Chapter Seventeen #3
Matteo moves first, just a fraction, a controlled shift, his hand shooting out behind him. His palm is open in a silent command.
Halt.
I obey, heart hammering in my chest, eyes locked on my father as Matteo takes slow, deliberate steps forward. Every movement is quiet, controlled. But beneath that calm, I can feel the rage in him, like it’s boiling under the surface, ready to tear through everything.
The floorboard creaks beneath Matteo’s boot. It’s soft, barely audible, but it’s enough.
My father flinches, his head snapping to the sound. In an instant, his hand shoots toward the gun resting on the arm of the chair, years of instinct kicking in like it’s second nature.
But Matteo’s faster.
Way fucking faster.
Before my father even knows what’s happening, Matteo is there, arm extended, the barrel of his gun pressed hard against the back of my father’s head. I can see the tension in the way Matteo holds his gun like it’s an extension of himself. I’ve never seen him more alive. More lethal.
“Don’t,” Matteo growls, his voice low, and dangerous. “Don’t even fucking think about it.”
Matteo’s eyes are cold as he watches my father’s every breath, every twitch.
My father freezes. Fingers hovering inches from the grip of his gun. Breath shallow. Eyes wide. Lips parted like he’s trying to speak but choking on the truth instead.
“Matteo,” he rasps, voice torn and brittle, scorched from choking on his own sins for far too long.
“I said don’t,” Matteo snaps.
He presses the barrel harder against his head, while his other hand rips the weapon from the chair beside him and hurls it across the room. It hits the floor with a brutal clunk and skids across the hardwood, spinning out like it’s trying to escape the moment.
“You fucking move again,” Matteo says, voice low, dark, vibrating with threat, “and I’ll fucking drop you where you sit.” His eyes narrow, venom bleeding into every word. “Try me. Blink the wrong fucking way, and I’ll paint the walls with your blood.”
His gun stays steady, perfectly still. But every inch of Matteo’s body is locked and coiled like a soldier one heartbeat away from firing.
And then he glances at me. It’s permission. It’s power. It’s mine.
That look says it all. This is your war, Em. Say the word, and I’ll end it. One bullet. One breath. One fuck-you goodbye.
I move forward slowly, my boots striking the floorboards with a dull thud. Steady and final, like they’re marking the beat to his unraveling.
With every inch I close between us, I watch it hit him. Then I see that flicker of recognition. That slow, creeping horror.
His body stiffens.
The cigar slips from his fingers, hitting the wood with a soft hiss as the ember dies, just like the fire he thought he still had left.
He stares at me as if he’s seen a ghost. As if I clawed my way out of the grave he dug with his own hands. As if I’ve come back for blood.
And maybe I fucking have.
I tilt my head, just slightly. Let my lips curl, not into a smile, but something colder. Crueler. A quiet little fuck-you dressed as charm.
“What’s the matter?” I say, voice sharp. “Didn’t expect me to still be breathing, Father?”
He doesn’t speak.
Doesn’t even blink.
So I step closer, the words burning in my chest, aching to get out.
“I mean, you sold me out for what? Freedom that you’ll never fucking get. Or did you really think that once he killed me, you were off the hook?”
His throat bobs as he swallows. Finally, he finds his voice, but it’s weak, shaky. “Emery…”
I cut him off with a scoff.
“No,” I snap, bitterness slicing through every word. “You don’t get to say my name that way—don’t get to act like it still fucking means something. You lost that right the second you gave me up to save your own miserable life.”
Matteo shifts, his body still as stone. He’s watching him, eyes cold, gun still raised. His finger rests on the trigger, but he doesn’t move.
My father’s voice is low, cracking, straining at the seams. “You don’t understand what it was.”
“I understand perfectly,” I spit, cutting through his bullshit. “You had a choice. You chose you. You let them take me.”
I stare down at the man who used to mean something. The man who once looked me in the eye and preached loyalty as if it were gospel. As if it were law. And then shattered it, shattered me the second it cost him more than comfort.
