Chapter Sixteen
Matteo
She is asleep next to me, naked, wrapped in the sheets, her face half-hidden in the pillow. Her breathing is slow, steady, like whatever war she’s been fighting has finally gone silent. Her skin’s still warm, lips slightly parted, hair a beautiful disaster, still wet, wild and perfect.
And fuck, she’s so beautiful. It’s almost cruel. Because now that I finally have her back, I realize just how easy it would be to lose her all over again.
I can’t fucking lose her.
I can’t let that happen.
I won’t.
Not this time.
Carefully, almost reverent, I brush my thumb along her cheek, memorizing the feel of her under my hand like I’m some addict who knows his next hit might be his last.
She sighs quietly, shifting closer, instinctively seeking me out even in sleep, like some part of her needs me here.
Loving her fucking hurts. It always has. But knowing tomorrow might never come for us… that guts me. The second we step out of this house, it all slams into place—my father, hers, the blood between us, binding us in chains that threaten to tear us limb from fucking limb.
But tonight… Tonight, she’s mine. And I swear to God, I’d burn the whole world to ash before I let anyone lay a hand on her.
She shifts against me, it’s just a small, sleepy movement, her hand drifting across my stomach.
She has no idea what she does to me. How the simple brush of her fingers calms the chaos. How she silences the storm without even trying.
My arm tightens, pulling her closer until her leg drapes over mine and her head fits perfectly into the curve of my neck, like it was made to be there. Maybe it always was. Maybe every fucked-up road, every wrong turn, every scar etched into me was just leading back to this moment. Back to her.
I press a kiss to her forehead, a vow etched into her skin, silent but deadly clear.
If anyone comes for her, they don’t walk away. I won’t flinch. I’ve killed for less. And if it ends with a bullet in my skull? So be it. It will be worth it. As long as she’s still breathing.
The sky outside is still dark, just that deep, ink-blue stretch before sunrise. The kind of silence that feels like the whole damn world is holding its breath.
I shift carefully, sliding out from under her, moving slowly, careful not to wake her.
She murmurs something soft, curling tighter around the pillow, and fuck I let myself look at her.
One more second. One more stolen breath of her before I drag myself away.
I grab a pair of sweats, yank them on, and head for the window. The cold air slamming into me harder than it should.
My phone sits on the nightstand where I left it. It’s dark and silent, like it’s daring me to pick it up.
I move to it, the screen lighting up under my hand, throwing sharp white against the dark.
I stare at it. Waiting. Dreading.
And still there’s nothing.
No missed calls.
No threats.
No warnings.
Just silence. And that fucking silence… it’s louder than a goddamn gunshot.
Because I know my father. I know the way he works. Silence is a loaded gun cocked behind your head. It’s the pause before the bullet tears straight through your skull. It’s psychological warfare.
He wants me watching shadows. Flinching at every creak in the floorboards. Questioning everyone I trust.
He wants me unsteady. Half-broken. Dangerous to myself before I ever become a threat to him.
He’s planning. He’s letting me stew in it until I make the next move.
And when I do? He’ll already be five steps ahead, smiling while he pulls the trigger.
Maybe I should just say fuck it and call him. Bite the bullet. Face the devil who made me and end this shit on my own terms.
A clean hit. A threat. A trade. Something. Because this…this slow, gnawing silence of not knowing… it gets under your skin and stays there, rotting you from the inside out.
"Matteo?"
Emery’s voice breaks through the dark, soft and rough with sleep.
I shift slightly, still sitting on the edge of the bed, the phone clenched in my hand like a lifeline, or a weapon, depending on which way the night turns.
She stirs. The sheet slips lower as she moves, falling in soft folds at her waist, leaving her bare beneath the glow of dawn spilling through the curtains. Her skin catches the light, warm, flushed, impossibly soft and for a moment, I forget everything else.
She blinks up at me, eyes heavy with sleep, the edges of a dream still clinging to her.
And God… she’s beautiful. Not just in that breath-stealing way, but in the kind that makes something deep in your chest fucking ache.
My ribs pull tight, too tight—strained under the weight of her, of this moment.
Of the silence in my head, where every ghost I’ve been running from suddenly goes still.
She pushes up onto one elbow, the slow movement makes her breasts sway, soft, effortless, unintentional and suddenly I can’t look away.
