Once Burned (Morelli Family, #3)

by Sam Mariano

  Instead of committing one way or another, I ask the question that’s been weighing on me since dinner. “You fucking your maid?”

  “What?” He pulls a face of disgust, like he can’t believe I’d even ask. “No.”

  “Good. Don’t.” Nodding to the nightstand beside his bed, I tell him, “I wrote down the address where you can find Baryshnikov. His operation’s small right now, you have more than enough clout to get rid of him.”

  Scowling, his gaze mistrustful, Mateo asks, “Why are you telling me this?”

  “I know you have to kill me now,” I say, reasonably.

  He looks over at Beth, sleeping in the bed next to him. Then at the door to the adjoining bedroom, where their baby daughter sleeps. Finally, his gaze moves back to me.

  Tiredly passing a hand over his face, he hauls himself out of bed. He crosses in front of me, clearly unafraid, and grabs a pair of jogging pants.

  “What the fuck am I supposed to do with this, Adrian?” he asks, irritably, as if I’ve inconvenienced him by showing up but not finishing the job. I guess I have.

  Once he’s dressed, I follow him out of the bedroom. I guess it’s not much of a loss, my life. His father stole my family, my face—half my fucking body is a mess, and that’s not even taking into account the shape my insides are in. Matt Morelli stole what I had, and I haven’t built much since. Nobody will miss me when I’m gone.

  I’m surprised when he opens the door and leads me down to the basement. The wine cellar’s the only part I’ve ever known him to go to, and that’s nowhere near this part.

  The basement is where his dad used to keep his mom when she pissed him off, so Mateo’s never liked coming down here.

  Dread courses through me when we stop outside the cell. Nestled beneath the beautiful Morelli homestead like a true dungeon is a small, self-contained prison. There’s no guard, just a dirty cement slab with metal bars and an exposed toilet in the corner, like a jail cell. It’s open, since there’s no one inside, but Mateo grabs the key from a hook against the dirty wall.

  Holding out his hand for my gun, he says, “Come on.”

  “Why?” I ask.

  “I have to figure out what to do with you.”

  I sigh, my head lolling back. I don’t want to do this. I don’t want the dog and pony show. He has to kill me now—he should just do it. I’m not interested in the trial, in stalling for more time. Let’s just do what has to be done. But since I’m maybe the only person alive who Mateo considers a real friend, he doesn’t want to kill me. Maybe it’ll take him a few days to realize he has no choice. I’ll let him try to figure a way around it first. He won’t, but I’ll let him try. I hand him my gun and step inside the cell.

  Mateo closes the barred door, turning the lock and letting his hand fall to his side. Looking at me through the bars, he says, “If this was the only way, I wish you wouldn’t have come back.”

  Then he heads back the way he came, leaving me alone in the dark.

  ---

  It feels like I’ve been down here a year, but I’m sure it’s only been a few days. Mateo brought me a few bottles of water the morning after he brought me down, but he hasn’t been back since and they’re long gone.

  Sitting on the cold, hard floor in the corner, I wait. And I wait. And I wait.

  But finally someone comes.

  I expect Mateo, but I certainly don’t expect the little blonde maid to come down to this dank, dirty secret beneath Mateo’s home. I didn’t even expect she would know about it.

  “Hi,” she says, offering me a tentative smile.

  At first I remain where I am, on the floor in the corner, with my back against the wall. As she comes closer, I realize I should probably stand.

  There’s a little basket on her arm, but she puts it down and fishes out the key, awkwardly shoving it in the lock. “Sorry about all this,” she says, as she turns the lock and opens the door.

  Warily eyeing the key, I tell her, “He shouldn’t send you down here.”

  “Oh, he didn’t. I mean, I asked if I could come.”

  “Well, that’s not smart. You shouldn’t come down here alone,” I revise, watching as she goes back out to grab the basket. “I could be dangerous.”

  “You won’t hurt me,” she says, rolling her eyes like it’s a ridiculous thing to even suggest.

  Of course she’s right, but she shouldn’t be so sure of that. “You never know what people will do.”

