I blink back the tears.
It wasn’t only a kiss.
It was a countdown, and the first tick has sounded.
We sit side by side, the sea below, the wind whispering. He smokes in silence, eyes on the night sky.
And still, it’s his presence, not his words, that lingers long after the lighthouse blinks again.
Chapter 14
Matteo
Sleep will not come. I lie staring at the ceiling as if the plaster will hand me an answer. It doesn’t, it just stares back, mocking.
I kissed her again. Every nerve is on fire and the burn will be slow. I know that she will be my death.
I meant it, the hunger, the touch, the kiss that almost ended me. I still feel the heat of her breath. The way she looked at me when I warned her. The silence that followed. The way she didn’t run.
That’s the part that’s going to kill me.
“Just break his jaw and call it a day.” Marco shrugs.
“Tempting.” Milo grins. “But then I’d get blood on my jacket, and I actually like this one.” He moves his hands over his jacket and I shake my head at him. You can always buy a new jacket. Fuck, Grandfather would buy him one if he knew why.
Rosa flips through that underground gossip thread everyone pretends not to run. Marco calls it harmless fun. I never read it, but Rosa’s reading all the time.
“You’re in it again,” she says without looking up.
“Of course I am.”
Marco cackles. “Tell me it’s about that girl from the masquerade.”
“It’s always about a girl,” Rosa mutters. “Just not always the right one.”
I see her across the hall. Aoife. Beautiful in a way she probably doesn't know, next to her the world fades.
She’s walking beside Conor. Laughing at something he says, and just like that, every word my brothers say turns to dust.
Her smile is small. Tight. The kind of smile that’s more for survival than joy, when she looks up, just once, just a flicker, our eyes meet.
There’s a pause in me. A lurch in my chest. Like my body forgot how to breathe.
She looks away first.
I feel the echo of her lips against mine from last night. Taste the memory. Hear my own voice whisperingI’ll be the one sending you to the slaughterhouse.
“Matteo?” Marco’s voice snaps me back.
I blink. “What?”
“You just stopped walking. Thought maybe you saw a ghost.”
I smirk. “Maybe I did.” And then we keep walking, but my pulse doesn’t slow. Not even close.
When we pass each other in the corridor, tight, narrow, unavoidable, I can’t help looking at her.
She looks at me from the corner of her eyes. Making sure Conor doesn’t notice.
