Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
Matteo
The world outside is a vast expanse of nothingness. It's as if the night has swallowed the land whole, and everything in it.
The only light is the moon… bleeding pale silver over the treetops.
I sit in the chair, whisky burning a slow path down my throat. Eyes locked on the darkness outside. Hand hovering close enough to the gun on the table that it almost feels like control, even though I know it’s not.
I haven’t moved.
Haven’t blinked.
Haven’t fucking breathed properly in hours.
Every muscle in my body wound tight. Coiled with waiting, for the smallest twitch in the shadows. The tiniest breath of movement. The moment when silence breaks and the nightmare I was born into finally comes to collect.
Because I know they’re coming.
They always do. And this silence is just the last mercy before the storm.
I should feel calm here. Safe. Hidden so deep in these fucking woods that even my demons lose their way trying to find me.
But nothing about tonight feels safe anymore.
Not with her scent still in my lungs. Not with the way my body still aches for her.
Fuck, my head’s a mess. A tangled storm of memories, mistakes, and she is at the center of every single one.
I can still feel her. Pressed tight against me. I can still hear the broken sound she made when I slid my cock inside her, like she was starving for me and I was the only thing left worth dying for.
She’s burned herself into my brain. Every curve. Every breath. Every reckless surrender in the way she let me take her. She didn’t just break me. She fucking destroyed me.
We fucked as if the world was burning down around us—nothing left to save but this. One last thing that felt real before the world catches up with us.
And even now… even sitting here with a gun at arm’s reach and a death sentence crawling through the trees… it’s not the fear that wrecks me. It’s her.
I’ve never fucked that way. Not once. Not even close.
Not with the girls in the clubs, grinding on me to leave a mark, not because they want me, but because they crave the empire welded to my back. The name. The filthy, blood-soaked kingdom my father built on broken bodies and spilled guts.
They don't give a fuck about me. Just the crown. Just the cock that comes with the promise of power.
They drop to their knees fast, mouths wide open, not for me but the legacy. For the whispers they could spin after, eager to suck my cock just to brag about tasting the devil’s son. How they wore my cum like a trophy.
The ones who spread their legs too easily. Their pussy wet not for me, but for the idea of what having my cock between their thighs could buy them. Leverage. Status.
Because it was never about the man behind the cock. It was about the empire between my legs.
None of them fucking mattered anyway.
They were just a way to get off. To take the edge off when this life, this name, this bloodstained legacy pushed too hard. They were just a warm mouth. A wet pussy. A body I could use to forget for a few minutes. An easy, forgettable release.
None of them ever touched a single fucking thing inside me.
But her… Emery?
She didn't want the kingdom. She didn't want the blood. She didn’t give a fuck about the empire or the legacy. She just wanted me.
And still today, she’s the only thing that ever made me feel like I wasn’t already six feet under.
Emery makes me feel everything.
None of them ever touched that.
None of them ever made me feel like I was still human.
Every thrust. Every breath. Every broken sound that left her lips, it was a reminder.
Of how perfect she felt wrapped around my cock. Of how dangerous it was to need anything this much. Of how easy it would be to forget everything I was born into, just to stay lost in her.
With her… it wasn’t just fucking. It was freefall. It was salvation. It was home.
Her touch still lingers beneath my skin, burned deep into places I thought were already dead.
And no matter how far I run, no matter how deep I sink, it will always be her that I crave. It’s always fucking her.
When I kissed her shoulder, it wasn’t just a kiss. It was an apology sealed in skin. A silent plea for forgiveness, for every fucked-up version of myself that’s ever hurt her.
Because in that one fragile second, I was him again.
The boy who used to slip through the shadows just to meet her beneath the stars.
The boy who believed, naively, recklessly, that maybe we could outrun the blood in our veins.
That maybe love could scream louder than legacy.
That boy…
The one who loved Emery with everything he had, like she was the only thing in this broken world worth saving. He’s still here. Buried deep. Chained beneath the monster I’ve become. Trapped under the weight of every scar, every sin. He hasn’t died. He’s just been silenced.
Sometimes when she looks at me like she still sees him, I wonder if he’s still clawing at the walls, begging for a way back to her.
