The raw honesty in the statement catches me off guard. I expect a mobster to lie. I expect evasion, arrogance, and threats. I do not expect the heavily guarded vulnerability of a man admitting to a twenty-year mental war.
"Twenty years," I repeat softly. "Since your parents."
His massive jaw tightens. The thick muscles in his neck flex. "Since my father."
The correction hangs heavy in the air. The Costa family history is a bloody legend in Chicago. Two hits in one night. The parents ambushed in a car. The father, Carlo Costa, lured to a warehouse and executed. Matteo was Carlo's son. He was twenty-four.
"You found him." The words slip out of my mouth before my filter catches them.
Matteo's eyes go completely flat. The warmth vanishes, replaced by a cold, lethal emptiness that sends a spike of genuine terror down my spine. "You read the news clippings."
"My father is in debt to your family. I did my research." I keep my chin up, refusing to back down from the sudden frost in his stare. "I know about the alley in the rain. I know about the morgue the next morning."
"You know nothing." The words are a low, guttural warning. He pushes off the counter. The sheer mass of his body rising to its full height is an intimidation tactic all on its own. "You know the sanitized police reports. You know the newspaper ink. You do not know the smell of the alley. You do not know the sound the rain made hitting his coat."
The pain in his voice is a raw, bleeding wound. It is not healed. It is barely bandaged.
I set the bread down. My appetite vanishes, replaced by a strange, heavy ache in the center of my chest. "I'm sorry."
"I don't want your pity, Clara." He turns back to the dough. He grabs the ball of flour and begins to shape it with sharp, aggressive movements. The gentle rhythm from earlier is gone. "I want the Bellantis erased from this earth. Your father stole the logs that will allow me to do that."
"My father is a coward." The anger flares back to life, hot and bright. "He has a gambling addiction. He makes terrible choices. But he is still an accountant. He isn't a killer. How did he even get his hands on Bellanti shipping routes?"
Matteo stops. He braces his hands heavily on the counter, his broad back facing me. "Arthur Reeves lost a fortune in underground card games on the South Side. The Bellantis hold his markers. Arthur got desperate. When they threatened him, he panicked. He stole a master ledger to use as a bargaining chip."
"And instead of bargaining with them, he brought it to you."
Matteo turns around. The dark brooding in his eyes is back, heavy and possessive. "He came to me. Arthur begged forprotection. He offered the ledger in exchange for wiping a million-dollar marker he owed the Bellantis."
"And Dominic said yes."
"Dominic said Arthur was a liability." Matteo's deep voice drops an octave. He walks slowly around the side of the massive kitchen island. He moves like a predator closing a trap. "Dominic was going to let the Bellantis peel your father apart."
My breath catches. I press my back against the edge of the leather stool. "Then why am I here?"
Matteo stops directly in front of me. He is too close. The heat radiating off his massive chest physically warms the cool air between us. "Because I stepped in. I bought the debt. I took the ledger."
I stare up at him. The sheer size difference between us is absurd. My bare feet dangle above the hardwood while his heavy boots plant firmly into the floor, an immovable force of nature. "Why?"
"Because the ledger burns the Bellantis to the ground. It gives us the exact times, locations, and shipments of every illicit crate moving through the South Side docks. We can bankrupt them in a month."
"That doesn't explain me." I refuse to let him deflect. I tip my head back to hold his dark gaze. "If you have the ledger, you don't need collateral. You don't need a third-grade teacher locked in your penthouse. I have fifty-two dollars in my checking account. I own a Honda Civic with a broken tail light. I am not a bargaining chip."
Matteo leans down, crowding into my personal space.
He traps me.
The movement is fluid. There is nowhere to retreat as he grips the edge of the counter right beside my hip with one massive hand, angling his brutally heavy frame to block my escape. The scent of toasted flour and dark rum envelops me, making my head spin. I grip the edge of the leather seat to keep from tumbling backward.
"The Bellantis know Arthur took the ledger," Matteo rumbles. His face is inches from mine. The coarse hairs of his beard catch the light. The gold chain dangles forward, the heavy medallion brushing lightly against the fabric of my cardigan. "They know he gave it to the Costas. They are bleeding money by the hour trying to reroute those shipments."
"So they kill my father," I whisper. The words taste like ash.
"They will kill your father." Matteo does not flinch from the reality. "But the Bellantis don't just kill the man who stole from them. They make an example. They sever the bloodline. They go after the family."
The floor drops out from under me. A cold, terrifying void opens in my stomach.
Me.
