“You’re not wrong.I did want to die,” he says.“For a long time, all I wanted was to join my family in an honorable death.But it wasn’t my destiny.This is.”
The heat in his eyes pierces me again as he looks at me over his shoulder.
“I finally have the means to avenge my family.And nothing will stand in my way now.Not even you.”
The way he saysyoumakes me shiver.Because it sounds and feels like I’m the only one who could do that.
“But do you have to take my whole family down with you?”I ask.
“Another man’s plans tore your family and your life to shreds, Goldie,” he says.
“And what?You were just along for the ride?”
He shakes his head.“No.I’m the only one trying to save them for you.Bringing your father here with us keeps him from Ferro’s grasp.I’m sorry your sister was shot.But there’s nothing you or I can do to change that.”
“You could’ve warned us, could’ve saved us,” I say.
He looks at me and the sadness in his eyes is like a physical being trying to get out.“I did.I warned Rafaelle, but it was too late.You didn’t have time to escape before Ferro and his men came.”
That night, the mad dash across the lawn at our family beach house, seeing my father shot, hearing my sister scream as Ferro grabbed her...It all flashes before my eyes as though it’s happening now.Especially the happiness I felt at seeing Matteo there, thinking he’d save me, thinking he was on my side.And the pain at learning how wrong I was.
He grins at me.“But you’re mine.Maybe that’s why you couldn’t get away.”
The words make me sick even though I know they might very well be the truth.We’re connected, he and I, by magic, by love, by invisible strings of destiny that are more unbreakable than any chain.
I realize that now.Know it in the core of my being as the only truth.
But chains are chains.Even when they’re made of love.
“What happens to me now?”I ask as he stands up to start dressing.
“I don’t know, Goldie,” he says.“You tried to kill me.”
“I could never do it,” I mutter, wish it wasn’t the truth.But it is.
The look in his eyes says he believes me, but he shakes his head anyway.
“Now you’ll have to prove it.”
Then he walks out of the room, and the clicking of the lock sounds like a gun firing.
I made it all worse.That’s the only thing I truly know.That and the fact that the bond we share can never be broken.Not in life.And not in death either.
For better or worse.
Just like the words I wanted to speak aloud to him in church one day.The words Iwantto speak aloud to him one day.
Chapter52
MATTEO
Being backin my family home brought all sorts of grief to the surface.Finding Goldie clutching my knife, ready to plunge it into my chest was just another, brand-new manifestation of all the pain and loss I’ve endured in this house, the latest iteration.But there’s layers and layers of it underneath.
My grandfather dying in his sleep.My mother lying on the bathroom floor for hours before her body was found.Sitting alone on the porch—the very porch I’m on now—staring at the vast moonlit ocean, knowing there was no one left.
The only reason this house is still standing is that Dante Moretti liked to threaten and taunt me about it while I was his prisoner.Saying he’ll move into it when he finally gets his hands on my sister.Or that he’ll make me burn it down if I step out of line.I was surprised to find he didn’t burn it to the ground after I escaped.
The hot Santa Ana winds were fierce tonight when we got here, making my skin itch from the inside out.But they’ve died down and only a cool breeze straight from the ocean is blowing now.A calming wind.The kind that makes everything better.
