Chapter Sixteen #2
"I still want to hear it from him," she says, voice harder now. "I want to look him in the eyes. I want to hear him say it. Hear him admit what he fucking did. Hear him own it."
I see it. That fire, that rage in her. The betrayal carved so deep it’ll never fully heal. She’s not just chasing answers anymore. She’s chasing closure. And she’s ready to burn the whole world down just to get it.
"I’ll get you to him," I promise. "And when he finally tells you the truth, Em..." I reach up, my thumb brushing along the sharp line of her jaw—grounding her, grounding myself. "If you don’t want him breathing after that..." I lean in closer. "I’ll fucking end him for you."
I mean it.
Every goddamn word.
"Then we work out our plan," I add. "But not before you get all the answers you deserve."
She lets the silence settle between us. Then I see the shift in her. The heartbreak twisting into something harder. Something sharper. That’s the thing about Emery… she doesn’t stay broken for long. She bleeds and then fucking burns.
She pulls the sheet tighter around her chest, and turns those fierce, wounded eyes back at me.
"If it’s true," she says, voice razor-edged, "and by what you’ve told me, it is..."
She swallows hard, jaw locking tight like she’s holding herself together with nothing but stubborn rage.
"Then we need to come up with a plan. Because once I face him and hear it from his mouth… I want to know what he did, why he did it, and what the fuck he was hoping for. Then we decide what we do next to survive."
She’s pissed off. Done being anyone’s pawn.
"I’m tired of waiting for someone else to make the next move," she snaps. "If your father wants to come for me, fine. If mine still thinks he’s got a card left to play, let him fucking try. But I’m not walking blind into another ambush.
" She leans forward, voice hard as steel now.
"We take control. We stay in control. Whatever it costs. We decide the next move."
She’s right. No more letting these fuckers choose the battlefield. It’s time to take the fight to them.
I nod, my eyes never leaving hers. "Then we start now," I say. "No more looking over our shoulders. We hit first. We hit so hard they’ll never forget who they tried to fuck with."
She exhales, the weight of it all flashing across her face, but she doesn’t back down.
"We end it," she says. "All of it. Starting with my father."
It’s been days.
Days of planning, fucking, and falling harder for her than I ever thought was possible.
We spend the time mapping out every move, every escape, every contingency, until we can recite it in our goddamn sleep. But mostly…. mostly we spend it tangled up in each other. Fucking like we’re running out of time. Because shit, maybe we are.
Every moment I fall in love with her all over again.
Harder this time.
Deeper.
In ways I don’t even know are still possible for me.
The way she moans my name as she comes apart around my cock, clawing at my back like she’s trying to drag me deeper inside her.
The way her body fits against mine when we sit in front of the fire, her back pressed to my chest. My arms locked around her waist like I’ll fucking kill anything that tries to take her from me.
The way her laughter slips out, soft, real, wraps around me, a goddamn life raft in the sea I’ve been drowning in for years.
I memorize it all.
Every look. Every sound. Every goddamn inch of her. Because every second feels stolen. Every breath feels too fragile. And if the world comes for us tomorrow, I’m going down with her name in my mouth and her body imprinted on my fucking soul.
But after days locked away, reality starts to creep back in. We’re running low on supplies, which means stepping out.
Stepping back into a world that’s been sharpening its knives while we’ve been pretending we’re untouchable.
I pull on my suit jacket, every muscle wound tight, like I’m already bracing for the war waiting on the other side of the door.
I glance over at Emery. She’s curled up on the couch, knees tucked tight to her chest, her eyes wide and too fucking quiet.
She doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t have to. I see it all written across her face… Trust. Worry. Love. All twisted into one silent plea that wraps around my ribs and squeezes.
"I won’t be long," I say, voice low, rougher than I mean it to be.
She nods, just once. But her eyes don’t leave me.
They hold me there.
I can’t just walk out like this.
I cross the room in two hard strides, grab her face in my hands, tilting her head up until she has no choice but to look at me.
My mouth finds hers, soft at first, then deeper, hungrier, desperate like if this is the last time, if shit goes sideways out there, at least she’ll know exactly how much I fucking love her.
I pull back slowly, my thumb brushing over her bottom lip, memorizing the feel of her like a man about to walk into a war he might not walk back from.
"I love you," I murmur. "Don’t ever fucking forget that."
