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"Fuck you," Duke hissed, striding for the door. He paused, looking back at me with nothing but sadness. "Call me if you decide you want to be more than just a fleeting fancy for Matteo Bellandi."
I dropped into my seat as he left, wondering how the fuck my boring life had gotten so messy.
Sixteen
Ivory
Scar glared at me as we got ready for our morning run. The last week had passed with the same routine, a run in the morning, I went about my day, and then Matteo would show up in time for dinner. We'd either eat at my house and he'd spend the night, or he'd take me out and we'd end up at his. It was almost comfortable, predictable. I couldn't imagine Matteo's life followed that routine too often, but he gave me the distinct impression that he was doing everything he could to lull me into a sense of normalcy after I'd lost Duke.
It wasn't like he was dead or anything, and he'd answer my texts—mostly one-word answers—but the ease of our friendship disappeared. He hadn't dropped by since Matteo outed him, and I couldn't blame him. Not while knowing that at the very least Scar would be at my house with me. He'd been humiliated, his feelings for me revealed by the worst person in his mind. I knew that.
It didn't stop his absence from hurting me. Even Sadie had been mostly absent, likely spending a good deal of time with Duke and encouraging him to channel his emotions into his art rather than a less productive rage.
So in the face of all that, Matteo seemed determined to show me what a relationship with him could look like. I'd stopped fighting his presence, because until they resolved the Adrian issue, he was a necessity. I'd even stopped fighting his power over my body, because I might as well get some great orgasms out of the situation before he packed up and left my life without a trace. Again.
But I did everything possible to remind myself that it was temporary. That Matteo would leave me, and I'd be left to pick up the pieces. My resolve only strengthened with time, the more Matteo chipped away at my armor with his strong presence and made me want things that would never happen. I resolved to find some kind of solution to making him move on sooner than later when it would hurt more but had no idea what that would be.
"You need to vary your routine," Scar pointed out as I opened my front door. He turned with a copy of my house key in hand, locking up behind me.
I'd long since gotten used to everyone having a key to my house. If they'd wanted to hurt me, they would have already. "I like my routine."
"It makes you easier to track, easier to follow. Your predictability makes you an easy target for people who might want to harm you," he grunted, picking up a jog beside me. The massive, hulking man hated running with me, but he did it anyway. He even managed to not slow me down to
o horribly, given the length of his legs and the way one of his strides equaled two of mine.
"You want me to run at a different time of day?" I asked, slowly building my pace. "It wakes me up to start my day. That's the point."
My breathing was steady, my body going to that place of focus that running always brought me to. "At the very least you should change your route. Makes it less predictable."
I considered it. "I don't want to get lost," I admitted. Even though I'd lived in the area for a few years, I didn't venture off the main roads. There was still a distinct possibility that I'd wander somewhere I shouldn't be.
"You'll have me," he grunted, his own breathing far less steady than mine.
"I won't always have you," I huffed a laugh. "You can't spend the rest of your life looking after me. Matteo will need you to do something else, eventually."
"He won't leave you unprotected." We turned the corner, heading up the road that would take us by the park. I could feel his eyes on me, even as I pointedly kept mine fixated on the park next to me. "What exactly do you think this is?"
"What?"
"Your relationship with Matteo. You still think he will walk away?" Under any normal circumstances, I would have been grateful for the interruption that saved me from answering.
Those were not normal circumstances.
My body jolted as I crashed into a man who jogged out of the park entrance. He emitted an "oof," catching me with stabilizing hands on my hips when I nearly fell on my face. "Easy." My body stilled, horror crashing over me when I recognized the voice that spoke from above me. Tilting my head back, I came face to face with what I thought might be Adrian Ricci. In all honesty, it was difficult to tell.
His face was beaten, bruised with a gash through his cheekbone, a split lip, and a bandage over his nose where it had been broken. Two purple bruises surrounded his cruel looking brown eyes. "I—Adrian?" I asked, stepping back far enough that I forced him to release his hold on my hips. One of his hands was wrapped in a bandage as it left my body hesitantly.
He winced dramatically. "I realize I'm a sight at the moment, but I assure you I'm all right."
"What happened to you?" I asked against my better judgment. I didn't need to know the details of what happened to Adrian, not given his business.
If what Matteo said was true, he deserved everything he got.
"Matteo didn't mention he came to my home and beat me bloody for sending you a little gift? Went into a jealous rage, in fact. Most men wouldn't dare, but Bellandi is untouchable." He shrugged, as if to brush off the revelation.
Matteo had beaten the shit out of him.
I remembered the blood on his shirt that day when he'd come back and destroyed Duke. I'd been so distracted I'd forgotten all about it. "That's enough," Scar hissed, tugging me behind him and blocking me from Adrian finally. I wondered what had made him wait so long, deciding that Adrian didn't pose much of a threat to me with him right there and on a crowded street in the middle of the morning.
