Chapter Seven
Matteo
Isit back in the leather chair, the soft glow of the security monitors flickering before me, each screen feeding me her every move.
Emery.
Her movements are frantic, desperate.
She’s yanking at doors, slamming her palms against windows, her body tense with the realization that there’s no way out.
But there’s something in the way she moves, something that keeps pulling my eyes back to the screen.
The way her frustration boils over, the heat in her gaze, the fire that burns beneath it.
I can’t help but admire her, despite the irritation creeping up my spine. There’s something mesmerizing about the way she moves. Even in her panic, there’s a grace to it, a raw energy.
For a moment, I almost gave in. The temptation to taste her again was unbearable. I could almost feel her breath on my lips, the warmth of her body against mine. The way my cock was screaming for me to take her, to claim her. But I shoved the desire down, locking it away.
I can’t afford to lose control.
Not now.
She’s a fucking distraction.
A beautiful, fiery distraction that keeps pulling me in, testing every fucking wall I’ve built around myself.
But that’s all she is right now. A distraction.
A threat to my focus. I can’t afford to get lost in her again.
Not when my father’s a breath away from hunting me down, when I need every ounce of my wits to stay one step ahead of him.
I shouldn’t have gotten that close to her. Shouldn’t have leaned in, let my mouth hover near hers. But I did. And now I’m paying for it.
My cock’s still hard. Still pulsing. A painful, steady throb that won’t let me forget what I walked away from. And while I sit here, trying to get my shit together, my dick has other plans. It aches with need, screaming for attention, for release, for her.
She settles onto the couch in front of the fire, legs curled up, eyes fixed on the flames like they’re going to give her all the answers I couldn’t. Her face softens, her body stills, and for a second, the world around her slows down too.
I stay where I am, unmoving, jaw clenched, chest tight. Watching. Waiting. Trying to fucking breathe through it.
The flames flicker, casting a warm glow across her skin. She looks like a painting, something soft and unreal.
I stay frozen, watching her, my heart pounding. Each throb of my cock is a taunt, a fuck-you from my body for trying to do the right thing.
When she finally goes still, settles like she’s given up for the night, I move.
I head straight into the bathroom, flick the light on, and lock the door behind me.
I strip my clothes off, each piece feeling toxic, soaked in too much of her, and I can’t fucking stand it on my skin.
I turn on the shower, wait just long enough for the water to steam, then step in.
The second the spray hits, scalding hot, hissing against my skin, I don’t flinch.
I need it. I need something to sting, something sharp enough to cut through the chaos clawing inside my chest.
But it doesn’t help.
Not even close.
My cock’s still pulsing, acting on its own. It’s hers now, not mine. Tuned to the curve of her mouth, the sound of her breath when I get too close, the way her eyes burned through me, full of intention, like she knew exactly what she was doing.
I brace a hand on the wall, my forehead pressed to the tile, and wrap my tattooed hand around my cock. The first stroke is rough. Too rough…but I don’t fucking care. I need to feel something. Need to burn the tension out of me, to claw back some kind of control.
But there’s no escaping Emery.
Every thought slams into me with every movement of my hand… her lips, her neck, the way she looked at me, as if I’m something more than just a fucked-up mess. As if I could be wanted.
I jerk harder, faster, water pounding down my back, heat coiling low in my gut, a fuse burning fast. There’s no rhythm. No control. Just raw, reckless need—filthy and fucking furious.
Every part of me is aching, coiled tight, chasing that high like I’m starving for it.
“Fuck…” I grit out, teeth clenched, hips snapping forward into my fist, desperate for more—more friction, more feeling, more of anything that’ll drown out the rest.
And then it hits.
I come with a guttural noise torn straight from my chest. It’s loud and broken.
A punishment ripped from somewhere deep.
There’s nothing soft about it—nothing slow.
It hits hard, a goddamn explosion, hot and violent, splattering across the wall, the water washing it away before I’ve even caught my breath.
I stand there after, braced against the tile, chest heaving, water pounding down over me like it’s trying to wash away everything I just felt.
But it can’t.
Because Emery’s still there. Burned into every fucking inch of me. And no amount of release is enough to make her disappear.
Steam curls around me, but I don’t move. My head stays bowed, hand still gripping the wall—the only thing keeping me upright. My heart’s still pounding, even after unloading every ounce of want that’s been building inside me since the moment she walked back into my life.
But it didn’t help.
The ache’s still there, low in my gut, my body knowing exactly what my mind’s trying to bury.
Because no matter how hard I came, I still fucking want her.
Not just her body. Not just the sound of her gasp when I get too close.
I want all of her. The parts she hides. The pieces she doesn’t give to anyone.
The parts I used to know better than my own skin…
and all the new ones that scare the shit out of me, because they don’t belong to me anymore.
I shut the water off, and the silence in the bathroom hits hard, a punch to the chest. I grab the towel off the hook, dragging it over my face, down my tattooed chest. It’s rough and fast, as if I can scrub the need off my skin.