She gives me a soft, sad little smile. "I won’t," she says, her fingers brushing against mine. "Come back to me."
"Always," I promise.
I linger for a while just standing there. Watching her. Burning the image of her into my brain until I can find the courage to walk away.
Walk away from the only good thing in my fucked-up life.
The door clicks shut behind me, and the cold hits harder than I expect.
Not the air. The absence. The absence of her warmth, her breath against my skin, the quiet weight of her trust still wrapped around my chest like a second heartbeat.
I pass the car and head towards the truck, tucked away in the garage. My hand grips the gun tucked at the small of my back, second nature now. Violence in one hand. Purpose in the other. And fuck if I’m not ready to use both.
I slide into the driver’s seat, the leather cold against my skin. The engine growls to life beneath my hands, low and rough, a sound that fits the way my blood’s pounding in my veins.
I shift the truck into gear and roll forward. Leaving the garage behind. Leaving Emery behind.
The cabin fades in the rearview with every second, swallowed by trees and silence, but I still feel her eyes on my back. Still feel the ghost of her kiss lingering on my mouth. Still hear her voice echoing in my head.
Come back to me.
I will.
I fucking have to.
For her.
For us.
The road into town feels like a countdown. Every mile dragging me closer to the edge of something I can’t undo. Time moves differently when you know the peace you had might not be waiting when you return.
Half an hour later, I park on a side street, engine idling for a second before I kill it.
The town’s waking up fast. People cross streets with coffee cups in hand, school buses flash red, and horns blare in lazy frustration. A mom wrangles two kids into the back of her SUV, and a teenager skateboards past like the world doesn’t even touch him.
It looks normal. Too fucking normal. Like a smile stretched over broken teeth.
They have no idea what’s crawling underneath. No clue about the war simmering just beneath their feet. About the names whispered in bloody alleyways. The blood debts and betrayals that never die.
I step out of the truck, the door clicking shut. Cold air hits my face, sharp and biting.
I drop my head, eyes low, moving through the space—blending in as much as someone wired with danger and scars can in a place that reeks of quiet lives and small talk.
Expensive suit. Crisp lines. The kind of thing that makes people look twice. The kind of thing that doesn’t belong here.
I move through the store fast. Grabbing food, burner phones, bottled water and gloves. Nothing flashy. Nothing stupid.
I don’t linger. Don’t talk. Don’t make eye contact.
But still… Something’s off.
The old man behind the counter glances up at me once, then again, eyes narrowing, unsettled, trying to place whatever it is about me that doesn't sit right.
The girl near the exit pulls out her phone, fingers moving fast across the screen. Her eyes flick to me, then away, pretending it’s nothing. But her body’s tense, shoulders tight. She’s already hit send. I can feel it.
And that weight settles in my gut. The kind that says the clock just started ticking faster.
I pay at the counter and step outside, bag in hand. That’s when I fucking feel it.
The shift. The tension. The way the air thickens, charged and heavy—as if the street knows something I don’t. As though I’ve just stepped into a game already in motion, the pieces moving long before I got here.
People move around me, slow and disconnected.
A mother drags her kid by the wrist, eyes forward. No one looks at me for too long.
A dog barks from somewhere behind a rusted fence. There’s a delivery van parked down the block with no driver in sight. A guy across the street smokes without blinking, like he's watching something.
Maybe me. Maybe it’s nothing. But it sure as fuck doesn’t feel right.
I grip the bag tighter and head toward where I parked the truck, forcing myself to move steady. Not fast. Not paranoid. But every nerve is screaming. This is how it starts. Right before the first blow lands.
And then… the sharp buzz of my phone.
A message.
I yank it from my pocket, thumb swiping the screen. My fucking stomach drops.
Rage detonates in my veins before I even finish reading:
King Prick: You think you can hide her forever, Matteo…
Shit.
The words burn into my skull.
I spin slowly, scanning the street. Looking for every movement. Every shadow. Every corner.
This is how he works, quiet, surgical. You don’t see him coming. You feel it first.
I search for the ripple of something off. A face I’ve seen before. A stance too straight. A presence too still.
And then I see them.
Hands in their pockets. Eyes sweeping the block. Slow. Calculated. Like they’re taking inventory. Too alert. Too focused. Too familiar.
My father’s men.
There’s no mistaking it.