Chapter Seventeen #2
A little ways down, he veers the truck off the path, tires crunching softly as he eases us into a dip behind a line of thick trees. Out of sight. Invisible. The kind of hiding spot you don’t find unless someone tells you where the bodies are buried.
He kills the engine.
And the silence. It hits like a punch. Swallows us whole. No music. No voices. Just the low thrum of adrenaline and the deafening quiet of too late to turn back now.
We don’t speak. Just sit there, like if we move too fast, the whole thing might blow wide open.
Matteo leans forward, his movements precise as he grabs the binoculars from beneath the seat. He angles them toward the clearing, his eyes narrowing as he takes in the scene.
“Front door is shut,” he mutters, voice low, focused.
“Curtains drawn. One truck behind the shed.” He scans the perimeter.
“No guards. No lookouts. No posted men. If he’s got anyone, they’re inside.
” Matteo doesn’t move, doesn’t look away from the binoculars, he’s waiting for the next piece of the puzzle to click into place.
I nod, throat dry, the weight of it all pressing on me. “He really doesn’t think anyone’s coming.”
Matteo drops the binoculars into his lap. His eyes flicker with something dark, a mix of anger and disgust.
“Especially not you,” he says. “He buried you the second he gave you up. And he sure as fuck never thought you’d come back from the dead to knock on his fucking door.
” He lets out a long breath. “If you don’t want to go in there,” he says facing me, his voice low.
“I’ll do it myself. I’ll walk through that door, and I’ll put a bullet in the fucker’s head before he even gets a word out.
No hesitation. I’ll end it, Em. If you want me to. ”
He’s not asking because he doubts me. He’s asking because he wants to carry it for me. All of it.
I stare at him, at the man who’s been to hell and still wants to stand between me and the flames.
“I need to do this, Matteo,” I say. “I need to do it for me.”
He nods. “Then let’s end it.”
We exit the truck in silence, the doors clicking shut behind us.
Matteo checks the gun on his lower back. It’s quick, practiced, then he falls into step beside me. He’s close enough to protect me.
We can’t take the road. That’d be suicide. Especially if my father has eyes on the property.
So we cut through the scrub. Through the overgrown bushland, wild with bramble and sharp-edged branches, thick enough to tear skin if you’re not careful.
It’s slow, brutal work. Branches whip at my arms. Thorns claw at my jeans. But we push forward anyway, because there’s no other way in. Not if we want the element of surprise.
Matteo follows close behind me, one hand on his weapon, the other steadying me anytime the path dips or roots try to pull me down.
He doesn’t speak. He’s just there. A shield I never asked for but can’t breathe without.
Silent and deadly, keeping his body between mine and any threat that might be waiting in the trees.
Every step is a calculated move. Every pause, every crouch, every low breath is another piece of a silent strategy.
We just move.
The scent hits me before the house comes into view—gasoline and pine, soaked into the air like it never left. It makes my steps falter for half a second before Matteo’s hand presses gently to my back, keeping me grounded. Keeping me moving.
Then, through a gap in the brush, I see it.
The warped siding. The gutter barely clinging to the edge of the roof. And the front window still boarded up from the inside. That board’s been there for years. Splintered and sun-bleached, nailed in unevenly after I smashed the glass with a tire iron the night he locked me out.
It all looks the same. But I’m not.
This isn’t a homecoming. It’s a reckoning.
The house gives off exactly the vibe it’s supposed to. That no one lives here. That no one ever will. Abandoned. Untouched. A perfect decoy.
It’s all weathered paint and warped wood. The porch sags just enough to scream stay the fuck out.
Because the outside… That’s the lie. The real truth waits inside.
I remember it. The polished hardwood floors that gleamed under recessed lighting. The clean line, cold steel. Marble countertops and modern appliances that looked like they’d been pulled from a catalogue. It’s modern. Immaculate.
I take in a deep breath, trying to pull myself together when every nerve in my body is screaming that I’m walking straight into the fire.
And then we move.
Fast.
The clearing yawns out in front of me, a goddamn graveyard, wide, exposed, and begging for blood.
Sunlight slashes through the trees in harsh, unforgiving beams. It’s too bright, casting a spotlight on our backs, daring someone to take the shot.
Out here we’re targets. No cover. No shadows.
