I didn't want to waste any more time.
He eyes met mine across the center console, his hand tightening around mine briefly. He glanced at an exit sign before moving into the right lane to take it. "Don't freak out."
I froze solid. "Why would I freak out? What did you do?" I'd only just come to terms with the last time; I did not need a new thing to be pissed about.
"We're going to my uncle's house for dinner," he admitted, and everything inside me tightened. I'd never met his uncle before, but I'd caught snippets of information from conversations Matteo and Lino had. I knew enough to know he wasn't a kind man.
"Say what now?" I asked, turning to him and feeling my eyes harden when he glanced at me in amusement.
"You had to meet him sometime, Angel," he laughed.
I glared at the corner of his eye, that spot where just the faintest trace of crow's feet were forming on his face. Even the tiny trace of aging only emphasized his dangerous features. "You're right. I probably did," I agreed, and the relief in his face was comical. He seriously thought he was off the hook. "But not today! Not without knowing what's coming. You blindsided me, you asshole!"
He barked out a sharp laugh, reveling in my growing comfort with him. In Matteo's words, it often grew boring having people just do what he said all the time.
I was anything but boring.
"Can you blame me?" he asked.
"Why was this necessary? Now I'm panicking!" I groaned, tearing my hand out of his grip.
"Which is exactly why I didn't tell you until we were almost there. I didn't want you fretting all day when you could be happy with me."
"That's almost sweet," I admitted. "But mostly selfish I think."
"It was completely selfish," he consented with a rogue grin. I smacked his arm, trying not to think about the time before we'd left the house where he'd ambushed me in the shower.
Where I'd gone to wash the sex off me.
That had been an exercise in futility.
"What if he hates me?" I whispered, and Matteo winced.
"He won't be your biggest fan," he returned, and I groaned.
"Why?"
"You aren't Italian. He wants me to marry a frien
d's daughter, and he thinks—" Teo paused, thinking over his words, and I knew the next statement would be about whatever his secret business enterprises entailed. "He thinks love is a weakness. That I should marry someone I'm prepared to lose one day."
I widened my eyes at him as he turned down a long driveway. "What's the point?"
"To have children." He shrugged. "That's the entire point of marriage to my uncle, after Lino's mom died, anyway."
"What happened to her?" Lino never talked about her. I hadn't known for sure she'd died but had guessed as much.
"There was an accident. Men targeting my uncle ran them off the road. He lived, she didn't."
"God, Teo," I whispered, horror rolling through me. "What are you involved in?"
He didn't answer, pulling up to the security gate in front of an estate slightly smaller than Matteo's. The driveway wasn't as long, not as winding, and the house itself was boxier than the sprawling structure that Matteo lived in.
But whatever the family business was, Matteo's uncle benefited from it greatly.
"Go on through, Mr. Bellandi," the guard said when Matteo rolled down the window, and the Aston rolled through the gate as it opened.
"Breathe," he chuckled. "My uncle not liking you has nothing to do with you. Being sweet won't change his opinion. Looking your best won't change his mind. And I don't give the first fuck what he thinks of you, because I choose you. That's all that matters." We pulled up in front of the house, and something unwound inside me. There was a lot less pressure when I knew his dislike of me was already a foregone conclusion. "I won't let him disrespect you."