One more second.One more stolen breath of her before I drag myself away.
I grab a pair of sweats, yank them on, and head for the window.The cold air slamming into me harder than it should.
My phone sits on the nightstand where I left it.It’s dark and silent, like it’s daring me to pick it up.
I move to it, the screen lighting up under my hand, throwing sharp white against the dark.
I stare at it.Waiting.Dreading.
And still there’s nothing.
No missed calls.
No threats.
No warnings.
Just silence.And that fucking silence… it’s louder than a goddamn gunshot.
Because I know my father.I know the way he works.Silence is a loaded gun cocked behind your head.It’s the pause before the bullet tears straight through your skull.It’s psychological warfare.
He wants me watching shadows.Flinching at every creak in the floorboards.Questioning everyone I trust.
He wants me unsteady.Half-broken.Dangerous to myself before I ever become a threat to him.
He’s planning.He’s letting me stew in it until I make the next move.
And when I do?He’ll already be five steps ahead, smiling while he pulls the trigger.
Maybe I should just say fuck it and call him.Bite the bullet.Face the devil who made me and end this shit on my own terms.
A clean hit.A threat.A trade.Something.Because this…this slow, gnawing silence of not knowing… it gets under your skin and stays there, rotting you from the inside out.
"Matteo?"
Emery’s voice breaks through the dark, soft and rough with sleep.
I shift slightly, still sitting on the edge of the bed, the phone clenched in my hand like a lifeline, or a weapon, depending on which way the night turns.
She stirs.The sheet slips lower as she moves, falling in soft folds at her waist, leaving her bare beneath the glow of dawn spilling through the curtains. Her skin catches the light, warm, flushed, impossibly soft and for a moment, I forget everything else.
She blinks up at me, eyes heavy with sleep, the edges of a dream still clinging to her.
And God… she’s beautiful.Not just in that breath-stealing way, but in the kind that makes something deep in your chest fucking ache.My ribs pull tight, too tight—strained under the weight of her, of this moment.Of the silence in my head, where every ghost I’ve been running from suddenly goes still.
She pushes up onto one elbow, the slow movement makes her breasts sway, soft, effortless, unintentional and suddenly I can’t look away.
I’m frozen, watching her—the picture of a man too far gone to fake control.Someone who surrendered long before he even realized he was falling.
"Is everything alright?"she asks, her voice a little clearer now.
God.She has no idea.
No idea how close I was to pressing that name on my screen, to setting everything in motion and watching it all burn.
No idea that it was her who pulled me back.
I toss the phone onto the nightstand.It hits the wood with a sharp crack, loud in the stillness, and she flinches, just barely, but I see it.
