Chapter 31
SIERRA
Something is wrong with Matteo.
The thought gnaws at me as I navigate Vegas traffic with Ma in the passenger seat beside me. She’s chatting about her garden, about a recipe she wants to try, and I’m nodding along while my chest aches with something I can’t name.
It started the night after Julian went into the hospital.
Matteo left early the next morning and didn’t come home until I was already asleep.
Since then, I’ve barely seen him. He’s gone before I wake up.
Home after dinner, sometimes not until right before I leave for work.
We pass each other like strangers sharing the same space, and every time I ask what’s wrong, he gives me the same flat answer.
I’m fine.
He’s not. I know he’s not. We haven’t known each other long, but we got close fast, and I can read him now.
The way his jaw tightens when he’s holding something back.
The clipped edge to his voice when he doesn’t want to talk.
The distance in his eyes when he looks at me, like he’s already somewhere else.
The only time I’ve gotten a real reaction out of him was yesterday, when I called to tell him Julian was awake. My brother still has a long recovery ahead, but he opened his eyes and recognized me, and I was so relieved that I burst into tears right there in the hospital room.
When I called Matteo, his voice went warm. Genuinely happy for me. He asked questions. He sounded like himself.
But that night, he came home late and gave me one-word answers. Barely looked at me. We’re still sharing his bed, but there’s been no heat between us, no midnight wandering hands. He’s even sleeping in a shirt now, which feels like a wall going up.
I miss the way he used to reach for me in the dark.
I pull into the clinic parking lot and find a spot near the entrance. Ma pats my arm as I help her out of the car.
Matteo was supposed to bring her, but he asked me to do it instead. Then disappeared out the door before I could say more than yes.
“Thank you for bringing me, dear,” she says. “I told Matteo I’d be fine on my own, but you know how he worries about the people he cares about.”
I force a smile, even as something bitter curls through me. Does he?
But that’s not fair. He’s been there for me when it counted. He’s just…not here right now. And I don’t know why.
“Yeah,” I say, keeping my voice light. “He’s really protective.”
The clinic smells like antiseptic and floral air freshener. Fluorescent lights buzz overhead as we check in, and then a nurse leads us to a treatment bay where Ma settles into a big cushioned recliner. I pull a stiff chair close to her side while the nurse gets the IV started.
“His father died when he was just a little boy,” Ma says once the nurse leaves us alone, circling back to our conversation in the car. “And I swear, Matteo tried to take over as man of the house right then and there.”
I lean in, curious despite everything weighing on me. “What do you mean?”
“I came home from work one day and found him at the kitchen table with the newspaper spread out.” She laughs, soft and fond. “He’d circled three job listings in the classifieds. Looked at me very seriously and told me he was quitting school to get a job so he could take care of me.”
I can see it so clearly it hurts. A little Matteo, trying to shoulder the weight of their world.
“How old was he?”
“Six.” Ma’s smile is bittersweet. “He’s always been my serious boy. But I’ve noticed something different about him since you came along. A lightness. You bring out a softer side of him.”
“Do I?”
Ma studies my face.
“Of course, dear. He cares about you a great deal.”
I want to believe that. I really do. But the way he’s been pulling away makes me feel like I’m losing my grip on something I didn’t even know I had.
I glance around the treatment room. The nurses are busy with other patients. Nobody’s close enough to hear.
“Ma, you know our marriage isn’t exactly...” I pause, searching for the right words. “a love match.”
She chuckles, like I’ve told a joke. “Sure, it started that way. But are you saying you haven’t developed feelings?”
Heat floods my face. I have developed feelings. Deep ones. The kind that wake me up at night wondering if he feels them too. But I can’t tell her that when I haven’t even told him, and the way things are going, I’m not sure I ever will.
“I don’t even know if the marriage will last long,” I say instead.
Her smile doesn’t waver. “Oh, I wouldn’t be so sure about that.”
But she doesn’t understand what I’m really asking. She doesn’t know how cold his side of the bed has felt lately.
I press my palms flat against my thighs. “Can I ask you something?”
“Anything.”
“Do you think Matteo seems... distant lately?”
Ma considers this. The IV drips steadily, a soft clicking sound marking the seconds.
“Now that you mention it,” she says, “I saw him on Sunday, and he did seem a little withdrawn. But he was like that most of the time before you came along, so I didn’t think much of it.” She pats my hand. “Don’t worry too much. I’m sure he’s just upset about Santino’s death.”
My spine goes rigid. “Someone died? Who’s Santino?”
For the first time since I’ve known her, Ma hesitates. Her fingers fidget with the edge of her sleeve before she answers.
“He was someone Matteo worked with.”
The word worked sits heavy between us. We both know what that means, even if we can’t say it in public.
I don’t know much about Matteo’s life with the mafia. I don’t ask, and he doesn’t offer. But I’ve heard him mention the men he’s close to in the organization. The way he talks about them, they’re more than colleagues. They’re family.
And now one of them is dead.
“When did this happen?”
“A few days ago. It hit all of them hard, but Matteo especially, since he was with him.” Ma’s voice softens. “He keeps things locked up inside. Always has. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t feel them.”
I nod, but it stings more than I expected. Someone close to Matteo died, someone he cared about, and he didn’t tell me. He’s been carrying this grief for days while I tried to crack jokes and coax smiles out of him, completely in the dark.
Why didn’t he let me in?
I thought we were past the walls. Past the pretense. He told me about his stepfather and the burns on his back. About killing a man at sixteen to protect his mother. Those weren’t easy things to share, and he trusted me with them.
So why not this?
My fingers curl in my lap, nails pressing crescents into my palms. I don’t want to spiral.
I don’t want to be the girl who assumes the worst just because a man pulls away.
But I’ve been that girl before. With Viktor.
I watched the warmth drain out of him day by day, convinced myself I was imagining things, told myself everything was fine.
It wasn’t fine. It was the beginning of a nightmare.
Matteo isn’t Viktor. The rational part of my brain knows that. But there’s another part of me—the part that watched the Viktor I knew disappear inch by inch and told myself I was overreacting—and that part is screaming.
When we leave the clinic, I help Ma into the car and close her door with a careful click. My hands are steady. My smile is in place. I’ve gotten good at keeping the cracks from showing.
But as I slide behind the wheel, something cold settles in my stomach.
I’m not going to look the other way. I’m not going to convince myself that distance is normal, that silence is just how men grieve, that everything will magically fix itself if I’m patient enough. That’s what I did with Viktor. I gave him the benefit of the doubt until it was too late.
My thumb finds the engagement ring, spinning it once around my finger.
The diamond catches light from the windshield.
I need to know why Matteo is shutting me out.
I need to understand what happened with Santino.
And if he can hide something this big from me, something that’s clearly eating him alive, I need to know what else he’s keeping locked behind those walls.
Because I’m falling for him. Hard. And if this is going to shatter, I’d rather see it coming this time.