18. Matteo
Chapter 18
Matteo
K nocking pulled me out of the best dream I’d ever had. I lay there for a second, breathing hard as the memory of the dream began to flitter away like a leaf in a storm.
“Fuck,” I groaned looking down to find that not only was I still hard, but I’d also come in my boxers. They were sticking to the lower half of my body.
“Jesus Christ,” I groaned as my feet hit the floor.
Peeling the boxers away from my body, I grabbed a pair of sweats and threw them on as the pounding continued.
“I’m coming!” I hollered, before finally snatching open the door.
Mason was standing there, looking frantic about to knock again. “Mason, what in the fuck? It’s late as hell.”
“We need to go. You gotta disappear.”
He was talking nonsense, and I had no idea what was going on. My brother brushed past me and into the apartment. “What?”
He stopped. “You have a look alike out there. He just killed someone at Deluca Tech. And he has the codex.”
My brother’s gaze fixed itself on me and I scrubbed at the back of my neck. “Mason, what in the hell are you talking about. I can’t just go on the run. I’m a fucking FBI Agent.”
“Yeah? Well, all that Law-and-Order shit is about to go out the window. Where have you been all night…”
He stopped his tirade and waited.
In here, dreaming and fucking Rain, my Corsican snickered. And she was fucking delicious. Wait till we really taste her.
“Shut up,” I snapped aloud to my other half.
“Huh?”
“My Corsican is feeling chatty,” I sighed. “I’ve been here all night, Mason.”
Mason shook his head. “And that’s what you’re gonna tell the cops. Yeah, alright.”
“What am I supposed to do?”
Mason took a deep breath and then looked to his watch. “We need to make you disappear. At least until we can prove that wasn’t you that killed that guard. Brother, they are going to be hunting you. This is going to hit the news in maybe an hour…Sebastian is doing all he can to contain this, but…”
“Where in the fuck am I going?” I snapped.
“We need to get you somewhere safe,” he sighed. “Pack a bag and be quick.”
“This is insane,” I was already hurrying into my bedroom.
I packed a black duffel bag with clothes and my personal Glock that I kept under my mattress. And a few essentials like deodorant and travel body wash. I couldn’t believe I was about to go on the fucking run like a coward.
I turned off all my devices and put my service weapon in the gun safe near the back of my closet and locked the apartment up tight.
“They’ll come here first and they’ll try all our places,” Mason said.
“So, where in the fuck am I going?” I looked over at my brother who was driving through the streets of Seattle calmly.
“I thought the old house, first…” Mason looked over.
None of us stayed at our childhood home. It had been years since I’d been there, it was full of way too many memories. Our mother, Alaska…
She had killed herself on Mason’s birthday.
But, me?
I’d been the one to find her body swaying back and forth.
“We don’t have another secret lair somewhere?” A chill wrapped itself around my spine and it wouldn’t let go.
Mason shook his head. “It’s temporary, I promise. We’re going to find this motherfucker, I promise.”
“And then what?”
“Well…Carmine just wants to kill him…I was thinking torture. I want information,” Mason took his eyes off the road briefly to look at me.
A sigh left my lips, “I’m a goddamn FBI agent, can we not talk about murder and torture like it’s just an everyday thing.”
That earned Mason a huge grin. “Nope brother, you are now a fugitive.”
Rolling my eyes, I settled back against the seat and stared out the window for the rest of the drive. The moon was out and shining brightly as we finally started to speed towards our destination.
Eventually the old house loomed ahead, and my chest started to feel heavy. Part of me wanted to take my fucking chances with the cops.
I was a cop.
I could do cops.
I didn’t want to do memories.
As Mason parked and got of the car, I pulled a deep breath into my lungs. The memory hit me like a ton of bricks.
Something was moaning, creaking like an old swing. It was low and guttural, filling the air and driving down my spine. It seemed to grow louder, more ominous with every single passing second.
I could hear it from the kitchen, and it was so loud. I’d felt sick during an exam…
The sound was so foreign to my ears. Our house was never this quiet with five boys running around, fighting.
“Mom…” I’d called.
A rap came at the car’s window and I found myself looking up into Mason’s eyes. If he knew I was thinking about one of the single worst days in my life, he didn’t let on.
He had my duffle thrown over his back and I followed him up to the house and around the back. Growing up, we’d always used the back door.
He fiddled for a key and unlocked the door. There was a panel with a code by the back door and slowly, he began to type a code in.
“Eleven, twenty-nine,” he stated and handed me the key. “In case you decided to leave for any reason.
“Mom’s birthday,” I nodded.
The house smelled stuffy and closed off. We didn’t dare turn on the lights until we made it down to the basement. The light bulb swayed overhead as it illuminated the area.
“When’s the last time you came out here?” I asked running my fingers over the old pool table smothered in dust.
“It’s been a long fucking time,” Mason admitted.
