Matteo's jaw tightens. His pitch-black eyes lock onto mine with feral, terrifying possessiveness. "They sent a hit squad to your apartment complex at six o'clock tonight, Clara. Three men. Silenced weapons. They kicked in your door."
My hands begin to shake. The trembling travels violently up my arms. Six o'clock. I usually grade papers at the kitchen table at six o'clock. I usually drink chamomile tea and listen to true crime podcasts.
"I picked you up at four-thirty," Matteo says quietly. The rough gravel in his voice softens, just a fraction. "I pulled you out of that parking lot an hour and a half before they tore your life apart."
Tears burn the back of my throat. I swallow them down with sheer, desperate pride. "You didn't rescue me. You bought my debt. You claimed me as collateral."
"I did both." Matteo leans closer. The heat of his breath drags across my cheek. "If you are on the street, you are a dead woman. If you try to go to work on Monday morning, they will slaughter you in the parking lot of that elementary school. The only place in this entire city where you are breathing the air is inside this cage."
"I don't want to be in a cage." My voice cracks. The sassy, defiant teacher facade crumbles, leaving behind the terrifying reality of a woman whose life is out of her control.
"I don't care what you want." Matteo's voice is a dark, immovable vow. The sheer size of him blocking my escape suddenly feels less like a threat and dangerously like a shield. "You are mine to protect. The debt is leverage. It gives me the right to lock that heavy steel door and keep the monsters out."
"You are the monster," I whisper.
Matteo's dark eyes flare with heat. The dark ink on his arm flexes as his massive hands tighten on the marble counter.
"Yes. And I am the monster guarding the gate."
He holds my stare for three agonizing, heavy seconds. The tension stringing between us is pulled so tight it threatens to snap.
The absolute dominance radiating from his heavy frame wages a direct war against the stubborn independence in my chest.
Slowly, deliberately, he pushes off the counter. The cage vanishes. The sudden absence of his body heat leaves me shivering.
He turns back to the stove. He doesn't look at me again. "Finish your bread, Clara. Drink a glass of water. Go back to sleep."
"And if I can't sleep?"
Matteo grabs a heavy cast-iron pan. He sets it heavily on the burner. The loud clatter echoes through the pristine kitchen.
"Then sit there and watch me work." The command is absolute.
I do not move. I look at the steaming piece of focaccia bread on the small ceramic plate. I look at the dangerous, massively built killer methodically preparing another batch of dough.
The city of Chicago is a war zone. My father sold me out to save himself. A hit squad kicked in the door of my quiet, ordinary life. Everything I know is gone, burned to the ground by stolen shipping logs and mafia greed.
I pick up the piece of bread. I take another bite.
I sit in the quiet glow of the kitchen, trapped, ruined, and unable to look away from the beast who brought me here.
The mechanical rhythmic sound of the heavy-duty mixer starts up again, filling the silence of the Il Corvo penthouse. The toasted flour and rum scent wraps around me like a heavy blanket.
I am a prisoner. I am collateral.
But as I watch the dark ink of his tattoos shift under the kitchen lights, I know with absolute certainty that no one is getting through that steel door to hurt me. The war room in Matteo Costa's mind is running at full speed, and right now, all of its heavily armed artillery is focused on keeping me alive.
I take another bite of the bread.
The night stretches out, dark and terrifying, but the kitchen remains warm.
4
Matteo
She came backout thirty minutes after I sent her to bed. Hair wet. Fitted tank top. Sleep shorts. She thought I did not hear her padding down the hall.
I heard every step.
