Chapter 21
Chapter Twenty One
Matteo
I’m on my knees, the cold bite of the gun pressed to my forehead. Blood coats my tongue. Dust grits between my teeth. My arms are pinned back, muscles screaming under fists that won’t let go, but I barely fucking feel it.
Because all I see is her.
Emery.
Standing there, a goddamn reckoning. The fury of every storm that’s ever swallowed a man whole wrapped in skin and fire. Her eyes are locked on my father, and fuck, I’ve never seen anything more beautiful. More terrifying.
She’s not afraid.
She’s fucking magnificent.
My fucking queen.
Standing in this destruction like it’s a red carpet, daring the monsters to take one more step.
This isn’t chaos. This is her coronation. Every scar, every scream, every ounce of fire in her veins is her crown.
And fuck, if I wasn’t pinned to the floor, I’d be on my knees still worshipping her with my tongue.
I’d start slow, because she fucking deserves that. Mouth on her thighs, hands anchoring her in place, dragging my tongue over every inch until she’s trembling. Until her fingers knot in my hair and her breath catches on my name, a broken prayer gasped into the dark.
I’d kiss her as if she’s sacred. Lick her the way a sinner chases redemption. Then I’d fuck her with the kind of devotion that turns need into worship. My goddamn religion carved between her thighs.
The seconds stretch long.
Too fucking long and then the pressure eases.
Not all at once.
The barrel drags against my forehead for a beat like it’s reluctant to let go, and wants me to remember it was there… then slowly, he lowers the gun.
I don’t know how much time has passed. Seconds, minutes. I don’t even know if I’m allowed to breathe yet. But something shifts. Loosens. Like whatever’s been coiled tight in my chest, ready to snap, finally lets go.
And for the first time since they pushed me to the floor I feel it. A flicker of something dangerous. Hope. That maybe, just maybe, I’ll walk out of this room alive.
I stare at my father. He hasn’t moved. He’s still standing there with the gun gripped tight in his hand, like it's the only thing tethering him to control. His eyes are locked on me, but there’s something different now. Something I never thought I’d see in that cold, ruthless gaze.
Fear. The fucker’s scared. And it’s not me he’s afraid of. It’s her.
She’s already won, and he knows it. Every second that ticks by is a noose tightening around his neck.
“Five minutes,” she says. “If you don’t move and let us go, everything goes live.”
Her words don’t just hang in the air, they land on him, like bullets hitting center mass.
“Get him up,” she demands.
My father’s jaw ticks. For a second, I think he might refuse. But then, just the slightest nod, and his men spring into action.
Rough hands haul me off the ground. My legs almost give out, blood rushing back into places gone numb, but I hold myself steady.
Emery steps closer, her gaze never leaving my father. “Let him go.”
One of the men hesitates, then finally lets go. The second follows, shoving my arms away with a grunt.
My shoulders burn as blood rushes back through my limbs, nerves screaming like they’ve been lit on fire. I roll my wrists and flex my fingers.
“You think you’ve won, Matteo?” My father says, his voice scraping the air with caged fury. “You think you can negotiate your way out of this. You’re my blood. You will always answer to me.”
Something breaks loose inside me. Years of being his puppet, his pawn, of being molded into something I never asked to be.
“You’re fucking wrong,” I say, voice rough, steady. “I will never answer to you again.”
His eyes narrow dangerously. “You think you can walk away?” he snarls, stepping forward like he’s still got any power left to wield. “From me? From this family? I’ll fucking hunt you down, you hear me. You’ll spend every second looking over your shoulder, praying I don’t find you.”
“It’s over,” I say. “Your fucking grip on me dies right now. It’s over. Your threats don't mean shit anymore. And if you ever come near me or Emery again, I’ll fucking end you.”
He stands there clinging to his delusion of power like it’s not already crumbling in his hands.
But I see that tiny crack in the mask he’s worn my whole life. He fucking knows. He’s lost me.
Emery’s hand slides around my arm, steady and firm.
“Come on,” she murmurs. “We need to go, Matteo.”
We move backwards, my eyes never leaving my father. I can feel the cold weight of the guns still trained on us, every inch of my skin prickling. But that won’t stop me because I’m done playing the obedient son. I’m done bleeding to earn love that was never real.
