“You sure you want to do it like this, Matteo?”she asks.“We can do it another way if you want, I have something—”
I lean in, cutting her off before she can finish that sentence.“We have leverage now.We set the terms.We control this.”My fingers brush her jaw, gentle, aching, as if it might be the last time I get to touch her.“I promised I’d protect you,” I say, softer now.“And I fucking meant it, Em.Things have changed.I won’t have you there.I can’t.”
She jerks back, eyes blazing.“No, Matteo,” she snaps.“You don’t get to shut me out.Not now.Not after everything.”Her hands ball into fists in her lap, voice shaking—not with fear, but fury.“I won’t let you walk in there by yourself like you’re some goddamn martyr.You’re not doing this alone.Let me help.You don’t get to decide that for me.I have—”
I give her a look that should say it all.Should shut it down before it starts.Then I lift my hand, cup the side of her face, soft, but final.“No.You are not going anywhere near him.He will fucking kill you just to prove a point.Just to remind me who holds the leash.”
She opens her mouth, but I don’t let her speak.Not this time.
My voice cuts like steel.“This isn’t up for fucking debate.”
This conversation is over.There’s no way I’m letting her anywhere near that prick.
I throw the car into gear and pull out hard, my pulse pounding in my ears.
I drive hard and fast.Every turn burned into muscle memory.I don’t speak; I don’t even look her way.I keep my shoulders rigid, my grip locked tight on the wheel.
I know exactly where I’ll leave her.Somewhere no one will ever think to check.
A run-down house, half-swallowed by the woods, rotting into the earth like everything else that’s been forgotten.Two miles up the road from the slaughterhouse.It’s quiet.Hidden.Just far enough to keep her out of his sight, just close enough for her to find her way, if for some fucking reason I don’t make it out.
Chapter Nineteen
Matteo
Iparkbehindtherustedcarcass of an old semi, its cab gutted, metal torn open like something died screaming inside it.It’s cloaked in shadow, tucked far enough back to keep me hidden, but close enough to watch everything.
I kill the engine.The silence that follows is thick, pressing in like it knows something I don’t.
Glancing at my phone, I see the message still glowing on the screen, still pulsing—a fucking warning set to detonate:
Time’s up, Matteo.
Those words are carved into me now, branded into my skin, a promise I’ll bleed for if I have to.
I scan the lot.No cars, no movement, no guards.No sign of him.Just open space and the eerie stillness of a place built for violence.
But that’s how my father works.He doesn’t show his hand, he lets you sweat, lets you start to question whether the bullet’s coming from in front of you or behind.He’s already set the stage, and I’m already playing my part.
I push the truck door open and step out into the glare—daylight crashing down like a goddamn spotlight.There’s nowhere to hide.No shadows, no cover.Just the wide, empty sprawl of the slaughterhouse lot… rusted bones, crumbling wreckage, and a silence so heavy it’s thick enough to choke on.
I yank open the back door and haul Emery’s father out by the collar, dragging his sorry ass the way you’d rip out garbage on collection day.He stumbles hard, feet skidding on gravel, hands twitching with a pathetic attempt to mask the fear, he’s failing, and we both know it.
Good.
He should be afraid of what’s waiting for him.Of my father.Of the fucking consequences finally sinking their teeth in after all this time.Because I’m not the same man who shoved him into that truck.I’m colder now.Crueler. There’s nothing left to lose, not with her still out there, waiting for me to come back.
Emery fought me.Christ, she screamed.That fury in her voice… it told me everything.The second I walked away, something inside her shattered.Going into this alone wasn’t just dangerous or reckless—it cut deeper.It was a fucking betrayal.And beneath all that rage, the hurt was carved into her face, plain as day.
She yelled.Shoved me.Spat every filthy name she could think of, as if the venom might keep her from splintering.Hurt laced with heat, heartbreak dressed in battle gear.And yeah, she looked at me with murder in her eyes, but it wasn’t hate.It was love, bleeding out through the cracks.Desperate.Messy.The kind that claws at your chest and screams don’t you fucking die, because if you do, I won’t survive it.
But in the end… she let me go.She trusted me.
I watched her fall silent.Watched her eyes fill with all the things she wouldn’t say.
I left her in that crumbling house, surrounded by ghosts and silence, with nothing but my promise to come back.It was the only way I could protect her.
It felt like tearing my heart out of my chest and handing it to her still beating. But I have to do this for us.