  Not accepting my advice, she peels back the little cloth over her basket and tells me, “I brought you some breakfast. Do you like muffins? I made some chocolate chip and banana. I didn’t know what kind you’d like best, so I brought both.”

  I’m still a little uneasy as I take the first muffin she hands me, but my mouth waters at the sight of it.

  She places a few bottles of water on the ground near the front of the cell. “I’ll try to bring some dinner later, after everyone upstairs eats.”

  I’m not sure what to say, so I stick with silence.

  Once the food has been dispersed, she gets a little more bashful. “I brought you something else. I thought… it probably drives you crazy how quiet it is down here,” she tells me, drawing out a small, silver, circular object. A walkman? “It plays music,” she tells me. “I just brought the one CD, but it’s a greatest hits, so it’s just the one case, but there are actually lots of songs to listen to.”

  She offers it to me, and she looks so damn hopeful, I take it. I’ve never been a big music fan, preferring the quiet, but I don’t say so.

  “It’s my favorite,” she tells me, bouncing forward on her toes, kind of excited to be sharing it with someone. “My dad loved Bowie. After I came here, I asked Mateo for these so I could listen, and… I don’t know, it got me through some rough nights. I thought you could borrow it, to get through yours.”

  Smiling slightly, I finally say, “That’s nice, Elise. Thank you.”

  She nods her head, glancing down at the empty basket. “I should probably get back upstairs before Maria has a cow, but… if you’re still here Sunday, it’s my day off. I could come down and keep you company, if you’d like.”

  “You don’t want to spend your day off down here,” I tell her.

  “You’re only down here because of me,” she states.

  “That’s not true,” I tell her. Of course, I can’t tell her why I am down here, so I don’t have anything to back that up.

  “Well, I’m coming back Sunday,” she states, adorably stubborn. “If you don’t like it, you can just put on the headphones and ignore me.”

  I crack a smile, doubting I could ignore her if I tried.

  “Okay,” I relent, since it’s not even a fight I want to win.

  Nodding with satisfaction, she backs out of the cell and closes the door, securing the lock. “Make sure you listen to that whole thing. When I come back, I wanna hear your favorites.”

  “I will,” I promise.

  “Good.” With one last bright smile, Elise gives me a little wave, and then she leaves me alone in Mateo’s dungeon with only David Bowie for company.

  Chapter One

  Five years later

  I didn’t expect my last day at the Morelli homestead to be a celebration, but the solemn non-event it turns out to be isn’t what I expected either.

  Of course, I didn’t expect yet another of Mateo’s lovers to betray him.

  I didn’t expect Mateo to be locked away in his surveillance room, too busy to even say goodbye, let alone attend my last Morelli family dinner.

  The mood in the whole house is solemn. Mia and Vince showed up, none of us thinking to tell them dinner had been canceled. Joey shows up, but upon hearing there’s no mandatory dinner tonight, he heads to Mateo’s study for a liquid dinner by himself.

  Elise looks at the cassata cake Mia picked up from the bakery for dessert—my favorite. With Mateo in the state he’s in, there’s just no joy in the house.

  Approaching Elise, I touch her should
er. She jumps, spinning around as if she doesn’t know who to expect. I drop my hand, ducking my head.

  “We should probably just go,” I tell her.

  Mia grabs a knife, spinning around to slice into the cake. “Well, wait. You have to at least have some cake. We brought this specifically for you.”

  “It was a nice thought,” I tell her. “This isn’t how any of us expected tonight to be, so we might as well just call it.”

  Mia’s shoulders sag with defeat. “At least let me wrap some up for you to take.”

  Elise goes to a cupboard near the pantry and digs out two paper plates, then she grabs aluminum foil and comes to help Mia pack the cake.

  “I like cassata cake,” she says, glancing at me over her shoulder.

  A ghost of a smile tugs at my lips. “Fine. We’ll take some cake.”

  Mia cuts off two enormous slices and Elise wraps them. Dropping the knife into the sink, Mia turns back to me, bracing her hands behind her on the counter. “You’re not even going to go say goodbye to him?”

