“What did you see?” Matteo asks, moving toward him.
Seth steps in front of Cody, his chest pushed forward, his hands balled into fists like if Matteo comes any closer, it’ll be a fight. “I think we should just make plans for tonight. We’ve got work to do. But first, Alexei, I’m taking you up on that offer to push about the truth.”
“Seth,” Cody snaps.
“We’re not letting these guys help us unless we’re certain they’re sincere. I won’t walk into a trap they set. Matteo, are you willing to do the same?”
Matteo nods.
It sucks that, even after everything we’ve shared, he’s still suspicious, but if this is what it takes to earn their trust, then it’s what we have to do.
As he approaches us, I say, “But don’t press for things we haven’t shared already.”
“I get that it’s a tough thing to submit to,” he says. “I promise I won’t take advantage.”
The sincerity in his voice takes me by surprise. And though I’d still rather not, I know this might be the only chance we all have to work together as a team.
*
After Seth runshis human lie detector on us, Matteo and I head outside and wait for him. Seth honored his word and allowed us each to watch the other as he pushed, to ensure he wouldn’t do anything shady, a fairly reasonable solution from a fairly unreasonable guy.
The guys wanted to talk without us, but they don’t want us going back to the dorms without an escort, in case the Saints are there waiting for us. We don’t know the extent of the connection Matteo made with Syphor—if it will allow Syphor to know it was Matteo or even be able to figure out where we’re at, so the plan is to grab our things, then lie low at the bottle factory for a few hours. I’ll reach out to Malcom and make plans for Matteo and me to come over and game with him, then go from there.
“I feel like I just woke up from a nap,” I tell Matteo as we settle by the front of the church, leaning against the wall. “I’m a little out of it.”
“Yeah, it was strange,” Matteo says curtly. He stares off, his gaze lost toward the cemetery.
I take his arm. “Hey, man, are you okay?”
After everything that happened, that seems like a dumbass thing to ask, but really, I’m mostly concerned about what he experienced after touching Cody, and then how Cody reacted.
He searches around like he’s willing to look everywhere but at me. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
Tears stir in his eyes. And he must know I see them because he tries to turn away again.
“Matteo, please.”
“You saw the way Cody looked at me.”
There it is. I was right. Fuck.
“Matteo, something else was going on. He wasn’t lookingatyou.”
“He saw my face, and he was fucking terrified. He just didn’t want to admit it. You said yourself he has visions. What if he saw me do something terrible, but he didn’t want to share it with us?”
That did cross my mind—how could it not? But I plead with him, “He didn’t say what he saw. It could have been anything. Not necessarily you doing something.”
“I’ve seen that look before, Alexei. I saw it on her face, and it’s the same. I keep trying to tell myself that maybe he saw something bad happen to me, but I know that look, it’s burned into my fucking soul.”
“But it doesn’t have anything to do with you.”
“It does, though.”
“What?”
He hesitates, like he’s trying to stop himself from saying more, but then he says, “I’m not who I pretend to be. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve thought about my biological father. The things I want to do to him for what he did to her, for all the pain he’s caused to so many others. The pain his actions have caused me. I’ve thought of terrible, monstrous ways to make him pay for what he did.” A tear pushes free, streaming down his cheek. “There’s something evil in me, Alexei. And it wants to tear him the fuck apart.”
I move closer and hook my arm around his waist. “That’s human, Matteo. You’d probably be a monster too if you didn’t hate what he did to her.”