I throw on a clean pair of jeans and yank a shirt over my head, still damp. My hand hesitates on the doorknob to my bedroom, jaw tight. For a second, I consider locking it. Staying in here. Hiding from her. From myself.
Instead, I open the door to my bedroom, and head downstairs.
Every step is heavier than it should be.
Like gravity’s doubled just to fuck with me.
When I hit the last step, I see her. She’s still, curled up on the couch, bathed in firelight, A soft blanket draped over her legs. Her eyes watching the flames.
She exhales slowly, and when she speaks, it’s soft. Almost like she’s talking to the flames instead of me.
“Did he really sell me out?”
She doesn’t look at me. Doesn’t need to. Because that question, it’s not just about betrayal. It’s about every moment that led her here. Every scar her father carved into her life when he handed her over like she was some bargaining chip.
“Yeah,” I say. “He did.”
She doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t cry. Doesn’t even fucking move.
Just stares into the flames, trying to convince herself that saying it out loud will dull the truth.
But her jaw’s tight, her grip on the blanket tighter—every muscle straining to hold herself in one piece.
Because if she lets go, she won’t survive the break.
“When?” she asks, voice barely above a whisper.
“Two days ago.”
The silence hums, sharp enough to cut. She keeps her eyes on the fire, holding steady, because looking away might be the thing that finally breaks her.
“How?” A pause. “How did he sell me out?”
I swallow hard, the answer sticking in my throat. “He put your name on the table,” I say, voice low and raw. The kind of rough that scrapes your throat on the way out.
I move toward her, slow, each step like I’m walking through a goddamn minefield. I sink into the chair across from her, elbows on my knees, and look straight at her.
“One of my father’s men caught wind of it,” I continue. “He heard your father was reaching out. Trying to make a deal to buy his way out of a death sentence. Word was, he had something rare. Something personal. Something valuable.” I pause, jaw clenched tight. “That something was you.”
She doesn’t speak.
She just sits there like marble, frozen, flawless, breaking from the inside out.
“He was cornered,” I finally say, even though it makes me sick to say it.
“The walls were closing in. He knew my father wanted blood,” I go on, slower now, more careful.
“And he knew he couldn’t outrun it. So he gave them you.
One of my father’s men made the call. He told them where to find you.
Your alias. The address. Place of work. Packaged it neatly, wrapped in a bow, and handed it to the highest bidder.
The truth is your father put your life on the market to save his own.
He knew my father would jump at the chance to see if you had the information he was after. ”
“But he should know your father won’t stop,” she mutters, voice tight, like she’s chewing on rage just to keep from falling apart.
“Not until he gets what he wants. That’s not how your father works, he doesn’t stop until the end.
How stupid for mine to think he could sell me out and buy himself time.
It won’t matter. Your father will keep hunting him, Matteo.
He’ll burn everything down just to find him. ”
She turns to look at me, and the firelight flickers in her eyes, catching every fractured piece of her. Her stare holds mine.
“My father never wanted a daughter,” she says, her voice flat, emotion stripped bare. “I’ve been nothing but leverage to him since the day I was born. A pawn in his sick, twisted game.”
She doesn’t blink. Doesn’t waver. The words fall out, not as a confession, but a fact—cold, carved in stone. Something she’s carried forever, just waiting for someone to say it out loud.
And I feel it.
The way it hollows her out. The emptiness that one truth has carved into her. The weight of it’s been pulling her under for years, and I’m just now seeing how much space it’s taken up inside her.
She turns back to the fire, her gaze flickering with the orange glow.
“That’s why I left that world,” she says, her voice softer now, edges fraying with the weight of her words.
“When your father pulled you deeper into his empire, I knew it was only a matter of time. He’d take whatever softness was left in you and crush it.
And when he did...” She exhales, slow and shaky, like the weight of the past is pressing down on her.
“You’d be gone. Lost to me. And I wouldn’t be able to reach you anymore. ”
My gut twists, like a raw wound reopening. Because she’s not wrong. She saw the rot creeping in long before I ever tasted it. She saw the darkness that would swallow me whole, and she tried to save me from it.
“I watched it happen, Matteo. I saw it in your eyes before I left. You were already slipping away.”
For a moment, I can’t breathe because her words are the truth. They cut deep. Because I became exactly what she feared. Hard, cold, unreachable. I let myself drown in that world, and she was right. I became a stranger to myself.
“I knew he’d make you into something I couldn’t save,” she says, her words cutting through the air. “That one day you’d look at me and not see the girl you used to love, but just another weakness to be discarded.”
It hurts like hell, hearing her say that. Because in her eyes, I was never the villain. I was the boy who could’ve made it out. The boy who chose not to. And that’s what fucking kills me.
Not the blood on my hands. Not the bodies I stepped over to survive.
What haunts me is the way she looked at me back then, with that stupid hope in her eyes, convinced I was still worth saving.
And the worst part… the way she’s looking at me now, full of everything I never became.
Everything I could’ve been. Should’ve been.
And maybe she’s right. But now it’s too fucking late to become the boy she believed in.