“Tell me why,” I bite out, my voice shaking. Not from fear, not from grief, but from the white-hot rage clawing up my throat. “Tell me why your own fucking daughter became nothing more than collateral damage.”
His eyes flinch away from mine. Coward. Like he can’t stand the reflection of what he did staring back at him.
“Because it was you or me, Emery,” he rasps, voice brittle and pathetic. “Because your name bought me another day.”
I step closer. “Why? Was I just a name you could carve off your family tree to save your own fucking skin?”
He swallows hard, face paling beneath the weight of it all. The guilt, the fear, the truth he can’t outrun. But he doesn’t answer. He doesn’t even try.
So Matteo steps in, fast and brutal. He shoves the barrel harder against his skull, forcing his head forward with a crack of bone-on-metal.
“Fucking answer her,” he growls, voice laced with violence. “Or I swear to God, I’ll make you choke on the truth myself.”
His finger twitches on the trigger. It’s not a bluff. It’s not a threat, it’s a promise.
My father watches me for a second, then swallows hard, guilt crawling up his throat like it’s choking him from the inside out.
“Because I thought you’d survive longer than me,” he finally chokes, the words brittle, jagged.
“Matteo’s father, he doesn’t just kill, Emery.
He breaks. He dismantles people piece by fucking piece.
But it’s slow. Precise. Personal.” His voice splinters, cracking under the weight of his own cowardice.
“I knew what he’d do to me. But you…” He shakes his head, like that somehow makes this better. “I thought you’d buy me time.”
I let out a laugh, it’s bitter, harsh, cracked open at the edges. It tastes like blood in my throat.
“You thought Alessandro De Luca would spare me?” I step closer, eyes locked on his, burning with every fucked-up memory he handed me.
“That he would dig through all that rot and suddenly find a fucking conscience? That a man who kills for fun would give me mercy?” My voice drops.
“No. You didn’t think I’d survive.” I pause, just long enough for the truth to sink in. “You just hoped I’d die quietly.”
“No,” he admits, voice splintering beneath the strain.
Desperation leaks through the cracks, ugly and pathetic.
“I knew he’d hurt you. I did. But I gambled.
I thought… I thought your connection to Matteo would be enough.
I knew you meant something to him.” He swallows hard.
“I figured he’d step in before it went too far.
That his father wouldn’t risk losing his heir over one girl. ”
“You bet my fucking life on Matteo’s mercy?
” I snap, voice shaking with disbelief and rage.
“You put your daughter’s survival on the table like a poker chip and prayed some other man would step in and do the job you were too much of a coward to fucking do yourself?
” My voice rises, but it doesn’t waver. It burns.
“You didn’t protect me. You outsourced me. ”
He lowers his head, shoulders slumping like the weight of the truth finally crushed what little spine he had left.
But it’s too late.
Shame doesn’t undo what he did. And regret doesn’t bring back the pieces he let them take.
Behind him, Matteo’s grip tightens on the gun, jaw clenched so hard I swear I hear it grind.
His voice comes low, lethal, soaked in venom and fury. “You were supposed to fucking die before you let anything happen to her,” he snarls. “That’s what it means to be a father. You don’t sell your own blood to save your sorry ass.”
My father flinches. His eyes flick to me wary now. Afraid. Because he knows that Matteo would end him right here, right now, and sleep like a baby after.
“Emery,” he says.
“No.” Matteo’s voice cuts through the room, sharp enough to draw blood. “You don’t get to say her name. Not now. Not ever. You lost that fucking right the second you handed her over—tossed her away, treating her as if she meant nothing. As if she was beneath you.”
His eyes burn through him, a slow, lethal fire.
“She’s mine now. Mine to protect. Mine to fight for. And believe me…” His lips part, the words spilling out in a vow carved into flesh. “She’ll never be collateral damage again. Not while I’m still fucking breathing.”
And as I stare down at my father, the man who chose survival over blood, I realize something.
He’s already dead to me.
Now it’s just a matter of deciding if he deserves to keep breathing or not.