“Walk out that door,” he growls, voice low and vicious, “and you’ll never stop running. I’ll hunt you down. I’ll destroy every fucking inch of the life you think you’re building. It will be gone.”
I laugh, because the mistake isn’t walking away. The mistake was letting that piece of shit shape me into his heir.
Emery’s hand tightens around mine, like she knows I’m one wrong breath away from storming back in there, ripping his fucking head clean off. Her grip is the leash holding back the animal in me, the only thing tethering me to sanity right now.
We step through the busted doorway, the goddamn gates of hell finally spitting us out.
The afternoon air hits hard, burning off the filth we just crawled out of, as if the universe itself is trying to scorch us clean.
We move fast.
Every step away from that place feels like shedding another layer of pain, of chains, of years spent choking on someone else's idea of who I was supposed to be.
We don’t stop moving until we hit the truck, parked deep in the shadows where sunlight barely touches it.
Emery slides into the passenger seat, fast and focused, her chest rising hard, phone still gripped like a loaded weapon.
I climb behind the wheel. My heart’s still pounding, too wrecked to realize we made it out alive. For the first time in what feels like a lifetime of bleeding and breaking, I let out a breath.
Not that shallow, panic-laced shit I’ve been surviving on. A real one.
Emery reaches across the console, her fingers finding mine. “We did it.”
“Yeah,” I say, voice shredded, thick with emotion. “You fucking did it. You saved us.”
She shakes her head. “We saved each other,” she says, quiet but certain.
But I know my father. Today’s just the prologue to the next fucking nightmare.
He’ll come for her. Hunt her down with that rabid-dog smile and blood still drying under his nails.
And when he’s done tearing her apart, he’ll drag my ass back—not because he wants me, but because I’m the fucking heir.
Because I’m his, and he won’t let anyone forget it.
Because control is the only goddamn language that bastard speaks.
A shrill beep slices through the silence. The ten-minute timer detonates like a goddamn bomb.
My eyes snap to hers.
“Did you just leak that?”
Her mouth curves into that wicked little smirk that always meant trouble. Danger laced in sugar.
“Yes,” she says. “Matteo, we were never going to be free. Not while he's still breathing. He’d hunt us forever. But now?” She shrugs, casual, effortless, like she didn’t just strike a match and torch the world behind us. “Now he won’t show his face again.”
Emery didn’t just threaten my father. She played him. Out maneuvered the monster. And I know exactly what it means.
He’ll vanish into the shadows, tail tucked between his legs.
His enemies will smell the blood in the water and circle like sharks.
Every skeleton he’s buried, every bribe, every bullet, every dollar-stained red will all be exposed now.
The empire he spent a lifetime building.
Gone in a fucking heartbeat. All because of her.
She’s chaos wrapped in silk. A fucking storm I’d let wreck me again and again.
Perfect. Deadly. Mine.
I lunge before thought can catch up, fisting her hair and crashing my mouth to hers.
The kiss isn’t soft. It’s teeth and heat and the desperate press of everything we nearly lost. She gasps into me, her body a live wire against mine.
Nails digging through cotton like she wants to peel me open and climb inside.
She tastes of freedom. The end of a fight I never thought I’d win. Every fucked-up dream I ever had of coming home.
When I tear my mouth from hers, we're both wrecked, breathing hard, eyes burning, lips swollen with truth we haven’t said yet.
"Where to now?" she whispers.
I drag my thumb across her mouth, still tasting her there.
“Anywhere,” I rasp. “Anywhere we fucking want. As long as you’re mine to fuck, fight, and bleed for.”
Because in this moment, with the blood still drying on my skin, I finally get the one thing I never believed I was worthy of.
Her.
Every part of me is hers. Has been all these years. Will always be. Even if the world tries to rip her from my arms again, I’ll fucking burn it down before I ever let her go.
I turn the key. The engine roars to life, loud and furious, then slam my foot down hard, gravel spitting behind us.
It’s just me and her, and whatever the fuck comes next.
Because this is where it starts, my story, not his, not theirs. And I’ll bleed, burn, and fucking kill for it if I have to. Because I’m done being written out of my own ending. The one I’ve always deserved.