17. Matti
Matti
I wake up on my couch, still wearing nothing but the jeans I had on at the club, my ball cap covering my face. My phone is open to the live feed of Siena’s house—and Valentina is tugging at my zipper.
“What the fuck?” I snatch her wrist, but she uses her other hand to slide inside my pants, wrapping her fingers around my cock.
“It’s okay, baby. Keep watching that trash pussy on your phone if you want. I’ll just be down here.” Her voice is sultry, trailing off as she lowers her head, but before she can get there, I shove her off me. She hits the floor with a yelp.
“That’s not the job you were hired to do.” I zip up my jeans, anger replacing irritation, not just at her but at myself for passing out. “Where the fuck is Vin?”
Sprawled on the floor, she glares up at me. Red lace lingerie clings to her curves, thigh-high fishnets and stilettos completing the look. She parts her legs deliberately, trailing her fingers between them, lips curling into a smirk. “He had to go. So we can take a break, too, can’t we, lover? ”
“Valentina, I don’t have time for this shit. We’ve got work to do, and we’re on a schedule.”
“I did the work. But now that I’m done, I can do a different ‘job.’ Or you can eat me out right here.”
I flashback to the garage with Siena: her thighs shaking around my head, the taste of her, the way she fell apart for me so easily. Fuck .
Scowling, I walk past her and shove the half-eaten plates of food from last night off to the side and yank a chair up to the table where Valentina has the laptop and other equipment running.
Valentina sighs dramatically and stomps over, dropping into the seat beside me. “Work first? Okay, stud, if that’s what you want.”
“Only work, Valentina. Nothing else.”
I rub my eyes, forcing them to focus as lines of code flash across the screen.
“But you like me working for you dressed like this, don’t you?” She unclasps her bra, letting her breasts spill free. Before I can respond, she slips her panties off, throwing both garments across the room. “Or do you like me completely naked, lover?”
“Jesus Christ, stop fucking calling me that and cover the fuck up. If you can’t stay focused on the flash drive, get the fuck out.”
Valentina hisses as she stands and pulls on the little dress she wore last night. She smirks, giving it one last shot. “Is that an order?”
I roll my eyes. “Have some fucking self respect, Valentina. Would you be acting like this if it were Aurelio instead of me?”
Embarrassment flickers across her face, and I smirk, remembering how she got caught swallowing Aurelio’s cock. But then I remember Vin’s face when he walked in and saw her on her knees. My amusement vanishes.
“Actually, you probably would. But I’m not Aurelio, so if you aren’t here to work, get the fuck out.”
Her face twists into a sneer. “Aww, is Matti in love now? Like that trashy mess has anything on me—”
Before she can finish, I stand and grip her throat, lifting her off the floor. Her stilettos dangle, hands clawing at my forearm, eyes wide with shock.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” I growl. “And if you’re smart, you’ll shut your fucking mouth when it comes to her or you won’t be breathing. Do you understand?”
Choking, she nods as best she can, eyes watering. I release her, and she crumples to the floor, coughing and sputtering for breath.
She glares at me through wet lashes. “You act like you’re better than me, Matti, but you fucked your best friend’s girl, and you fucking liked it. What kind of a shitbag does that to his best friend?”
I turn my back to her, refocusing on the laptop. The files are endless—videos, images, documents. It’s going to take a while to sift through them all.
“Valentina. You weren’t his girl when it happened, he was standing right there watching, and I only did it because he fucking asked me to, hoping you would get the fucking message and leave him alone.”
It happened more than fifteen years ago, before Liana, when I was an asshole kid.
I choked her on my cock in front of everyone at the club, then bent her over a table, fucking her ass with only her spit on my dick for lube.
No words. No touching her pussy. No kissing.
Less than five minutes of my life, and I’ve regretted it every day since.
“Jesus, Matti. It’s not that serious. I just like to fuck. It’s not like I’m going to tell anyone. You know I know how to keep secrets.”
“It’s not going to happen. Ever. So quit trying and shut your fucking mouth when it comes to Siena.” I check my watch. Whatever Vin did to sober her up before he left last night worked. She must’ve been at this all night. I turn to the laptop. “What’s happening with this?”
“I finished your little project. I’m transferring everything to your laptop now. It’s going to take a while to sort through and organize. There’s a shit ton on there.” She smirks. “I’ve only sourced a few of them, but I found some things you’ll probably be interested in.”
