this weird interaction even weirder.
Anya is okay, and now I am too.