I’m frozen, watching her—the picture of a man too far gone to fake control. Someone who surrendered long before he even realized he was falling.
"Is everything alright?" she asks, her voice a little clearer now.
God. She has no idea.
No idea how close I was to pressing that name on my screen, to setting everything in motion and watching it all burn.
No idea that it was her who pulled me back.
I toss the phone onto the nightstand. It hits the wood with a sharp crack, loud in the stillness, and she flinches, just barely, but I see it.
Guilt coils low in my stomach. I drag a hand over my face, trying to rub the tension from my skin, trying to find the right version of myself to give her.
I turn back to her. “Yeah,” I say, the lie catching rough in my throat. “It’s fine.”
She doesn’t believe me. Emery has always been able to see straight through my bullshit, cut through the lies, all the shit I tell myself to survive.
Her hand slides across the sheet, fingers brushing my thigh like she’s trying to pull me back from whatever dark place I was about to let swallow me whole.
"Come back to bed," she whispers, voice soft but steady, eyes locked onto mine. "Come back to me."
And fuck… there’s something in the way she says it. Like I belong there, with her. Not out there chasing the man who lit this hell inside me. Just here. Just her.
I crawl back in without a word, slipping under the sheet and dragging her into me like if I let go, she’ll vanish.
She tucks herself against my chest. Her fingers brushing over my ribs.
I hold her tight, because she’s the only thing keeping me tethered to this fucked-up world.
I breathe her in. Her warmth, her scent, the way her body molds against mine as if we were built to fit.
My hand drifts down her back, tracing every soft line, committing her to memory all over again.
And for one reckless second, I let myself believe this might actually last. That somehow, against every fucked-up thing chasing us, we might still find a way to survive.
But it won’t. Not unless we do something. Now.
I pull back just enough to see her face. To look into those sleepy, beautiful eyes. The ones that still manage to see the best in me even when I’m drowning in the worst.
"We need to come up with a plan," I murmur, my voice low, threading into the dark between us. "No more waiting for them to show up. No more staying on the back foot, waiting to get fucked.”
She blinks up at me, waking up a little more, the haze clearing from her gaze.
"We have to get out in front of this, Em," I say, brushing my thumb along her jaw, needing the contact, needing her to feel the weight of what I’m saying. "Control it before it controls us. Before he makes the next move and we’re left scrambling to survive it."
She’s fully awake now, her body going still against mine.
"If we wait," I add, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, my fingers lingering against her skin, "he’ll use it. Use you. Use me. He’ll turn us into fucking pawns in a war we never asked to fight."
She’s quiet for a moment, staring down at the sheets pooled around her waist like maybe the answers are written there if she just looks hard enough.
When she finally speaks, her voice is soft, uncertain. Not weak. Just wounded.
"I don’t get it," she whispers. "Why would my father do that?"
I shift beside her, watching the way her brow furrows, the way her fingers twist the sheets like she’s trying to hold onto something solid while everything else falls apart.
"He knew what your father was capable of, Matteo. He knew the second he gave me up, I’d either end up dead... or used. So what the fuck did he think was going to happen?"
I don’t answer. I just let her speak. Because she deserves that.
Because if anyone’s earned the right to tear this open, it’s her.
"He sold me out to save his own skin," she says, voice harder now, sharper, the numbness finally cracking to show the rage underneath. "But what was the endgame? Did he really think your father was just gonna forgive him? Take the trade and let him walk free."
She looks up at me. Her eyes are shining, but they’re fierce. Confused. Hurt.
"What did he think he was buying with my life, Matteo?" she asks, her voice cracking right down the middle.
"Time? Safety? Another chance to crawl back into your father's good books and pretend he hadn’t fucking betrayed him?"
I reach for her hand, but she doesn’t take it right away. Just stares at it first, then lifts her eyes to mine.
"I just want to know why," she breathes, slipping her hand into mine. "Why was I the sacrifice? Why not run? Why not fight? Why not anything but that?"
"Because he was a fucking coward," I say quietly. "Because when my father came looking for blood, yours didn’t have the balls to bleed for what he caused. So he gave you up instead."
She flinches, just a small jerk of her shoulders. She nods, slowly, as if a part of her already knew. Maybe she just needed someone else to rip the wound open and bleed the truth for her.