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If the Desalmados wanted a war, I would bring it to them.
I found Matteo in the weight room, the familiar clinking of metal leading me right to him. I ducked my head inside just as he was finishing a set. “How’s Lucia?”
“She’s fine. Practically forced Raf to let her see Luka this morning. She’s in class now.”
“I’m going to have to give that guy a raise.” Matteo chuckled and wiped his face with a towel, settling it over his broad shoulders. “Have time for a chat?”
“Always, boss.”
My face twisted, “ugh, don’t call me that.” Between Luka’s comments and now Matteo, boss wasn’t a word I wanted to associate with at the moment. I sat on the bench opposite him and looked down at my hands, I had scrubbed them extra hard in the shower, afraid that if I looked down, I might see dried blood. “First off, happy birthday.”
He nodded, a smirk pulling at his lips.
“Second, Darya…”
Matteo blew out a breath and rubbed his face.
“She’s in my bed right now.” He just shook his head, his lips in a tight line. I let the silence eat up the space between us. I knew he understood exactly what I was saying, and I was thankful for that. Something about verbalizing that I fucked her just feltwrong.
“What are you doing?” He asked.
My head dropped a bit, “I thought I knew, but then I saw her last night and…”
A fierce line in his forehead appeared. “So? She’s not made of stone, of course she’s going to be affected.”
“It wasn’t that. It was the way she sprang into action. She didn’t even hesitate to try and help.”
“She was probably in shock,” he rolled his eyes.
I nodded. “Exactly. Wouldn’t she have just frozen up? If it were me, it would have been an opportunity to run.” I thought back to the way she looked when she’d actually tried to run, her bare feet on the hard ground fleeing from me with everything she had. She hadn’t been shy to make her move then, she would have done it again given the chance. But she didn’t. She’d stayed put. She put my brother’s needs over her own and ended up getting hurt for it. I shook my head at my spiking annoyance, remembering that her attempt to escape was a secret I had divulged to no one. Even going so far as to pay off the guards who’d seen our little back and forth that afternoon.
And that was the root of the issue. I was keeping secrets, lying to my right-hand man, to my family– just to cover up my twisted feelings for her. She’d somehow wiggled her way in. Or had I let her in?
“Do you have feelings for her?” Matteo dragged out the words like he couldn’t believe his mouth was forming them.
The question startled me, and my fists clenched at my sides.
“I have to meet with father,” I said through gritted teeth.
Matteo nodded and got right back into his workout, picking up that the conversation was over. There was nothing left to be said, only mistakes that needed fixing. Because that’s what last night had been… a mistake. A glaringly obvious one.
Across the house, to the wing I rarely frequented as of late, I found myself in front of his door again. The second time in just twenty-four hours. I steeled myself before going in, remembering the way he used to read me like an open book as a child. If he looked through my pages today, he wouldn’t like what he’d find, and I suspected this conversation was already not a positive one.
I pressed on the door and shut it behind my back, letting my eyes wander to the bed. It was angled upright, and he met my gaze sleepily. “Yuriel, you’re back.”
“Yes, sir. You said you wanted to speak with me.”
“Come,” he lifted a hand, and I rounded the bed. I dragged the bedside chair over, wincing as it groaned on the hardwood, and sat down at his side. He looked alert and like some of the gray colorations of his skin had dissipated. “Lucia has come to visit me a lot recently and the other day she said something very curious.”
The pit of my stomach fell.
“She said she got to meet a woman that you brought to the house. A woman named Darya.” His jaw tensed and any trace of weakness vanished. In front of me was my father as I’d always remembered him– terrifying. His face was unreadable, but he simmered with anger. “I remembered the name. Jameson’s daughter, correct?”
I nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“Was this a trick on my poor Lucia?”
“No, sir.”