“Lot of ghosts in this fucking place,” I shook my head.
“Carmine keeps up the maintenance though,” Mason shrugged. “He comes out here more than I do. He takes care of mom’s little rose garden that she had. They still bloom.”
Walking around the basement, I found the board games we used to play when the power went out. A few of the old gaming consoles were sitting on a stand under an old television. Sadness threatened to overtake me.
I could hear the groaning of something swinging in my head again.
Block that shit out, my dark passenger begged.
“Do you remember how much Carmine hated playing Monopoly with Mom,” I glanced over at Mason.
He sat the duffel bag down on the couch and nodded. “Yeah, Dad was never around then either.”
I let his words eat up the air. Our parents were an extremely touchy subject even though the five of us remained close.
Mason finally cleared his throat, shattering the small silence that had grown.
“I’m gonna grab you some sheets and blankets from upstairs. Carmine said there were actually some fresh things in the linen closet.”
He climbed the stairs, and I continued to walk around the basement finding different things I hadn’t laid my eyes on in years. Dusty boxes were piled in corners. There were a bunch of photo albums but I just didn’t have the heart to start looking through them.
Mason returned with clean sheets and a comforter only to find me staring at a huge family portrait, one with both my parents and all my brothers.
Augustus Matteo Zacharra Sr. was actually smiling in the picture looking lovingly at his wife, my mother. She was staring at all of us, her own smile sad. The necklace that she’d worn every day of her life, a double helix with a crescent moon, had even been painted into the photo.
“I don’t think Carmine could bear to let this shit hole go,” Mason whispered from behind me.
“Really?”
“He remembers things differently than we do,” Mason offered.
We fixed the couch up for me to sleep on and when it was finished, I sat down with my racing thoughts.
“Before I forget,” Mason reached into his back pocket. “Burner phone. All our numbers are in there. Keep it close.”
Nodding, I took the iPhone from my brother’s hands. I knew he needed to get back to his woman. He’d been worried the entire time, and I knew a lot of it was because of Nora.
“I’ll call you if anything happens,” I nodded.
“This is just for the night,” Mason nodded. “Tomorrow I’ll have a new plan in place.”
I nodded.
Mason was a planner.
He was good at this. He would often go off the grid and live quietly for a few weeks and I’d always wondered how.
I liked noise.
Noise could keep the demons at bay.
He departed a little while later and I lay there, my body finally settling. The Glock was on the arm of the old couch offering me safety.
The second I closed my eyes the creaking started again…
“Mom,” I remembered calling out to her and receiving no answer. My voice seemed to bounce around the kitchen.
The feeling wouldn’t go away no matter how hard I tried. Something eerie was climbing all over my skin like a spider crawling through its own web. Part of me wanted to stay in that kitchen forever, knowing it was safe there. My eyes had scanned the counter top, there were knives if I needed one for protection. Grab a Capri Sun and some fruit and wait for her to get home from the lab.
She was a geneticist… she knew more about DNA than anybody…
The creaking and moaning became relentless, gnawing at me until I couldn’t take another second of it.
My body trembled as I edged forward, the creaking growing louder with each aching step.
My heart had started to pound in my ears and my chest had become tight.
The front door was right in front of me, and I could see that it was locked. I had inched closer and closer until I found the source of the sound.
My mother’s lifeless body, with a noose of her own making…
Her body was the source of the noise.
She was swaying, still dressed in the outfit I’d seen her in that morning.
She’d kissed each one of us goodbye…
White hot tears had fallen as I’d raced up the steps.
“Mommy, please, mommy…”
I could still remember fumbling for the rope. The knot had been too thick.
“Mom, pleaseeeee!”
I sat up slipping out of the nightmare again, pinching at the bridge of my nose. It was incredible how I could make myself go years without thinking of her. Go years without thinking of finding her dead body.
I hadn’t even been the one to call the cops.
The neighbors had called because they’d heard me screaming.
“Who fucking new all I needed to start nightmares back up was to come home,” I whispered to no one.
My chest still felt tight, and my face was wet from crying in my sleep.
I wanted to get the hell out of this place but there was nowhere that I could go.
In the dark, I searched for the cellphone and saw that I had internet service. Running a search for my name, I didn’t find anything.
Then I realized that while I had everyone’s numbers, there was one I didn’t have.
I typed in The Siren, and Rain’s salon was the first one to come up. I scrolled down the page and found her personal phone number waiting for me.
Without a second thought, I dialed it. It rang for what seemed like the longest time and she didn’t answer it.
Instead of calling back, I opened up a message and shot it off to her. I knew that my words would leave her hot and bothered. Hell, I was still semi hard from that dream myself. My Corsican liked a chase…
Still dreaming about me, Stizzy?
Laying back, I smiled while staring up into the darkness of the ceiling.
Moments later, the phone started to ring.
Rain was calling.