The one bright spot is my stepbrother.
Matt was already seventeen when Jen married his dad. At first, I didn’t know what to make of him. On one hand, he’s a joker—always appearing carefree and like nothing clings to him. And on the other hand, when no one’s around, he can be eerilyquiet, and distant. But his sharp eyes miss nothing, no matter what role he’s playing.
I’ve seen the way his mouth tightens when Jen lays into me. The way he steps between us when she’s particularly cruel, his lip curling like the sound of her voice physically repulses him. On more than one occasion, I’ve dreamt he’ll tuck me under his arm and take me with him, away from Jen’s cruel words and Ciaran’s silence.
It started small. Him staying over for no apparent reason, despite having his own flat now. A door left open when he was working out—just enough to let me glimpse the way his back would flex as he lifted weights. A look that lingered too long. A glass of water pressed into my shaking hands after one of Jen’s more brutal comments. Cleaning the blood from the tattoos on his knuckles in our shared ensuite. Watching him down shot after shot without so much as a wince.
Nothing said aloud but each small moment tied my soul tighter to his.
And I started watching him back.
His hands were always steady, his voice low and measured. He smelled like leather and expensive cologne, and when he leaned over the kitchen counter to grab something, my eyes betrayed me every single time.
I know it’s wrong. He’s my stepbrother, four years older, and forbidden. We say almost nothing, and yet his silence does something to me—it makes me feel seen, as if I’m not just my mother’s shame or the living proof of a night she wishes she could forget. The thought that someone might actually look at me like that tears me apart, over and over.
The first time I catch him glaring at Jen like he wants to destroy her, something stirs low in my belly that isn’t fear—it’s awant so intense it sends shivers up my spine. I’m eighteen, but in the Mafia’s eyes, I’m too young, too soft, too hopeful, and they’d crucify me if they knew I was already halfway in love with the one person I should stay away from. But I can’t help myself.
The same night, Jen calls me a burden and tells me not to embarrass her at an upcoming dinner she’s hosting,I find Matt outside in the garden, chain-smoking under the moonlight with a bottle of vodka at his side. He doesn’t look surprised to see me, and he offers me a cigarette like a peace offering.
I don’t smoke, but I take it anyway, and he leans closer to light it for me.
“Don’t let her get in your head,” he says, voice quiet, lips curling around the cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth.
“She lives there,” I reply, exhaling smoke into the dark.
That night, we sat in silence for a long time. Not touching, not speaking. Just existing together in the same wound. And when he finally looked at me—reallylooked at me—I swear the world stopped spinning. For the first time, I’m grounded, and it’s all thanks to the boy with emerald eyes and auburn curls. I count the freckles across the bridge of his nose, my fingers twitching with the urge to trace them.
I don’t know what breaks the moment—probably Jen’s voice echoing from inside—but I remember the flicker that crosses his face—not disgust at me, but a flash of protectiveness, as if he’s already bracing to shield me from whatever Jen might say.
And maybe that’s when everything shifts between us.
The dinner, I’ve since learnt is for Matt’s birthday, rolls around a few weeks later. Jen’s been barking orders since sunrise—floral arrangements, place cards, seating charts—as if it’s life or death.
She hands me a dress that barely covers me—a blush satin that pinches in all the wrong places. The bodice feels like punishment, boning pressing cruelly into my ribs, digging into soft flesh. When I come downstairs, her eyes skate over me, leaving a sour taste in my mouth.
“Try not to slouch,” she hisses as we enter the foyer of the swanky hotel she’d convinced Ciaran to book for the night. “And for God’s sake, keep your thighs together when you sit.”
Every time I look in the mirror, I wonder if I’m dressing for a party or for slaughter.
I don’t belong here. Not among the wives in skin-tight dresses and diamonds catching the chandelier light like drops of blood. Not among the daughters raised to marry into power, trained to smile through bloodshed. Most days, I don’t even want to be here at all—letting this world seep into my pores, blackening me from the inside out, numbing me one horror at a time.
But Matt’s here. And the second I see him, something inside me shifts, like a thread tugging taut, like maybe I was never untethered after all. A tendril of belonging winds around my ankles, pulling me closer no matter how hard I’ve tried to stay untouched by this world.
Hope is dangerous, I’ve always known that. Yet it rises in me anyway, soft and reckless, unfurling with every glance he steals, every brush of words that sound casual to anyone else but leave me burning, every time he shields me when he thinks no one’s watching.
He’s near the bar, tall and unmovable, dark suit sculpted to his body as if it were made for him. The sage green tie is loosened at his throat, just enough to hint at something private, something unguarded. No one else would see it, but I do. I always do. His eyes are already fixed on me, steady, consuming, as if the crowd between us is nothing more than smoke.
I shift my glass in my hand, feigning interest in the wives’ empty chatter, but my pulse betrays me. He’s still watching. And I feel it—heat creeping over my skin, breath caught sharp in my lungs, the familiar battle between wanting to disappear and wanting him to see me anyway.
One step. That’s all it takes for him to close part of the distance. He doesn’t speak, doesn’t need to. The set of his jaw and the way his gaze pins me says everythingyou’re not alone here. Not while I’m breathing.
He shouldn’t make promises with his eyes. Not here, not now. But I let him. I can’t stop myself. And God help me, I don’t even want to.
“Stop fidgeting,” Jen snaps, clamping her fingers around my elbow in a vice-like grip. Her nails dig crescent moons into my skin. “You’re drawing attention to yourself. Do you want them thinking you’re nervous? Weak? Don’t be pathetic.”
Matt’s still watching, I feel it in the weight of my shame, in the heat blooming in my chest.
“You didn’t even try with your makeup,” Jen mutters as we make our rounds. “You look tired. Puffy. I told the chef not to give you bread at lunch. Did you sneak some from the kitchen?”
