So we cut through the scrub.Through the overgrown bushland, wild with bramble and sharp-edged branches, thick enough to tear skin if you’re not careful.
It’s slow, brutal work.Branches whip at my arms.Thorns claw at my jeans.But we push forward anyway, because there’s no other way in.Not if we want the element of surprise.
Matteo follows close behind me, one hand on his weapon, the other steadying me anytime the path dips or roots try to pull me down.He doesn’t speak.He’s just there.A shield I never asked for but can’t breathe without.Silent and deadly, keeping his body between mine and any threat that might be waiting in the trees.
Every step is a calculated move.Every pause, every crouch, every low breath is another piece of a silent strategy.
We just move.
The scent hits me before the house comes into view—gasoline and pine, soaked into the air like it never left.It makes my steps falter for half a second before Matteo’s hand presses gently to my back, keeping me grounded.Keeping me moving.
Then, through a gap in the brush, I see it.
The warped siding.The gutter barely clinging to the edge of the roof.And the front window still boarded up from the inside.That board’s been there for years.Splintered and sun-bleached, nailed in unevenly after I smashed the glass with a tire iron the night he locked me out.
It all looks the same. But I’m not.
This isn’t a homecoming.It’s a reckoning.
The house gives off exactly the vibe it’s supposed to.That no one lives here.That no one ever will.Abandoned.Untouched.A perfect decoy.
It’s all weathered paint and warped wood.The porch sags just enough to scream stay the fuck out.
Because the outside… That’s the lie.The real truth waits inside.
I remember it.The polished hardwood floors that gleamed under recessed lighting.The clean line, cold steel.Marble countertops and modern appliances that looked like they’d been pulled from a catalogue.It’s modern. Immaculate.
I take in a deep breath, trying to pull myself together when every nerve in my body is screaming that I’m walking straight into the fire.
And then we move.
Fast.
The clearing yawns out in front of me, a goddamn graveyard, wide, exposed, and begging for blood.Sunlight slashes through the trees in harsh, unforgiving beams.It’s too bright, casting a spotlight on our backs, daring someone to take the shot.Out here we’re targets.No cover.No shadows.Just two fucked-up souls marching toward the past, demanding something it was never willing to give.
Dust kicks up around my boots as we cross it, and all I can think about is how much blood this dirt has already buried.How much more it’s probably about to drink.
Matteo’s right behind me, silent, solid, dangerous as hell.I don’t need to look to know he’s ready to kill for me.I feel it in the way his steps echo mine, in the way his presence wraps around me, an invisible shield.If shit goes sideways, he’s not dodging the bullets.He’s catching them.
We hit the edge of the porch fast.I climb the steps, one by one, and the boards creak under my weight—long, aching groans like the house is waking up.
The front door looms in front of me, still and shut, but it hums with something dark beneath the wood, maybe something dangerous waiting on the other side of this door.
I stop just short of touching it.My fingers twitch—caught between knocking, breaking, or setting the whole damn thing on fire.My chest aches, straining to contain every fucked-up memory clawing its way up from the dark.And in that moment, every step I’ve taken since I bolted from this life starts crawling up my spine.A scream buried years ago, still lodged in my bones, still humming under my skin.
Matteo’s there.Close enough to catch me if I break.Steady and coiled, like a storm dressed in calm.He’s ready to react.To explode.To protect.To kill.All of it… just waiting beneath his skin.He’s watching everything.Reading the shadows, ready to fuck up anything that breathes wrong.If this door opens wrong, he’ll tear the whole fucking house down.
Nothing stirs behind the drawn curtains.No voices.No movement.Just stillness thick enough to drown in.
“Em… let me go first,” he says, voice low.
I shake my head before he finishes. “No,” I say, voice low but sure.“I want this.”
Not because I don’t trust him to protect me.Fuck, he’d take a bullet before I even saw the barrel.
But this… This is mine.It doesn’t belong to him.It belongs to me.
My fingers wrap around the handle, and it jolts through me—a live wire under my skin.Cold.Charged.Wrong in every fucking way.My heart slams against my ribs, a frantic rhythm that screams at me to turn back.
