My spine snaps straight. "I'm not sneaking. I'm investigating the bizarre noise keeping me awake. I assumed you were hiding a body. I didn't realize you were running a midnight bakery."
"Come into the light, Clara." The command is simple. It lacks the explosive violence of our earlier encounter, but the absolute authority in his tone brooks zero arguments.
I step out of the shadows. I cross the living room floor, my bare feet silent on the expensive rug. I stop three feet away from the marble island. I cross my arms over my chest, suddenly acutely aware of my rumpled teacher cardigan and the sensible slacks I wore to school this morning.
Matteo finally stops kneading. He straightens up. The sheer vertical mass of him is staggering. He dwarfs me. He reaches for a white towel resting on the edge of the counter and wipes the flour from his massive hands.
His dark eyes lock onto mine. The intensity in his stare pins me in place.
"You locked the door," he states flatly.
"I was under the impression that kidnapping victims are supposed to secure their perimeters."
"You aren't a kidnapping victim." He tosses the towel aside. "You're collateral. And a flimsy piece of steel isn't going to stop me from walking into that room if I decide I want to be in there."
My jaw locks. The arrogant, territorial weight of his words sets off a spark of pure defiance in my chest. "If you break down that door, I will ruin this expensive marble counter with whatever heavy object I can find."
A low, dark sound rumbles in his chest. It sounds dangerously close to a laugh. He likes the fight. That realization sends a complicated, unwelcome thrill through my veins.
"Sit down, Clara." He points a massive finger at the heavy leather barstool on my side of the island.
"I prefer to stand."
"Your stomach is growling loud enough to wake the dead. Sit down."
My cheeks flood with fiery heat. The biological betrayal is complete. I glare at him, refusing to yield the high ground, but my knees are shaking with exhaustion. I pull out the heavy stool and slide onto the leather seat. I keep my spine ramrod straight.
Matteo turns away. He moves around the massive kitchen with surprising grace for a man of his brutal size. He opens a custom warming drawer. A waft of intense, savory heat fills the space. He pulls out a baking sheet lined with perfectly golden, blistered focaccia bread. The smell of rosemary, sea salt, and roasted garlic is utterly intoxicating.
He grabs a heavy wooden dough scraper. The hard edge slices through the thick bread with a dull, heavy thud. He slides a large square of the steaming bread onto a small ceramic plate and sets it on the marble directly in front of me.
"Eat."
I stare at the bread. The steam rises in little ribbons, carrying the scent of olive oil. "Is it poisoned?"
"If I wanted you dead, Clara, I wouldn't waste perfectly good imported olive oil to do it. You'd already be in the Chicago River."
The blunt reality of his words steals the air from the room. He says it so casually. The violence is a casual fact of his existence. He is an underboss. He is a man who deals in death. Right now, he is handing me fresh bread. The cognitive dissonance is giving me whiplash.
I reach out. My fingers brush the warm crust. I pull a small piece apart and bring it to my mouth.
The taste is explosive. Flawless. The crust shatters perfectly, the inside pillowy and rich. A soft, humiliating groan escapes the back of my throat before I can stop it.
Matteo's hands freeze on the counter. His dark eyes dart to my mouth. The air in the kitchen suddenly shifts, growing heavy, thick, and suffocatingly tight. The ambient temperature seems to spike by ten degrees.
I swallow hard, forcing my eyes away from the dangerous, primal intensity radiating from his massive frame. "It's... fine."
"It's exceptional, and you know it." He leans his heavy forearms on the marble island, closing the distance between us. The sheer size of him blocks out the rest of the room.
The scent slams into me, heavy and inescapable. Toasted flour, dark rum, and warm skin. It is intoxicating. It is uniquely his. The aroma wraps around my senses, drowning out the rosemary and garlic. It smells like danger and absolute security twisted perfectly together.
I take another bite to keep my mouth busy. I need to keep him talking. Silence with this man is dangerous. Silence breeds tension. "Why does a mafia underboss bake at two in the morning?"
Matteo watches me chew. His gaze tracks the movement of my throat when I swallow. "The process is precise. You follow the rules, the chemistry works. You ignore the rules, the dough breaks. It's control. It requires quiet."
"And your life lacks quiet?"
A dark shadow crosses his features. It is a fleeting, deeply ingrained grimace that ages him instantly. "My mind has been a war room for twenty years, Clara. There is no quiet."
