Chapter 22 Sierra
SIERRA
I’ve never held something designed to kill before.
The Glock sits heavy in my palm, cold metal and lethal potential, and my first thought is that it’s smaller than I expected.
My second thought is that Viktor has one of these. Pointed one at me. Pulled the trigger while I screamed and tried to hide.
My third thought is: Good. Now I’ll know how to point one back.
“First rule.” Matteo’s voice cuts through my spiraling. “Every gun is loaded. Even when it’s not.”
I bite back a sarcastic response because his jaw is set in that serious line that tells me now is absolutely not the time for my bullshit.
So I nod like a serious and attentive student. Gold star for Sierra.
The truth is, I’d been thinking about this all day.
Learning to defend myself. Taking back some small piece of control that Viktor ripped away from me.
But I didn’t plan to bring it up until I saw Matteo leaning against the brick wall outside the bakery, shoulders bunched like he was bracing for a hit, brows drawn together in that perpetual storm cloud he wears.
He looked miserable.
I don’t know if it’s the wedding planning, the constant threat of Viktor, or something else entirely, but the man needed a distraction. And maybe I need one too.
“The Glock is a good beginner’s gun.” He takes it gently from my hand, barrel pointed at the floor, and launches into an explanation about firing pins and chain reactions and recoil mechanisms.
I’m nodding along, but mostly I’m watching his hands. The confidence in them. The steadiness. Those hands have killed people. Those same hands touched me so gently last night I almost cried.
My life has gotten very complicated.
“You listening, Sunshine?”
“Firing pin, chain reaction, recoil, got it.” I flash him a smile. “Is there going to be a quiz?”
The corner of his mouth twitches. Almost a smile. I’m collecting those like stamps.
“There’s a safety.” He shows me a small lever in the center of the trigger. “Has to be pressed before it fires. But none of that matters if you don’t understand the most important rule.”
“Which is?”
“Never point a gun at anything you’re not willing to shoot.”
The words land under my skin and stick there. I think about Viktor’s face two nights ago. The cold fury in his expression right before the first shot cracked through my living room.
“Isn’t that the point?” The words don’t shake. Small miracle. “Shooting someone if I have to?”
“Yes.” Matteo holds my gaze. “But most people hesitate. They point a weapon at another human being and their brain short-circuits because they’re not actually prepared to put a hole in someone. That hesitation gets them killed.”
I think about the way Matteo raised his gun at Viktor in my apartment without a flicker of doubt. No hesitation; just action.
I should be disturbed by that. Instead, all I feel is a dark, twisted relief. Because if Viktor comes for me again, Matteo won’t freeze. Won’t fumble. Won’t give him a chance to—
“Hey.” His hand catches my chin, tilts my face up. We’re close. Close enough that I can see the faint scar at his temple, the individual striations of blue in his eyes. “Where’d you go?”
“Nowhere good.”
“Then come back.” His thumb brushes my jaw. “You’re here. You’re safe. And by the time we’re done, you’re going to know how to defend yourself. Yeah?”
The knot at the base of my skull unclenches. Just a little.
“Yeah,” I breathe. “Okay.”
He releases me and steps back, all business again. “Grip the handle with your dominant hand. Three fingers around the grip, pointer finger along the barrel next to the trigger guard. Not on the trigger. Never on the trigger until you’re ready to fire.”
I do as he says, hyperaware of the weight in my hand. It’s maybe two pounds, but it feels like so much more. Like I’m holding responsibility. Consequence.
“Good. Now bring your other hand up to support. You’re going to need it.”
“That sounds ominous.”
“Shooting a gun is basically holding a small explosion in your hands. There’s going to be a kick.”
“The soreness you mentioned.”
“Some pleasures are worth a little pain.”
Jesus Christ.
The look he gives me is pure heat, and my body responds like Pavlov’s dog hearing a bell. Nipples tightening, thighs pressing together, that familiar ache settling low in my pelvis. We’re in a shooting range surrounded by other people and I’m thinking about all the ways he could make me sore.