  “He’s busy,” I point out.

  She rolls her eyes, unimpressed. “He’s not too busy to say goodbye.”

  I don’t like goodbyes anyway, but I don’t bother further defending my decision. It’s weird to think about, but I’ll probably never even see Mia after tonight.

  “I’ll say goodbye to you,” I tell her.

  “I still think you should say goodbye to him. He’s going to feel abandoned.”

  Normally Mateo wouldn’t give in to the feeling of abandonment mere mortals succumb to, but in light of all this happening with Meg, and because it’s me, she’s probably right. Of course, I don’t think he’ll feel any less abandoned because of meaningless words like “goodbye” or “I guess it hasn’t been so bad keeping you alive these past five years,” so what’s the point?

  Elise grabs the cake, but she’s watching Mia with a look I can’t quite peg. Like she’s trying to understand her, maybe? Trying to relate.

  Glancing at me, Elise points out, “I didn’t really say goodbye to him either.”

  “Do you want to?”

  This question makes her uncomfortable. Her gaze moves from my shoes to Mia’s arm, then drops back to the expensive Tuscan tile covering the kitchen floor. “I don’t know.” Almost apologetically, she glances at me. “I have lived here a long time.”

  I stifle a sigh, nodding my head. “Fine. We’ll say goodbye.”

  “I don’t know,” she says again, fidgeting with the foil wrapping edge of the plate. “Maybe we should just go.”

  I don’t understand Elise’s feelings for Mateo. I know it’s something she’s struggled with for years—more so since Mia forced her eyes open. She doesn’t confide in me anymore though, least of all about him, so I can’t be sure what she’s feeling now, knowing she’s really leaving, and she’ll really never see him again. One would think that would be a good thing—finally leaving the home of a man who has enslaved you for six years. While on a rational level it’s hard for me to swallow her conflicted feelings, psychologically I understand it’s not so simple. I’m committed to accepting it, even if it annoys the hell out of me.

  Not to mention, Mateo has a primal effect on women that no textbook need explain. One look at Mia provides solid evidence of that—she should hate Mateo, but here she is, worried about him feeling abandoned. It’s like they can’t help but care about him, no matter what he does.

  I don’t normally envy Mateo, but I wish I could have that effect—just on Elise, no one else.

  Since I don’t and he does, I find myself following Elise to Mateo’s goddamn surveillance room.

  Never having been inside the small room before, Elise’s eyes widen slightly, taking in the many screens. Mateo is parked at a desk behind the largest one, a pair of black headphones on as he listens to accompanying audio.

  Upon seeing us enter the room, he presses pause and removes the headphones.

  “You taking off?” he asks, rising.

  I nod. “Yeah. Thought we’d say goodbye.”

  Elise fidgets again, toying with her own hands since she’s not holding anything now.

  Nodding, he comes out from behind his spy station, brushing past us to let us all out of the cramped space. The door opens up into his study. He pushes it shut behind him, and it just looks like a panel. Joey glances up from his wing chair, where he’s drinking and playing on his phone, but Mateo dismisses him with a flicker of a glance as he heads to his desk. Retrieving a small rectangular package wrapped in glossy silver paper, he hands it to Elise.

  “I got you a going away present.”

  I manage to remain blank as her whole face lights up the way it used to when he was around. “You didn’t have to get me a gift,” she says, taking it, her grin barely lessening as she bites her bottom lip.

  “It’s just something small, nothing to get excited over,” he says lightly.

  I watch her tear into it, all aglow, and think about how this is yet another thing I’m not going to miss.

  She’s delighted as she looks at the Disney movie, Aladdin. “My favorite,” she says.

  “I know,” he says, with an affable wink.

  She blushes with pleasure as she thanks him, impulsively stepping forward and giving him a hug that makes me want to die.

  He turns to me once she lets go. I know he doesn’t have a gift for me, because he already gave it to me. An envelope with enough cash to get us situated in a small apartment. He wouldn’t give me that in front of Elise, because he wouldn’t want to embarrass me.

