I slide my hand beneath his, threading our fingers together.He squeezes my hand hard, like he’s trying to hold on to something solid.Something he’s terrified of losing.
“We’ll be okay,” I say, my voice soft, shaking.
He doesn’t answer.Doesn’t even look at me.Just keeps his eyes locked on the road like it’s the only thing that matters.His jaw clenches tighter, and for a second I wonder if he even heard me.But then his thumb moves slowly.A soft brush across my knuckles.A thank you.A promise.Maybe even a plea.
Because whatever the hell we’re driving toward, whatever nightmare waits at the end of this road, I know we’ll face it together.
The road winds through the backcountry like it’s trying to lead us off the edge of the world.It’s narrow, framed by tall pine trees that press in close on either side.The kind of road that disappears if you blink too long.The kind that forgets you the second you leave it.
Dust curls in the vehicle’s wake, catching the light in hazy, smoke-thin ribbons.Sunlight fractures through the canopy in sharp beams.The air hangs heavy and still, watchful, an unspoken warning in the trees, as if the forest itself knows where we’re headed and wants us gone.
We pass a rusted fence half-swallowed by vines.A mailbox leaning sideways on a splintered post.The deeper we go, the more it feels like stepping into a place time has given up on.Abandoned.Forgotten.But not by me.
I know these woods.I know the way they breathe.The way the wind curls low through the underbrush and carries the sound of your footsteps farther than it should.
I know the gravel turn off that disappears behind a thicket of trees, the one most people miss unless they’ve been taught to look for it.I know the shape of the land.The dip in the road before the final bend.The narrow trail that leads to a porch I stood on too many times, wishing it would collapse beneath me.
Matteo doesn’t know this place.
But I do, all too well.This is where the lies started.Where the man who raised me became someone else.Where the past still lingers.And now we’re heading straight into it.Not to hide.Not to run.But to finally face what’s waiting there for us.No matter what it takes.
A rundown house outside of Millstone.Tucked between dying farms and long-forgotten backroads.Where the gravel turns to dust and the silence hangs heavy.
I can still picture it.The peeling white paint.A collapsed fence out front.One shutter always hanging loose, banging when the wind picked up.A place that always felt more like a hiding spot than a home.
My father used to call it “quiet enough to disappear, close enough to stay informed.”He said it like it was a strategy, a rule, not a life.It was his backup plan.The fallback he drilled into me like muscle memory when I was too young to understand what survival really meant.
If things ever go bad, you come here.This is where I’ll be.
And now, things aren’t just bad.They’re totally fucked, all because of him.
“It’s about an hour out from here,” I say, eyes fixed on the blur of trees outside the window.“Near the train yard past Millstone.Off a gravel road with the rusted-out grain silo.You won’t see the driveway until you’re practically on top of it.”
Matteo glances over.
I pause, swallowing hard.“He used it as a safehouse…years ago.”I drag in a breath, steadying the shake in my voice.“I don’t think he ever stopped.”
Matteo nods once, his jaw flexing.
“Why there?”He asks.
“Because it’s isolated,” I say.“And, because he thinks I’m dead.”My throat tightens as I stare at him.“He’d be using it now not expecting me to show up.”
A muscle ticks in Matteo’s jaw.He doesn’t speak, but he doesn’t have to.I can feel it rolling off him in waves.Rage.Restraint.The kind of fury that simmers low, waiting for something to burn.
His whole body’s strung so tight he’s practically vibrating beneath the surface.Every breath’s a war, controlled, barely holding back something brutal.
“He thinks I’m just a memory now,” I say, my voice steady, but I feel the crack beneath it.“I was just another mess he buried to save his own skin.That’s why he’ll let his guard down.He won’t see me coming.”
Matteo looks at me for just a second, but that’s all it takes.It’s not just anger I see on his beautiful face.It’s heartbreak.It’s grief for everything he couldn’t protect.It’s rage at a world that let it happen.And underneath it all it’s love.Fierce and fucking lethal.The kind that doesn’t back down.The kind that kills to keep you breathing.
And I know if my father so much as looks at me the wrong way…If he breathes the wrong fucking word, Matteo won’t hesitate.He won’t ask questions.He’ll put a bullet between his eyes and paint the walls with his blood.Because that’s what love looks like in this world we’ve grown up in.When it’s been pushed too far.When it’s been broken, tested, and still refuses to fucking die.
We have been driving for nearly an hour.Every passing minute, the weight in my chest grows heavier.Not just from where we are going, but from what I’m about to do.
Because I know this isn’t just about finding my father.It’s about facing the man who broke me before I even knew I was breakable.It’s about walking back into a version of myself I tried to bury so long ago.
I press my palm to my thigh, trying to stop the shake in my fingers, but it doesn’t help.The closer we get, the more my body remembers what it felt like to belong to someone who only loved me when it was convenient.To be a daughter and a liability in the same breath.