Just two fucked-up souls marching toward the past, demanding something it was never willing to give.
Dust kicks up around my boots as we cross it, and all I can think about is how much blood this dirt has already buried. How much more it’s probably about to drink.
Matteo’s right behind me, silent, solid, dangerous as hell. I don’t need to look to know he’s ready to kill for me. I feel it in the way his steps echo mine, in the way his presence wraps around me, an invisible shield. If shit goes sideways, he’s not dodging the bullets. He’s catching them.
We hit the edge of the porch fast. I climb the steps, one by one, and the boards creak under my weight—long, aching groans like the house is waking up.
The front door looms in front of me, still and shut, but it hums with something dark beneath the wood, maybe something dangerous waiting on the other side of this door.
I stop just short of touching it. My fingers twitch—caught between knocking, breaking, or setting the whole damn thing on fire.
My chest aches, straining to contain every fucked-up memory clawing its way up from the dark.
And in that moment, every step I’ve taken since I bolted from this life starts crawling up my spine.
A scream buried years ago, still lodged in my bones, still humming under my skin.
Matteo’s there. Close enough to catch me if I break.
Steady and coiled, like a storm dressed in calm.
He’s ready to react. To explode. To protect.
To kill. All of it… just waiting beneath his skin.
He’s watching everything. Reading the shadows, ready to fuck up anything that breathes wrong.
If this door opens wrong, he’ll tear the whole fucking house down.
Nothing stirs behind the drawn curtains. No voices. No movement. Just stillness thick enough to drown in.
“Em… let me go first,” he says, voice low.
I shake my head before he finishes. “No,” I say, voice low but sure. “I want this.”
Not because I don’t trust him to protect me. Fuck, he’d take a bullet before I even saw the barrel.
But this… This is mine. It doesn’t belong to him. It belongs to me.
My fingers wrap around the handle, and it jolts through me—a live wire under my skin. Cold. Charged. Wrong in every fucking way. My heart slams against my ribs, a frantic rhythm that screams at me to turn back.
But I don’t. Because this… This moment is mine. Even if it guts me.
I stay there, holding my breath, somewhere between the girl I was before all this happened and the woman standing here now, trembling just enough for me to feel it, hate it, try to hide it.
Matteo watches, and he waits. One hand rests on his gun, calm but ready. The other… Probably just waiting to catch me if I fall apart.
I push open the door, and step inside. The air feels different here. Stiff, sterile. The smell of polished wood and something faintly chemical fills my lungs, making my stomach tighten.
Every movement is slow, deliberate, as if I’m waiting for the floor to crack beneath me, for the walls to close in and suffocate me.
“Stay behind me,” Matteo mutters, his voice low, as he steps in front of me, watching everything, protecting me like it’s the only thing that matters.
I can’t stop the shiver that runs through me as he leads me inside. The cold, polished beauty of the place. It’s too perfect. Too clean. A place that feels like it was designed to be looked at, not lived in.
The floors are smooth, gleaming under the soft lighting. The walls are a mix of sleek, dark wood panels and glossy, white surfaces that reflect the light like it’s something precious. The furniture is sparse, minimalist. Neutral tones. Grays, whites, and blacks.
There’s no warmth here. No personal touches. Nothing that feels human. Just cold, perfect emptiness. The art on the walls is modern, and abstract.
I can feel the shift in Matteo before he even moves. His breath changes, deeper, measured. His stance shifts like a switch has been flipped. All soldier, all instinct.
We move through the first room; the silence surrounds us.
The kitchen looks used, but it is empty.
Cabinets left half-open. Dishes still in the sink.
The place feels... abandoned, but not by choice.
The house feels hollow now. The servants have vanished, and the life it held has slipped through the cracks, lost to time.
Now, it’s just him, left to do everything himself.
Then as we move forward, I see him, just beyond the narrow entryway, past the hallway leading to the back den.
My father.
He’s sitting in an old armchair, facing the window. One leg casually crossed over the other, the cigar smoldering between his fingers, its smoke curling toward the ceiling in slow, lazy spirals. And there beside him, resting on the arm of the chair, just out of reach is a gun.
He’s sitting there, watching the main road, unmoving, like a fucking statue—completely unaware that we’ve come through the back, that we’ve already breached the perimeter, already standing behind him, ready to strike.