The sharpness is gone from his eyes.He understands what I’m saying.
“I wish it was different.”
And the worst part is, I believe him.
He closed his eyes again, but I can feel he’s not really sleepy.The heat emanating from his slouched body is almost as fierce as when he looks at me.
“I’m sorry you went through all that,” I say.“It must’ve been hell.”
“Still is,” he says and opens his eyes to look at me.The heat is almost unbearable, and it definitely pulls me in the direction of the part of me that wants to spend the rest of my life by his side.“But it’s better now that I have you.”
He grins as he adds that, and it lights up his whole face in a way that makes me a thousand percent sure he’s telling the truth.That I am the light in his darkness, the one who can make his terrible past more bearable.Stuff every girl wants to hear and believe from her man.
“You don’t have me,” I mutter.“You stole me.From my family.”
“Having is the direct consequence of stealing, isn’t it?”he asks and sits up in his seat.His eyes are still full of that scorching desert sun.“Besides your family stole from me first when they didn’t come to aid mine.But that debt will soon be repaid now.Then maybe we can all start over.”
“What are you talking about?Why would my family have to aid yours?And why wouldn’t they?”If I know anything about my father is that honor always comes first for him.And he would never fail to respect it.
“It’s a long and complicated story,” he says.“But my grandfather and your father went back a long way.He should’ve helped us when we needed it.But like I said, all will be made right now.”
I just look at him, what he’s actually saying sort of clicking in my mind.But all I see is blood and war and death.
“You’re taking my father to fight in your war?”
He nods.
“So I’ll be able to see him?Be with him?”
He shrugs.“All in good time.You’ve proven to be a good carrot so far, and I prefer to use that to a stick.So you’ll have to do without your daddy for a little longer.”
“So I’m a carrot now?”
How can he say exactly the right things and then follow it up with exactly the wrong ones?
“A very pretty carrot,” he says and swipes a lock of my hair off my face.“A golden carrot.”
I turn away from him, stand up and walk towards my sister’s room.He doesn’t follow, and when I look back, he’s pretending to try and sleep again.But he’s not fooling me.I can feel his attention on me all along my back like the scorching desert sun.
He’s not my friend, he’s my captor.Not my lover, but my jailor.And he won’t return my family to me, he’ll get them all killed.
I have to stop him.
Chapter47
GIANNA
Something’s brewingand it’s not just the storm that’s coming in from the sea.I can feel it in the air all over the house and especially when Matteo is around.Through the window, I’ve seen him approach the other men all day.Sometimes shaking hands with them at the end of the conversation, sometimes walking away looking like a lion that had just been denied a kill.
Twilight is falling.I want to go see Chiara, spend the night with her, hope that she’s better in the morning.Good enough to come home?I don’t actually wish that, since her home is now this house and it’s not a home at all.
Winds are picking up outside and very dark clouds are amassing in the distance, over the ocean.Every so often a flash of gold pierces them.Lightning, not the sun.Because the sun can’t pierce darkness like that.
Just as that thought sounds in my head, the door opens and Matteo walks in, the look on his face still that of a lion that hadn’t killed anything.
That darkness he carries, no sun can pierce that either.It’s trying to.That’s what all that sunshine in his eyes is all about.But it won’t ever happen.
I stand up from the window nook where I’ve been sitting all day.My muscles are as stiff as the wooden bench.