Focus, Sierra.
Matteo moves behind me, one hand settling on my hip to guide me toward the firing lane. The target at the far end is just a white sheet with a dark silhouette, but when he presses a button and it slides closer on the ceiling track, my stomach drops.
Twenty feet.
That’s how close Viktor was in my apartment.
The memory slams into me without warning. The sound of breaking glass. The first shot, impossibly loud. Matteo shoving me behind the kitchen island, his body a shield between me and—
“Breathe.”
Matteo’s chest presses against my back, solid and warm, and I realize I’ve stopped breathing entirely. My hands are shaking around the gun.
“I’m fine,” I lie.
“You’re not. But you will be.” His lips brush my ear, and despite everything, my body responds to his proximity. “That’s why we’re here. So next time, you’re not helpless. Next time, you fight back.”
Because there will be a next time. We both know it.
I force air into my lungs. Let it out slowly. Focus on the target. On the cold metal in my grip. On Matteo’s hands sliding up my arms, adjusting my stance, straightening my elbows.
“Spread your feet shoulder-width apart.” That command in his voice, the same tone he used last night when he told me exactly what he wanted. My core clenches. “Lean forward slightly. Keep your shoulders squared to the target.”
I lean, and my ass presses back into him. The hard length of his erection is unmistakable, even through layers of denim.
Well. At least I’m not the only one affected.
“Eyes on what you want to shoot,” he continues, like he’s not rock-hard against my ass. “When you’re ready, squeeze the trigger. Don’t pull. Squeeze.”
I focus on the center of the silhouette. Imagine Viktor’s face there. Every bruise he left on my skin. Every night I jumped at shadows. Every text that made me feel hunted.
I squeeze.
The explosion is deafening. Even through the ear protection, it rattles my skull and punches through my sinuses. The recoil slams up through my arms, wrenches my shoulders, and I stumble backward with a yelp—
But Matteo’s there. One arm around my waist, the other gripping my wrist, keeping the barrel pointed safely downrange.
“Holy shit.” My laugh comes out breathless and a little manic. “Holy shit.”
“You okay?”
“I think I just gave myself whiplash.” I straighten, still grinning—and then the adrenaline fades enough for me to feel the hot throb beneath my bandage. The recoil jarred it. Not bad, but definitely there.
Matteo’s eyes drop to my arm. “We can stop.”
“We’re not stopping.” I roll my shoulder, shake it off. “Did I hit it?”
His smirk tells me everything.
“Not even close.”
“Damn.”
“Try again.”
We practice shooting for an hour. I pushed for two, but Matteo held firm. Now my shoulders are staging a mutiny and my wound is pulsing in time with my heartbeat, so fine. He wins this one.
Matteo pulls the paper target off the clip and holds it up. Three neat holes in the silhouette’s chest. Not center mass, not kill shots, but hits. Proof that I can do this.
“Not bad for your first time.”
“Not bad?” I grab the paper from him, running my fingers over the holes. “This is incredible. I’m basically John Wick.”
“You hit a stationary target from twenty feet. Once out of every ten shots.”
“Don’t ruin this for me.” But I’m grinning, and he’s almost-smiling, and for a moment the weight of everything lifts.
I did something. I took back a tiny piece of control. And yeah, maybe it won’t matter when Viktor comes for me again. Maybe I’ll freeze anyway, or miss, or die with a gun in my hand that I never got to fire.
But I think about every bruise he left on my skin. The look in his eyes when he pulled the trigger in my apartment.
Maybe I won’t freeze.
Maybe next time, I’ll be the one pulling the trigger first.
The bathtub in Matteo’s master bathroom is obscene.
I mean that in the best possible way. It’s enormous, sunken into the floor, clearly designed for a man his size, and I sink into the scalding water with a groan that borders on pornographic.
God. Every muscle from my fingertips to my shoulder blades is staging a revolt. The recoil felt manageable in the moment, but now? Now I understand why Matteo insisted on only one hour.