  “You’ll be missed,” he tells me simply.

  With a gruff nod, I mumble, “Yeah, you too.”

  It sounds stupid once it’s out there, but all I want to do now is get the hell out of this house. For Elise, this place is home, but for me these past five years, it was never more than a sentence I needed to serve.

  Not really knowing what else to do, I go for a handshake. It feels even stranger than my last utterance, but he shakes it anyway as I say, “Take care of yourself.”

  “I will. If you change your mind, you know there’s a spot for you.”

  “I won’t,” I assure him, meeting his gaze, “but thanks.”

  As we turn to leave, Elise glances back over her shoulder. I keep my gaze straight ahead and lead her back to the kitchen to retrieve the cake and say goodbye to Mia.

  I’m not expecting her to hug me, but she does anyway. “You’re sure you don’t wanna say goodbye to Meg?” she asks.

  I shake my head. I just want to leave, to get to our new home and see what Elise thinks of it. I’m also still disappointed in Meg. Right from the start I thought she might suit Mateo, and while there had certainly been lies I caught her in, I didn’t think she was capable of pulling this off.

  “Well, I’ll give her the package when I take her the cake.”

  She ran this plan by me earlier. I’m not sure how Mateo will like it, but while I still have a few remnants of power in the house, I told Mia she could visit Meg and give her a break.

  Once I walk out those doors, it’s not my problem anymore.

  It feels a little weird, I’ll admit. I’ve imagined it so many times, but now that the moment’s here, I somehow don’t know what to expect. The rest of my life is on the other side of that door for once, and I have to start all over.

  So does Elise. I hope that’s why she looks so anxious as we approach the front door. I hope the dread on her face is because she’s afraid of the uncertainty of this new beginning, because the mansion has been home to her since she was 15 years old, and now she’s 21, but without having ever had the freedom to grow up. Elise is sheltered and innocent in so many ways, but she’s resilient; I know eventually she’ll catch up. Eventually she’ll be okay.

  She takes a deep breath and pushes it out as I open the door for her. My new car is silver and nondescript, nothing like I’m used to driving. Elise, she’s not used to leaving the house at all. She’s gone out on occasion, very rar
e occasion, but to be honest, aside from a trip to the grocery store, I don’t know when she was actually out in the world last.

  “You ready?” I ask, since she’s just staring at the car, clutching the movie in her hands, unmoving.

  She nods, but still doesn’t move.

  So I wait.

  And wait.

  And wait.

  Eventually she pushes out another breath, like she’s diving into a pool 50 feet beneath her, and drops into the passenger seat.

  It’s not the overwhelming relief I’ve daydreamed about, but it’ll do.

  I shut the door and go around to the driver’s seat. I glance over at her as I fire up the engine, putting the car in drive and making my way out of Mateo’s driveway. I feel like I should say something to her, assure her that everything will be all right, but she looks fragile, like one wrong word might completely disintegrate her composure.

  So I say nothing.

  The only person who vocalizes during the long ride is David Bowie, my constant companion. I hope it gives her some measure of comfort, even if she doesn’t acknowledge it.

  At one point I hear her sniffling, and I steal a subtle look at her. My stomach sinks at the realization that she’s wiping away tears, turning her head to watch out the window so I won’t see.

  By the time we pull up to the parking lot of our new apartment, I’m convinced she’s going to hate it. Ordinarily a person would have something to show for five years of crucial work for Mateo Morelli, but me, I only have Elise. I don’t know precisely what he told her about the deal we struck—only that she initially said thanks, but no thanks, and then changed her mind after Mia outed Mateo’s dark side. I don’t know what she expects. We haven’t talked about it at all. Honestly, it’s seemed like she’s wanted to completely avoid the reality as her sentence came to an end.

  Elise looks around the parking area, at the waist-high wrought iron fence surrounding the miniscule courtyard. Red brick columns off to the left house the cluster of mailboxes, but I don’t imagine we’ll be getting much mail, so I don’t bother to show her which one’s ours.