Page 59 of The Scars We Keep
And there it is.That look.
I have seen Matteo with blood on his hands and a gun pressed to a man’s skull.I have seen him walk into rooms full of armed men and leave them quieter than churches.And I have seen him destroy lives with a nod and end empires with a single violent choice that would break lesser men.
None of that unsettles me as much as the way he looks at her does.Because this is real.Not lust or some passing weakness men use to excuse the stupid shit they do for pretty women.
This is love, raw and impossible to miss.
It sits in his face when he watches her steady herself on the curb.It lives in the hand he keeps on her back or in the one that touches her swollen belly, as if she were made of something fragile, even though I know damn well Emery Moretti is anything but fragile.
He would burn this entire town to the ground to keep her safe.
I hate it instantly because I understand what it means.He didn’t just choose her in a moment of weakness.He keeps choosing her every day, which makes him more dangerous now than he ever was.
A man with nothing to lose is reckless, unpredictable, and easy to manipulate because he does not care what happens to him.
But a man with everything to lose.That man is a fucking nightmare.
That man will see you coming from a mile away.He will do anything to protect what is his, cross any line, and break any rule.And he will spill any amount of blood to keep his world intact.
Matteo has everything to lose now.The woman he loves.The child she carries.The life they are building in this quiet little town where no one knows who he used to be.
He will not let me take that from him, which means this is going to be harder than I thought.
When I come for him, he is not going to run.He is going to stand his ground and make me earn every inch of blood I take from him.
That was the job.Find him.End it.Cut the head off this thing before Alessandro can use it to start a war I am not willing to lose.
It should be simple.Clean.Efficient.One bullet.One body.One less problem standing between me and the empire I am building.
Then why the fuck does it not feel simple?
Maybe it is something obscene about seeing him this human.Not the heir.Just a man standing in the sun with Emery beside him.He touches her stomach before he does anything else.A life carved out of the wreckage he left the rest of us standing in.A life that looks nothing like the one his father built for him.The one I am supposed to protect by erasing him from existence.
And it’s possible that is what sits wrong in my chest.The fact that he got out.That he chose something softer than power and somehow made it work.That he walked away from everything we were taught to want and found something better on the other side.
Or maybe it is simpler than that.Maybe it is just how he looks at her.
I think of Bella before I can stop myself.The one thing in my life that doesn’t make sense yet makes more sense than anything else ever has.
I think about how I would burn the world to ash if anyone tried to take her from me.How I would hunt down every man who put fear in her eyes and make them beg for death before I granted it.How there is no line I would not cross for her.No rule I would not break.No amount of blood I would not spill to keep her safe.I would gut anyone who fucking hurt her, and I would do it with a smile on my face.
Matteo and Emery turn down a side street next to the old florist shop.
I move before I can think better of it.The car door opens, and I step out.The gun sits heavy at my back, comforting in the way only a weapon can be after a lifetime of learning how to use it.My shoes hit the pavement soundlessly.I keep my head down and cross the street, moving fast enough to close the distance, slow enough not to draw eyes.
A man out for a walk.Nothing more, nothing less.
By the time I reach the side street, they are gone.The lane is narrow and quiet.Cobblestones instead of asphalt.Low fences with overgrown hedges spilling over the top in wild tangles of green.Doorways recessed into old stone buildings.Alcoves that could hide a body if you knew how to use them.Shadows pool in corners where the sun doesn’t quite reach.
A hundred places to disappear.A thousand ways to vanish if you know what you are doing.Matteo knows what he is doing.
There is no sign of him or Emery.
I keep going, my senses sharpened.Every nerve in my body tuned to the space around me.This is the part I trust.The thing violence built into me.The thing that knows when the air shifts and death is close enough to taste.
It has kept me alive this long and it will keep me alive now.
I turn the next corner and find that the street is empty, too.It’s wider than the last, but just as deserted.For one brief, vicious second, anger flares in me at the fact that he is still somehow a wisp of smoke, even though he was standing in front of me.