I keep my bandaged arm propped on the edge, out of the water, and let the heat work its magic. Steam rises around me, fogging the mirror, and for the first time in days I feel something close to peace.
It’s not just the hot water. It’s this place. These walls. The certainty that Viktor can’t reach me here.
I didn’t realize how exhausting fear was until I found somewhere it couldn’t follow. For months I’ve been living with a constant hum of anxiety, always watching over my shoulder, always bracing for the next text or appearance or bruise. Here, that hum goes quiet.
Matteo did that. Gave me a safe place to land.
And taught me to shoot, which is arguably more important.
I trace patterns in the bubbles, thinking about the way he looked at me when I finally hit the target. Pride. Actual pride, softening the hard lines of his face for just a moment.
He’s different than I thought he’d be. Than I expected him to be, when I agreed to this insane arrangement. I thought I was getting a business partner. A convenient protector. Instead I’m getting… something else. Something I don’t have a name for yet.
Something that scares me almost as much as Viktor does.
Except that's not true, is it?
Viktor scared me because his violence had no direction. It could come at any moment, for any reason, aimed at anyone who disappointed him. I spent months trying to predict it, to be good enough to avoid it, and it didn't matter. The cruelty was the point.
Matteo is violent, too. I've seen it. The way he moves, the coldness in his eyes when Viktor's name comes up, the absolute certainty that he's killed people and will kill again.
But his violence has never been pointed at me. Not once. He touches me like I'm something worth being careful with.
Viktor made me smaller. Every day, a little more. Matteo hands me a gun and teaches me to fight back.
That's the difference.
Different fear, I remind myself. Better fear.
Or maybe not fear at all. Maybe it's just the terrifying realization that I trust him. That somewhere along the way, without meaning to, I started believing he won't hurt me.
And I have no idea what to do with that.
The water cools eventually. I haul myself out, dry off, and pull on my favorite sweats. For a moment I consider the satin robe that hugs my curves in all the right places.
But no. I don’t want this thing between us to be just about sex. There’s chemistry, obviously. Enough to set my skin on fire every time he looks at me a certain way. But there’s something else building underneath. Something quieter. Deeper.
I want to see where it goes.
I braid my wet hair to the side and leave the bedroom, following the rhythmic thud of impact coming from somewhere in the back of the house.
His gym.
The door is ajar. I stop in the doorway, watching.
Matteo is destroying a heavy bag.
There’s no other word for it. He’s not training. He’s not working out. He’s unleashing something, fists slamming into leather with a force that makes the chain rattle and groan, his body coiled and explosive, muscles rippling under sweat-slicked skin.
He’s shirtless. Just basketball shorts slung low on his hips. And even though I’ve seen him naked, there’s something different about watching him like this. Unguarded. Unaware.
Violent.
This is what he does for a living. Hurts people. Breaks them. Ends them, when necessary. I’ve known that intellectually since the day we met, but seeing it—the controlled brutality, the deadly precision—makes something twist in my gut.
Then he pivots to reset his stance, and I see his back.
The breath leaves my body.
Scars. Dozens of them. Small, round, scattered across the broad expanse of muscle and skin. The overhead light throws them into sharp relief; pale and puckered, clustered between his shoulder blades, trailing down toward his ribs.
I just now realize I’ve never seen him without a shirt. Not once. In bed it’s always been dark, and I was too lost in him to take inventory. He sleeps in a shirt—I thought he just ran cold.
He was hiding this.
I know what those are. Cigarette burns. Dozens of them.
Someone did this to Matteo.
My hand flies to my mouth.
What the fuck?
I take a step back, shoulder hitting the doorframe with a soft thud, and—
He spins.
Our eyes meet.
The vulnerability on his face lasts exactly one second. Shame. Exposure. The raw shock of being seen.
Then it’s gone—buried behind that cold mask—but it’s too late.
I saw.
And I can’t unsee it.