Her body goes still.The blood drains from her face as her fingers tighten around my wrists.
“They sent a message,” I say quietly. “They’re coming for us.”
I don’t look away. My hands stay on her.Steady.Like if I let go, we’ll both fall apart.
“We don’t have much time,” I tell her.
And even though I see it.The flicker of fear in her eyes, the way her breath catches.She still nods.
Chapter Seventeen
Emery
Themid-morningsuncutsthrough the windshield.It’s too bright, too harsh.Like the world doesn’t care that everything’s falling apart.That we’re barely holding on.
Matteo grips the wheel, his jaw tight, his knuckles bone-white.His eyes are narrowed against the glare, but I can tell he isn’t just focused on the road.
He hasn’t said a word in minutes, but he doesn’t need to.The tension rolling off him is loud enough.
We’re heading toward the one place I never thought I’d go again.The safehouse.The one my father kept hidden, buried beneath a life built on secrets and survival.A place meant for escape.For hiding.For disappearing.
But we’re not running.Not this time.We’re going straight into the fire.Even if it tears everything apart.Even if it breaks what’s left of us to do it.
I glance over at Matteo.At the tension carved into every inch of him.The way his shoulders stay rigid, like if he lets them drop even a little, the whole damn world might collapse with them.
He’s trying to hide it.
Trying to stay steady.
But I see it.
Clear as day.
Fear.
Not for himself.Matteo would walk into fire without flinching if it meant keeping someone else safe.But this… This is different.He’s scared for me.
That hits harder than anything else has.Because Matteo’s always been the strongest man I know.
Ruthless.Unshakeable.
The kind of man who stares death in the face and doesn’t blink. But right now, the cracks are showing.
He shifts in his seat, and his eyes flick to the rearview mirror.Quick.Sharp.Like he’s expecting death to be following us in the next car back.
I reach across the console, my hand hovering for a beat before I touch him. My fingers graze the inside of his wrist.It’s light, careful, like I’m afraid I might spook him.
And all the while, the thought gnaws at me… should I tell him… about what I’ve got hidden, the secret I’ve been holding onto like a loaded gun tucked behind my spine.My last card to play if everything goes to shit.
It’s not that I don’t trust him.I do.With everything.
But I also know how he is when it comes to protecting me.How far he’d go, how much he’d destroy.And if he knew what I was carrying… if he knew what I was capable of.
Would it calm him?
Or would it break him?
He flinches, just a fraction.Barely there.But still I feel it.The tension thrumming under his skin.The way he’s holding himself together with nothing but raw willpower and grit.
