Chapter 3
Chapter Three
Matteo
Iturn from the door and lock my eyes on her through the one-way glass.
Emery. Or Emma, now.
That bullshit alias painted over her as a disguise that could never hide what she really is. A fake name and a hair color that doesn’t fucking suit her. It’s too soft, too quiet. As if she’s trying to erase the fire that used to burn beneath it.
But I see through all of it.
Head held high.
Spine straight.
Eyes sharp enough to cut clean through glass, and fuck, they almost do.
She’s still got that fire in her gaze, the same one that used to light me up from the inside out and burn everything else to ash. She’s sitting there as if she’s daring the world to break her.
Or daring me too.
And the fucked-up part… I don’t know if I want to tear her down or fall to my knees and beg her to forgive me for what comes next.
There’s blood on her wrists. Rage in her eyes. She’s bruised and bound to a chair built to break her, and still… still she doesn’t fucking flinch. She doesn’t look down. Doesn’t give me a single crack to crawl into. She radiates strength like it’s stitched into her goddamn bones.
She’s still got it. That thing that slides under my skin with the sensation of barbed wire. Twisted in deep, impossible to rip out without tearing muscle. That thing that’s been in me since the first time she looked at me as if I wasn’t just a cocky son of a bitch with blood on his hands.
She’s still beautiful.
Fuck, she’s beautiful.
Even now.
That face. The same one I used to cradle between my hands like it was the only soft thing this fucked-up world ever gave me. Those lips… fuck, those lips that I used to lose myself in, imagining that if I kissed her long enough, all the hard parts of me would finally break away.
She’s still her. Still, the girl I burned for. Still, the girl who knew how to cut through every mask I wore and drove her fingers into the heart I swore I didn’t have.
And now how the fuck am I supposed to break her.
But that’s the job. There’s no room for hesitation.
My father made it clear that she knows something.
And now it’s on me to rip it out of her, piece by fucking piece.
Strip her down, break her open, drag the truth from her lips no matter how hard she fights.
Crush what’s left of that fire until all that’s left is ash and the truth.
My phone buzzes in my pocket. It’s short, sharp, and demanding.
Of course it’s Him.
He’s checking in, expecting the job to be done already, expecting her broken and bleeding truth at my feet.
I let it ring once more. Breathe in, like it’ll settle the shit unraveling in my chest.
It doesn’t.
I press the phone to my ear. “Yeah.”
“Status.”
No warmth.
No patience.
Just that clipped, surgical tone that always says more than the words do. My father doesn’t ask questions, he issues expectations.
“She’s here,” I say, jaw tight.
A pause. Not hesitation. Just pressure. The kind that builds behind your ribs and waits to snap.
“And the information?”
Like it should’ve already been spilled. Breaking her should’ve been as easy as flipping a switch.
“Nothing yet.”
“You’re dragging your feet.”
I grit my teeth. “I’m working her.”
“She’s here to be emptied, Matteo. I don’t give a shit that she was your childhood friend, or whatever the fuck she meant to you back then. None of that matters. You get the information, names, codes, everything. Rip it out of her, fuck it out of her if you have to. Just get it done.”
My hand tightens around the phone. “I said I’ve got it.”
“Then fucking act like it. If you can’t get the information, I’ll get someone who can.”
The line goes dead.
No warning. No second chances.
Just a command dressed like a threat, and silence that sounds eerily similar to I’m replaceable.
I slide the phone back into my pocket, jaw clenched so tight it aches.
His words still echo in my head, cold, final, unforgiving. "Rip it out of her. Fuck it out of her if you have to."
I swallow the disgust rising in my throat.
Not at the order.
At how easy it would be. To fall back into that again.
To fuck her and make it mean something. To bury everything between us in sweat and skin. To pretend I’m not giving him exactly what he wants—and feeding the sick part of me that still craves her.
I turn back to the glass. She’s sitting like a queen on a fucking throne, wrists raw, jaw locked, as though the ropes and chains don’t mean shit. As if she’s not the one trapped here.
She lifts her head, slow and unbothered, and stares straight at the glass, right through it, as though she knows I’m there. She’s daring me to walk in and try again.
She thinks she can outlast me. Outplay me. This is still some fucked-up echo of who we used to be.
Fuck this, it’s time to go in. Time to finish this shit. If she doesn’t want to talk… Then I’ll break her until she does.
The door swings open.
She doesn’t blink. Doesn’t flinch. Her eyes lock on mine the second I step through, as though she’s been waiting just to piss me off.
