Chapter 23 Matteo
MATTEO
I know she’s there before I see her.
The punching bag swings from the last hit, leather groaning against chains, and I go still. My lungs burn. Sweat drips down my spine, tracing the old burn scars.
I could’ve put a shirt on. Almost did.
But I didn’t.
We’re living together now. She’ll see me in the pool, catch me changing, see me after a shower. The scars aren’t going anywhere. Neither is the truth stamped into my skin.
So maybe I’m testing her. Need to know what she’ll do when she sees the map of every cigarette Scott ever stubbed out on my back. Whether the disgust comes now or later.
Either way, at least I’ll know.
I stare at the concrete floor. Count the cracks. Breathe.
Then I turn around.
Sierra’s face is hard to read in the dim light of the hallway. I wait for it. The sharp inhale. The step backward. The pity that’s worse than disgust because at least disgust is honest.
She crosses the distance between us.
I don’t move. Don’t breathe. Her hand comes up, and I brace for the flinch I’ll feel when her fingers make contact with ruined skin.
The touch is light. A fingertip tracing one of the oldest scars, between my shoulder blades where the skin puckers and pulls.
I jerk away from her, but it’s pure reflex.
“Sorry.” She pulls her hand back. “Did I hurt you?”
The question is so fucking absurd that I almost laugh. She’s a foot shorter than me. Asking if she hurt me.
“No.” The word scrapes out of me. “It’s old. Doesn’t hurt anymore.”
A lie. Not physically. But every other way that matters.
She’s quiet for a moment. Then: “Tell me.”
“Nothing to tell.”
“Matteo.”
“It’s old news, Sierra. Leave it.”
I grab my shirt from the bench. She catches my wrist before I can pull it on. Her grip is light. I could break it without thinking. But I don’t move.
“Please.”
I could walk away. Should walk away. Keep this shit buried where it belongs.
But she’s still here. She touched the scars and she didn’t run, and now she’s asking. Not pushing. Asking.
“Fine.” I drop the shirt. “Not here.”
I head for the living room without checking to see if she follows. Buying myself another thirty seconds before I have to say this out loud.
The living room is dim. One lamp throws shadows across the walls. I drop onto the couch, elbows on my knees, and stare at the floor.
Sierra settles next to me. Close enough that I feel her warmth, but not touching.
The silence stretches. I should start talking. That was the deal. But the words are stuck somewhere behind my ribs, and I don’t know how to drag them out.
“You don’t have to,” she says quietly. “If you’re not ready.”
And that’s what does it. The out she’s offering. Because I’ve never been ready. I’ve carried this shit for fourteen years, and I’ll carry it for fourteen more if I don’t just fucking say it.
“My father died when I was six.”
The words come out sounding flat and rusty.
“Soldier in the Andretti organization. Same one I work for now, but back then? The don was a ruthless bastard who didn’t give a shit about his men. Used my old man as a human shield.”
I shake my head. Getting off track already.
“I don’t remember him. Don’t think he was around much.” A bitter taste coats my tongue. “Mom was lonely after that. So when I was eleven, and she told me she was getting remarried, I was happy for her. I was almost a man, right? Didn’t need to worry about her so much.”
The laugh that comes out of me sounds like it belongs to someone else.
“Scott was a drunk.” I force the name out. “That’s why I don’t touch alcohol. Never been tempted. When you watch a man turn into a monster every time he picks up a bottle, you decide pretty fucking fast you don’t want to risk becoming that.”
“But you’d never—”
“Let me finish.” My voice comes out harsher than I mean. I soften it. “I just need to get this out. Okay?”
A beat. “Okay.”
“He started with me.” My jaw locks. “Easier target. Eleven years old. Skinny. Scared of my own shadow back then. Mom didn’t know how bad it was. At least, I don’t think she did. She was just grateful we had food on the table, someone to pay the bills.”
My back burns. Phantom pain.
“These scars.” I can’t gesture to them. Can’t acknowledge them directly. “I was twelve. Mouthed off about doing the dishes. Such a fucking small thing. He held me down while he...”
I stop.
I can still smell it. Burned skin and Marlboros and the cheap whiskey on his breath.
Sierra’s hand finds my shoulder again. Grounding.
“I grew up,” I continue, forcing the words past the tightness in my throat. “Got bigger. By fourteen, I was big enough to hit back, and Scott was too much of a coward to keep trying. Should’ve been a relief.”
It wasn’t.
“He went after Ma instead.”
The memory washes over me before I can push it down.
