Ruthless Monarch

“It wasn’t exactly what happened, but what I saw.”

“You can talk to me, Matteo.”

His eyes narrow ever so slightly, but then they go back to normal, still hard with the emotions waging inside him.

“I wasn’t supposed to go to the basement . . .” he starts. “My father always told me not to go to the basement. You see, I grew up in this house. Even when my uncle was in charge. The room you stay in, that was my room. The room I grew up in.”

My chest feels constricted under his words. He gave me his childhood room. Why would he do that?

“I couldn’t sleep, so I went down to the kitchen. The door to the basement is there. I thought I saw a light . . .” His voice seems to drop, and I’m afraid of what he will say.

“You don’t have to tell me.”

But he doesn’t listen to my plea. Instead, he continues, and even though I want to stop him because I don’t want to hear the nightmare he lived, I allow this of him.

“I walked down the stairs . . . There were sounds. Horrible sounds. Crying and wailing. I kept walking until I was in the back, and that’s when I saw them.”

“Who’s them?”

“The girls.”

A tear slips down my face. I can’t hear any more. More tears come out.

“Why are you crying?” he asks.

“Because you were only a boy. You didn’t need to see that.”

He reaches his hand out and swipes away a tear that must have landed on my nose.

“What did you do?” I ask.

“I told my dad. That was the day that, for a minute, I didn’t want to be my dad, and then it was also the day I did.”

“I don’t understand.”

“When I told him what I saw, I hated him. I thought that he knew. I thought he was the one keeping them like animals, but his rage was palpable. Pure venom poured out of him. He didn’t know. He told me to wait, but I followed. I followed him as he crossed the landing and barged into his brother's room. I saw what his brother was doing and who he was doing it to. She was so young, only a few years older than me. She didn’t want—” He shakes his head, locked in a horrible memory. I understand all too well what that is like. “My father took out his gun and shot him in the head. Then one by one, he freed the girls. Some of them had no place to go, so he employed them.”

“They worked here for your dad after everything?”

“He saved them.”

“Do they work for you?”

“Some.” He breathes a deep breath. “He single-handedly stopped all the trafficking that was connected to our family. It’s actually something that I helped with as well. That’s how I became friends with Cyrus.”

“Cyrus?”

“He was at the wedding. You probably don't remember him.”

I try to think back, but the whole day and night are a blur. “I don’t remember much.”

“That’s okay.”

He smiles at me, a small smile, a soft one.

“That’s why you want to be like your father? He’s a hero to you.”

“He was, and yes, I have no false illusion that he didn’t do illegal things, but his argument was that people buy drugs regardless, but at least with him running it, he could make sure it never went too far.”

My brow arches. “Murder is not too far?”

“We never killed the innocent.”

21

Matteo

* * *

I feel drained after what I just said. I don’t usually talk about such things. I keep my past where it belongs, buried in the backyard with all my emotions and a few bones. But there’s something about Viviana.

She’s like my own brand of kryptonite. My very own truth serum. No matter how much I try, she finds a way to creep up and install herself in my life. I’m so fucked I don’t even need fucking lube.

She’s making me feel all kinds of crazy things. She’s making me remember even more. It’s not good. I know she’s part of the plan, but each second that I know her . . . No, I can’t think of that.

Salvatore is out there. Salvatore wants his place. And she is the means of getting it.

No matter how she bats her eyelashes at me, she’s also lied to me, and that can’t go unpunished.

It doesn’t matter right now. That’s a long-term plan. Right now, there is only one thing I need to concentrate on, and by the way she looks at me, I know it worked.

Allowing myself to open up like that and telling her everything was a calculated risk, but a risk worth taking. She now thinks I trust her.

The room is silent again, the air heavy with my past.

Our faces are close. So close, I can feel the way she exhales.