I walk in slowly. Every step is deliberate. Heavy. Controlled. The kind of quiet that comes before something violent.
She tilts her head, mouth curling into that smug, smartass smirk I used to taste in the dark.
“I thought they’d send the muscle in,” she says, sweet as poison. “After Daddy’s little boy couldn’t get the job done.”
I stop in front of her, and for half a second, the room is nothing but heat. Pressure. Her mouth and that fucking voice, crawling under my skin like she’s still got the right to be there.
I stare her down.
"You’ll bleed, Em. You’ll scream. And when you finally beg, it won’t be for mercy… it’ll be for me to fucking end it."
She laughs. Low. Bitter. Reminiscent of something jagged being dragged across bone.
“Careful,” she says, voice colder than ice.
“If watching me bleed gets your cock hard, Matteo, maybe you’re already the monster he always wanted you to be.
” Her eyes gleam with venom. “Or maybe that’s the point.
Maybe Daddy didn’t turn you into a monster.
Maybe you always were one, just waiting for his permission. ”
Her eyes lock on mine, unshaken, burning.
Something inside me snaps.
I lunge forward, grab a fistful of her hair, and yank her head back hard. Forcing her face up, right where I want it.
Her breath catches, but she doesn’t look away. Doesn’t blink.
She’s defiant right to the end.
Good.
Let her fight me with that fire. I’ll rip it out of her with my bare hands.
“You want to fuck me up?” she hisses. “Do it, Matteo. Break my bones. Rip me open if you have to. But don’t kid yourself… this isn’t about information.”
“You think this is a game? That I give a fuck about you?” I snarl, my face inches from hers, my grip tight enough to make her scalp burn. “Keep talking, Em. Keep running that pretty little mouth. Every word out of it just makes me want to ruin you more.”
I tighten my hold, yanking her head back until her neck strains, forcing her to meet my eyes.
“You’re not in control here. You don’t get to laugh, or smirk, or talk about who I am or what we were.” My voice is razor sharp. Merciless. “You are nothing. Never were. Just some hole I used to practice on. Just soft skin and noise while I figured out how to fuck.”
I watch her face, waiting for the reaction, the rage, the hurt, anything. But I’m not finished.
My voice drops, low, a quiet kind of cruelty.
“If you died in this chair tonight, no one would give a fuck. Not even me. I’d walk out of here, clean my hands, and sleep like a fucking baby.”
I hold her face exactly where I want it, hard, ruthless, waiting for her to break.
She just stares right back, those eyes of hers burning holes through my soul. And my traitorous gaze slips down, just for a second, landing on those lips. The same lips I spent years trying to forget.
Fuck. I try not to notice them, try not to think how easy it'd be to lean in just a little further, close the distance between us and see if they still taste the same. If they’re still as soft, still as perfect as I remember.
If she’d still gasp the way she used to when I took her mouth like I owned it.
She sees it.
That one second my eyes dropped to her mouth. That moment I let the past crawl back in through a crack.
And she smirks as though she’s already won. It’s slow. Knowing, and fucking infuriating.
“Aww,” she says, voice low, “is this the part where you pretend you don’t want to kiss me?”
Her smile widens like she’s already won.
I laugh. Just once. Low and cold, the sound scraping out of my throat.
“You think I’d kiss that mouth of yours?
” I murmur, dragging my gaze down to that smart little mouth she can’t seem to keep shut.
“Sweetheart, if I touched it again, it wouldn’t be for kissing.
It’d be with your lips wrapped around my cock.
Not because you want it, because I fucking own it. Just like every other part of you.”
She draws in a sharp breath, but I don’t let her speak.
I lean in, close enough that she can feel every filthy word hit her skin.
“You want to talk control, Em?” My voice drops, pure threat. “Keep running that mouth, and I’ll fuck the words right out of your throat.”
She’s silent. Not afraid. Not broken. She’s just defiant.
It’s in her eyes… the way she looks at me in a manner suggesting she’s still got the upper hand. No matter what I say, or what I threaten her with, I’ll never truly reach her.
My fingers twist into her hair and I yank. Harder this time, just enough to bend her neck, to force her spine into something rigid.
Her throat is exposed and fuck, I want to look. I want to stare at it. Trace the lines with my eyes the way I used to trace them with my mouth. I want to remember how soft it felt under my lips. How she used to tilt her head back not from fear, but from fucking need.
“Where’s your father?” I ask, voice cold, controlled, but shaking at the edges.
She doesn’t answer.