Chapter Eighteen #2
I round the hood, drop into the driver’s seat, and twist the key. The engine growls to life.
In the rearview, I catch sight of the bastard slumped in the back. Cowering. Shaking. A fucking ghost of a man.
I look him dead in the eye, voice low and lethal.
“You better pray my father is in a merciful mood today,” I say, the words sharp. “Because if it were up to me?” I pause, letting the silence stretch. “You’d already be rotting in a shallow fucking grave, wrapped in all the lies you bled to keep breathing.”
Then I look at Emery.
Head held high, spine straight. She stares down the whole world, daring it to blink first. There’s no fear in her. Whatever’s waiting at the end of this ride… it should be scared of her.
And right then, I feel it in my bones.
Whatever my father has planned, whatever sick fucking game he’s playing, he’ll learn that the boy he raised isn’t the same man driving toward him now.
He’s going to want blood for this. And he can have it. But it won’t be hers. It’ll be mine.
The road hums in silence. Except for him. Her father, the coward in the backseat choking on his own goddamn lies.
He hasn’t spoken since we dragged him out—trash, nothing more.
Not a single fucking word. He just sits there, small, sweating through his sins.
Every breath he takes sounds like a confession.
It’s sharp and shallow, as if his lungs are too scared to fill all the way, as though even they know he doesn’t deserve the air.
I hear that soft, pathetic panting. Like fear is crawling up his throat and strangling him from the inside out.
Good. Let the fucker suffer. Let it settle in his chest and crack every rib. Let it twist around his spine and remind him with every mile that this is borrowed time.
He shifts once, barely, and the leather creaks underneath him.
I don’t even look back. Just tighten my grip on the wheel and say nothing, because the longer the silence drags, the louder it gets.
And I fucking want him to sit in that noise.
I want him to stew in every second of it, in every mile that takes us closer to the man who turned me into what I am.
He’s scared. Not just of what’s waiting at the end of this road, but of me. Which he should be because if my father doesn’t end him, I fucking will.
I glance at Emery. She doesn’t speak, just stares ahead like she’s carved from stone and lit from the inside with something untouchable.
Chin up, shoulders squared, eyes locked on the road.
She doesn’t even acknowledge the sorry fuck curled up in the backseat, wheezing through his fear.
She doesn’t need to, because she’s already won.
We’re driving straight toward the monster most people would sell their soul to escape.
And she’s walking into it as if it’s just another fight she intends to finish.
As though she’s already counted the cost and decided that pain and fate are part of the price.
And fuck me, I’ve seen men lead armies with less fire in their eyes.
I’ve watched killers, warlords, empire-builders stare down death and grin. But none of them had this.
That quiet, relentless strength. This brutal grace that doesn’t ask for power it just fucking commands it. She took her crown without ceremony, without mercy. And I swear to God, I’d follow her into any war she wanted.
My phone buzzes. I already know who it is before I look. The weight in my gut tells me. The kind of dread you don’t shake. The kind you’re born with when you carry his blood.
King Prick: Time’s up, Matteo.
That’s all it says. Three words. Cold and final. Loaded like a fucking gun.
I slam the brakes, gravel spraying like shrapnel as the truck jerks off the road and skids to a stop beneath a canopy of thick, overgrown trees. The engine growls once before settling into a low, threatening purr.
My father wasn’t supposed to move first. We were supposed to walk in strong on our own terms. But now…
Now we’re walking into his game. His rules. His arena.
He’s moved the board. Flipped the fucking table, and now we’re not the hunters anymore, we’re the prey.
I drag a hand over my face, rage building under my skin like pressure behind a dam.
“Matteo?” Emery's voice is cautious, laced with worry.
I hold up a finger, needing just one second. Just a breath. One move that won’t get her killed. Because that’s what this is now… a fucking countdown to the moment my father sees her and puts a bullet in her skull just to prove a point.
To teach me another one of his twisted fucked up lessons. About loyalty. About weakness. About what happens when you love something enough to bleed for it.
I quickly type, adrenaline spiking through every nerve.
Matteo: I’ve got something you want more than my head.
The pause drags… seconds stretch into eternity, my heart a live grenade in my chest.
Then the screen lights up.
King Prick: You’re in no position to negotiate, son.
I clench my jaw, thumbs flying again, fighting the urge to put my fist through the dash.
Matteo: I have the traitor. Alive. But I’m not walking blindly into your guns. We meet somewhere neutral. No guards. No bullshit. Just you, me, and your little fucking traitor.
Silence again.
Longer this time. He’s making me sweat. Deciding whether he wants to crush me now or make me bleed first.
I can practically feel his rage seeping through the screen… slow and poisonous, the kind that comes wrapped in a smile and ends in someone’s body hitting the floor.
Emery watches me. Intense. Quiet.
Her father shifts in the back seat, nerves turning his spine to jelly. He opens his mouth, then shuts it.
Smart fucking choice.
Then… finally, my phone buzzes again.
King Prick: Name your place.
My grip tightens around the phone like I could crush the bastard through the glass.
He took the bait. A cold smile pulls at my mouth, it’s twisted, full of the kind of satisfaction that comes with getting one up on the fucker.
I type fast, fingers steady despite the storm rising in my chest.
Matteo: The old slaughterhouse. One hour.
I toss the phone onto the dash, the burn of it still crawling up my palm.
I turn toward Emery. “We have a meeting,” I say, voice low, flat. “Neutral ground.”
“You trust him to keep it neutral?”
“Fuck no,” I breathe. “He’ll bring his whole fucking army. He needs the show. The performance. He needs to remind me, and every fucker watching, that he’s still the one pulling the strings. This is how he does it. Smoke and blood and power plays.”
She nods once, then flicks her gaze to the back seat, where her father shrinks further into himself, barely breathing.
“You sure you want to do it like this, Matteo?” she asks. “We can do it another way if you want, I have something—”
I lean in, cutting her off before she can finish that sentence.
“We have leverage now. We set the terms. We control this.” My fingers brush her jaw, gentle, aching, as if it might be the last time I get to touch her.
“I promised I’d protect you,” I say, softer now.
“And I fucking meant it, Em. Things have changed. I won’t have you there. I can’t.”
She jerks back, eyes blazing. “No, Matteo,” she snaps.
“You don’t get to shut me out. Not now. Not after everything.
” Her hands ball into fists in her lap, voice shaking—not with fear, but fury.
“I won’t let you walk in there by yourself like you’re some goddamn martyr.
You’re not doing this alone. Let me help.
You don’t get to decide that for me. I have—”
I give her a look that should say it all. Should shut it down before it starts. Then I lift my hand, cup the side of her face, soft, but final. “No. You are not going anywhere near him. He will fucking kill you just to prove a point. Just to remind me who holds the leash.”
She opens her mouth, but I don’t let her speak. Not this time.
My voice cuts like steel. “This isn’t up for fucking debate.”
This conversation is over. There’s no way I’m letting her anywhere near that prick.
I throw the car into gear and pull out hard, my pulse pounding in my ears.
I drive hard and fast. Every turn burned into muscle memory. I don’t speak; I don’t even look her way. I keep my shoulders rigid, my grip locked tight on the wheel.
I know exactly where I’ll leave her. Somewhere no one will ever think to check.
A run-down house, half-swallowed by the woods, rotting into the earth like everything else that’s been forgotten.
Two miles up the road from the slaughterhouse.
It’s quiet. Hidden. Just far enough to keep her out of his sight, just close enough for her to find her way, if for some fucking reason I don’t make it out.