“Am I ever wrong?” Sylar countered.
Matteo was quiet as they surveyed one another before he rapped his knuckles on his desk.
“I will…try.”
“It’s all I can ask of you.” Sylar got to his feet and looked to the door. “3… 2… 1…”
The door opened, and Frank stepped inside.
“Oh, look. My daddy is here to pick me up,” Sylar said in a mocking voice.
Frank looked disgusted, shaking his head.
He definitely should have kept his dick in his pants.
“I’ll be seeing you, OGs. Love and light and all that passive-aggressive bullshit.” Sylar waved us off without a backward glance and followed his dad out of the room.
The door clicked closed behind them, and I finally looked over at Matteo.
“Really?” I asked dryly.
“Really,” Matteo said, getting to his feet to go to the bar in the room. I watched him pour a glass of whiskey before sucking it down.
“She’s beautiful,” Alessio said. “Bianca.”
“Alessandro said he will marry her,” Matteo muttered.
“And Sylar said for you to do it,” Alessio interjected. “He’s never wrong. You don’t want to die, right?”
Matteo poured another drink and didn’t say anything.
I stepped forward to him.
“Brother,” I murmured, resting my hand on his forearm. Matteo looked at me with sad eyes.
“For the first time in my life, I don’t know what to do,” Matteo said softly. “This isn’t what I want. I keep listening and lose myself. I didn’t want to fuck the girl back when I put her on her knees in my office, and I sure as fuck don’t want to now.”
“Marriage doesn’t mean fucking,” Alessio said, moving forward and pouring himself a glass of whiskey. “You just wed the girl, and all will fall into place as Sylar has said.”
“It’s more,” I said, narrowing my eyes at Matteo. His arm trembled beneath my touch. “Teo?”
Matteo blew out a breath and closed his eyes for a moment.
“It’s nothing,” he finally said. “I’m just tired of fighting the same battles. I think I need a break.”
I removed my hand from his arm, knowing he was shutting down. Once Matteo did that, it was over until he decided to reopen. And sometimes, on certain subjects, he didn’t.
“How are you so calm about this?” Matteo looked over at Alessio, who was polishing off his drink.
Alessio licked his lips and smiled. “I love my son, but I want what is needed. If it keeps us alive, if it keeps him alive, I’ll do it.If Sylar came in here and told me I had to marry Bianca, I’d have her beneath me already. You know that.”
Matteo grunted.
That was how Alessio was, though. He was decisive. Once he settled on something, he did it. His mind moved quickly, and he never seemed to attach himself to anything. Matteo and I figured it happened when he lost his wife during childbirth with his daughter, but we didn’t push the subject. All we knew was that she was the love of his life, and her death changed him.
Even though we all shared the trauma of losing our women, Alessio still managed to be a good man—a good father.
I kept failing. I didn’t like to think about it. Levin hated me, and Stef was dead. Helping Matteo keep the woman Levin loved prisoner wasn’t earning me any brownie points either, but then again, Levin wasn’t in the know. He didn’t know we were listening to some asylum case Matteo had paid to tell him the future. If Levin were anything like me, he’d laugh in my face.