She’s still in me. In every ragged breath I take. In every fucked-up heartbeat I pretend doesn’t hurt. She’s carved into me. With the kind of love that scars and stays. The kind you can’t drink away. The kind that stitches itself into your bones whether you want it there or not.
I bring the glass to my lips, the whisky burning dull and useless against the fire already crawling under my skin.
I feel her before I see her.
The way the air shifts. The way gravity tilts and points itself straight at her like it always fucking has. And then, she says my name.
One word.
One sound.
“Matteo.”
I close my eyes to savor it. Let it crawl into the cracks I pretend don’t exist. Every syllable, every whisper of breath.
Her voice is low, soft, the kind of soft that fucks you up because it’s too familiar.
Too dangerous. It’s my home wrapped in a sound I swore I’d never need again.
And fuck... just hearing it, I already know that I’m not walking away from her this time.
When I open my eyes, I see her, moving across the room like a dream I’m scared to wake from. She’s wearing the sweatshirt. The one I bought for her.
The sleeves swallow her hands. The hem brushes the tops of her thighs, hanging off her frame—too big, too soft.
Too much of a reminder of safety I can’t offer anymore.
It fucking hurts, because it reminds me of how she used to steal mine.
How she’d pull it over her body just to breathe me in, as if my scent could shield her from the world.
Her hair’s a mess, loose, wild, beautiful in the way chaos always is. Tangled from sleep, or from the way she runs her fingers through it when she’s lost in thought… tugging, twisting, like if she pulls hard enough, the answers she’s chasing will finally fall out.
It’s the kind of mess I want to smooth out with my hands. The kind of mess I want to sink into just to feel her lean into me again. To pretend, for one fucking second, that nothing’s broken beyond repair.
She moves toward me, barefoot, silent. But every step lands heavy against my ribs, beating through me like a war drum. Each one hits harder than the last because it’s her.
Her eyes lock on mine, cutting past skin and scars, slicing straight into the wreckage I never managed to bury.
She has no idea what it costs me to meet her gaze and not fall the fuck apart. Or what it takes not to drag her into me and never let go.
She stops in front of me.
Close enough that I can feel her heat bleeding into the space between us. That every broken part of me aches to touch her. Close enough to wreck me, if she hasn’t already.
And fuck, I want to pull her in. Drag her onto my lap, claim every inch of her, because she is mine. Always has been.
I want to bury my face in her neck and breathe her in until there’s nothing left of the world but the way she smells. I want to feel her. All soft curves and quiet strength pressed against me, grounding the hunger I live with every second of every day that I’ve survived without her.
I want to say something, but the words stick in my throat. If I let her in now, even for a second, I’ll fall. And this time, there’s no way back.
I look away. My jaw’s clenched so hard my teeth might splinter. My heart slams against my ribs, furious, desperate to break free.
My fingers curl tighter around the glass. Whiskey scorches down my throat, pretending it can fix me. But it doesn’t touch this. Doesn’t touch her. Doesn’t touch the wreckage she leaves behind just by looking at me.
My hands ache to touch her. My mouth itches to taste her again. To bite. To claim. But I can’t move. I stay frozen, gripping the glass like it’s the only thing keeping me from hauling her into my lap and showing her exactly how close to breaking I am.
She takes another step closer.
I feel her heat, her pull, like gravity’s got her name carved into my fucking bones.
“Look at me,” she says. Her voice slices right through every defense I still have left.
I don’t move.
I can’t let myself, because one look… one goddamn glance into those eyes and she’ll have all of me again.
But Emery’s never been patient. Never been the kind to wait for the pieces to fall neatly into her hands.
She moves in, and the ground shifts beneath me. Every step tears the fight straight out of my chest, one fucking breath at a time.
Her hand comes up, fingers curling around my jaw, forcing my head toward her, forcing my eyes to crash into hers.
And fuck… just that touch, just that heat against my skin, wrecks me harder than any bullet ever could.
My jaw tightens beneath her touch, every muscle in my body wound tight, coiled like a wire stretched to its breaking point. My heart slams against my ribs as I meet her gaze, my resolve cracking wide open under the weight of her stare.
“I want to find my father,” she says, voice splintering, a sound that slices straight through me.
It’s more than pain. It’s betrayal, confusion, desperation—all tangled and spilling out of her, a wound I can’t stitch closed.