Bound By Love (Born in Blood Mafia Chronicles 6)

He still hadn’t done anything. He was conflicted. I could see it in his face. I needed to use that opening. Matteo liked me, perhaps not enough to stop him, but he loved Luca, and Luca loved me. “I have only ever been with Luca. This is the first time I’m in bed with someone else, Matteo,” I whispered.

Matteo released my wrists. “You are Luca’s,” he said quietly. “I would never dishonor you like that. Not even when it’s obvious how easily I’d get the answers I want if I did. This isn’t Vegas and I’m not that kind of man.”

Still towering over me, he reached behind his back, and pulled out one of his knives. This wasn’t Luca. Matteo didn’t love me. And I’d heard the stories. I knew what he could do, what he enjoyed doing. Like Luca, he knew no mercy, but with Matteo there was no love protecting me.

“I won’t tell you where she is,” I lied, because it could only be a lie. I wasn’t that strong.

“You will,” he said. The blade gleamed in the dim light streaming in through the windows. “Nobody can hold on to their secrets when I deal with them.”

“If I scream Romero will be here in a heartbeat. He will protect me.”

“He will try. And who says I’ll give you the chance to scream?”

He lifted the hem of my camisole and I began squirming, not used to someone else’s closeness like that. I stilled when the tip of the blade touched my skin below my belly button. “This is a very sensitive area. Many nerve endings. Even a small cut will be very painful.”

“Matteo, please,” I whispered. Scream, an insistent voice in my head said, but I needed to give it another try, for Luca.

He raised his eyes from the blade to my face.

“I know you are angry that Gianna ran. You are angry at me for helping her. I know you would do anything to get her back, but Luca won’t forgive you for this.”

“He will kill me, as he should,” Matteo murmured.

Matteo and I stared at each other for a while because we both knew it was the truth. Slowly Matteo lifted the blade but he didn’t put it away. It was still there, still between us, still too close to my flesh.

“He trusts you,” I said.

Matteo glanced down at the way he was still straddling me. My fear was beginning to fade, knowing my words had gotten through to him. I could have cried from relief.

Matteo’s mouth thinned. “This is betrayal. You are his. I shouldn’t be here.”

He got off me, and I quickly sat up and scooted to the back of the bed. Matteo watched me, a flicker of regret passing over his face before it disappeared.

“We are monsters, Aria. Luca and I both. We have always been. We will always be. Don’t make the mistake of forgetting that. Everyone thought he was going to break you, that you’d kill yourself within weeks of your marriage. But here you are. That Luca treats you the way he does is a gift you should cherish and not trample on.”

He turned to leave.

“I won’t tell him about this,” I rushed to say before he could open the door.

Matteo looked at me over his shoulder, dark brows pulling together. “You should tell him. What I did was wrong.”

“Yes, it was, but no, I won’t tell him,” I said, determined. “I don’t want him to lose you.” And we both knew that it would happen. Luca would try to kill Matteo for today, and even if he wouldn’t go through with it, they’d never be like they had been. Luca needed Matteo. I wouldn’t take that from him.

Matteo inclined his head. “I swear I’ll never threaten you again.” He didn’t wait for my reply; instead he slipped out and closed the door without a sound.

I released a breath and put a hand over my pounding heart. My hands were shaking. Good God.I was still rattled from my encounter with Matteo when Luca returned later in the night. I’d stayed up reading to distract myself from everything that had happened, but my mind had kept straying back. His eyes were still tight with anger and disappointment over what I’d done when he undressed and came toward the bed. “Matteo is on his way to Amsterdam now. He might be gone for weeks or even months until he catches your sister,” he said in a tense voice.

My fingers on my book tightened at the mention of Matteo. “Did you see him before he went to the airport?”

“No, he was already gone when I returned.”

I bit my lip, tempted to apologize to Luca, but I knew I’d have done it again—helped Gianna, that is—and he knew it too. Luca slipped under the covers, his gray eyes hard as they searched my face. I put down the book, and my fingers still shook slightly. They hadn’t stopped since my encounter with Matteo.