My voice drops to a deadly growl. “Nothing on those files has anything to do with you, and if you fucking open your mouth to anyone about what you saw, your life will be worthless.”
She scowls. “I know what you think of me, Matti, but you should know by now that I would never do that. I’ve kept more than my share of secrets over the years. If I hadn’t, I’d already be dead.”
She’s not wrong.
“Finish up, and let yourself out.”
Exhausted, I step into my private bathroom, crank the water as hot as it’ll go, and strip down. Before stepping in the shower, I press an intercom button on the wall. A bell sounds from the speaker, and Eleanor answers.
“Yes, sir?”
“Eleanor, can you send up breakfast, please? ”
“Of course, sir.” The call disconnects.
I step into the shower. The scalding spray burns my skin, washing away the night. But as my body relaxes, my mind starts to wander back to Siena. I keep hearing her words from last night over and over in my head:
“I didn’t do anything, nothing at all except love you.”
Something like relief washes over me. I never wanted her to hate me forever, just long enough to stay away. But last night, she said she loves me. Or she did. And if she loved me once, I can make her love me again.
It’s not arrogance. It’s us . We’re connected. I feel her on my skin when she hasn’t touched me in weeks. Looking at her face tells me everything she’s feeling. She’s mine, and as much as she hates it right now, she knows it. What she doesn’t know yet is that I’m hers, too.
Fuck . With a start, I realize that Valentina distracted me from checking the cameras in Siena’s house when I woke up.
Heart pounding, I wrap a towel around my waist and rush back into the living room.
Valentina smirks as I snatch up my phone. “Change of heart, stud?”
Ignoring her, I open the camera app, scanning all the angles of Siena’s house, inside and out. My stomach drops. She’s gone.
I call Grit. “Where the fuck is she?”
“Sorry, boss. I’ve been trying to call, but you didn’t pick up. I followed her from her house this morning. She took the PATH train to 14th Street. We’re on the subway now; I’m in the train car behind her. Do you want me to pick her up?”
“No. Keep eyes on her and update me.” I’m about to hang up when he interrupts me .
“Boss, I had to bury two packages last night. Former friendlies.” He means they were Demonio’s men. “But my guys got everything cleaned up before the girls arrived, and no one else has showed up since then.”
Fuck. Aurelio knows where she lives now. She can’t stay there.
I’ve been systematically upgrading security round the clock since I sent her away, but I hadn’t expected to bring her here until after we dealt with Aurelio.
When I hang up, Valentina is right behind me. I brace myself, expecting her to do something that’s going to make me want to punch her in the face, but her expression is flat, checked out. Fucking psychopath.
“Do you want to take a look? I have to go.”
I give a curt nod and she settles on the couch while I scroll through looking for anything of interest. At least she knows enough not to hang over my shoulder.
Most of the thumbnails feature Aurelio’s face, and depending on the background or his expression, I stop my scroll and watch a few. There are hundreds of audio clips, video clips. I put in my earbuds and listen, fast forwarding through some, while skimming over images.
I make a mental note to have Eleanor go through these more meticulously.
Then one thumbnail catches my eye. It’s a close up of a man’s hand, slightly blurry, but the glint on his wrist has me opening it up for a better look. As soon as his hand is in view, I freeze the frame and zoom in.
It’s unmistakable. It’s the watch band that I saw Siena staring at the other night, the Parmigiani.
Except in this video it’s not broken. Examining the watch face, I put the picture into a search engine and do a reverse image search, scrolling until I find a picture that matches: it’s a vintage Parmigiani watch that was discontinued decades ago, during a time when the company was making fewer than 1000 watches each year.
There’s no way this isn’t the same watch.
I zoom out and stare at the face of the man wearing it in the video, hatred coursing through my body. This is exactly the kind of information that Siena is actively looking for and may find on Emily’s phone. And I need to make sure that information goes through me.
Valentina releases a dramatic sigh, and I glance over my shoulder as she rises from the couch. “Nice seeing you, Matti. Maybe next time I’ll get to see a little more of you.” The script is the same, but her usual flirtatious tone isn’t there. Maybe she’s finally learning.
Making sure my towel is firmly closed, I stand and jerk my head toward the door. She fakes a pout and blows me a kiss as she turns to go.
My phone rings, and I wait for the front door to close behind her before I answer. “What’s up, Grit.”
“Hey, boss. You’re not going to believe this, but she’s coming to you.”
“What do you mean?”
“Siena just walked inside Dragovari Tower.”