Her wrist bent at the wrong angle, swollen purple.
The way she cradled it against her body and told me she fell down the stairs.
The lie that every woman like her has told a thousand times.
The surgery she needed because she waited too long to get help.
I gave Scott a black eye for that one. He cut off grocery money for two weeks. Went out drinking every night while we starved at home. Ma couldn’t work with her wrist healing from surgery. I was too young to make enough to feed us both.
“He controlled her with money. She depended on him, and I hated it, but I was just a kid.” My fists clench against my thighs. “She told me to let her handle him. Told me to look the other way. And I did. I fucking did, because she was my mother and I trusted her and I didn’t know what else to—”
The shame rises up my throat like bile.
I stand up too fast. Head for the door without thinking, just needing to get away from the sound of my own voice admitting what I’ve never said out loud.
Arms wrap around me from behind.
Sierra presses against my back, her cheek between my shoulder blades. Her arms lock tight, holding me together when I’m about to come apart.
She doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t offer empty reassurances or try to tell me it wasn’t my fault.
She just holds me.
”I let it go on for years.” My voice is barely a rasp. “Told myself she was the adult. She made the rules. But the truth is I was a weak piece of shit who didn’t protect her when I should have.”
“No—”
“I killed him.”
My pulse hammers in my ears.
“Came home from school one day. Found her on the kitchen floor, curled up, covering her head while he kicked her. Over and over. Drunk off his ass, yelling about the house being dirty or some bullshit. Doesn’t matter what set him off. He didn’t need a reason.”
I close my eyes. I can still see the red that flooded my vision.
“I beat him to death with my bare hands. Right there in the kitchen. Sixteen years old, and that was my first kill.”
My jaw locks so tight my molars ache. I’ve made peace with killing him. What I haven’t made peace with is every day I didn’t.
Sierra doesn’t pull away or stiffen. She stays pressed against me, breathing soft and steady.
“Dario and Lorenzo helped me make it disappear. They never asked for details. Never made me explain. I joined the organization a few months later, and I’ve been loyal ever since.” I exhale. “That’s who I am, Si. That’s what you’re looking at. A man who’s been killing since he was a kid.”
I turn in her arms. She tips her head back. Studies my face in the low light.
“Do you regret it?”
The answer comes without hesitation. “No. I’d do it again. A thousand times.”
She doesn’t flinch. There’s no horror on her face. Just my girl, looking at me like I didn’t just hand her every reason to run.
One corner of her mouth curves up.
“I can’t blame you for that.” Her fingers trace over a scar on my back, light and careful. “After seeing what he did to you, I kind of wish I could’ve used my new shooting skills on him.”
A sound punches out of me. Surprise. Almost a laugh.
“Would’ve held him down for you.”
She settles her cheek against my chest again. Sighs.
“You’re not what you think you are,” she says. “You know that, right?”
My arms tighten around her. “And what do I think I am?”
“A monster.” She says it simply. “You’re not. You’re a protector.”
I don’t have any defense for that.
My arms crush her against me. Tighter than I should. A shudder rips through me—ugly, involuntary—and I bury my face in her hair so she won’t see whatever the fuck is happening to my expression right now.
She doesn’t complain about the grip. Just holds on.
Protector. The word doesn’t fit. I’ve never thought of myself that way. Enforcer. Soldier. Killer. Those I understand. Those I’ve earned.
Protector is something else. Something cleaner than I deserve.
“I’m only good for violence.” I lower my face to her neck. Breathe her in. “It’s all I’ve ever been. But I’ll keep you safe, Si. I’ll put that bastard down just like I did before.”
She presses her lips to my chest. Right over my heart.
“I know you will.”
We stand there for a long moment. Her arms around me, mine around her. The lamp casting shadows across the walls and neither of us moving to turn on more light.
I’ve never told anyone what I told her tonight. Not the full story. Not the years of letting it happen, the shame that’s lived in my bones since I was a kid. I expected the telling to make it worse. To crack open something I’d never be able to close again.
Instead, I just feel tired. And maybe a little lighter.
Sierra trusts me. Not despite what I am, but because of it. She looked at the worst parts of me and didn’t run.
I've had women before. Bodies in the dark, nothing that mattered. The ones who knew what I did wanted the thrill or the protection. Never looked too close. Never asked.
Sierra asked.
My arms tighten around her. She makes a sleepy sound, and I press my lips to the top of her head.
The scars aren’t going anywhere. Neither is the truth of what I did.
But for the first time in fourteen years, I’m not carrying it alone.