by Sam Mariano
When the story’s over, the girls balk about going to bed. I think this is Lily’s fault; it seems like Isabella used to be more obedient. I never want to stop snuggling with Mateo either though, so I totally get it.
“Can we go to the doll store again?” Isabella asks.
“Maybe. Or we could do something else. There’s more to life than the doll store, you know,” he says, dropping a kiss on her forehead.
“I think we should get ice cream,” Lily tells him, poking his arm to get his attention back.
“We could get ice cream,” he agrees.
“And books,” she adds.
“Also doable.”
“Isabella’s like my sister, isn’t she?”
That’s a new one. I ease up, planning to take the pressure off answering, but before I can, Mateo tells her, “More or less, yeah.”
Isabella jumps in, now that Lily brought it up. “I saw you guys kissing.”
“Oh yeah?” Mateo asks, grabbing my arm and tugging me over to place a big, theatrical kiss on my cheek. “Like this?”
Both girls giggle. Lily shakes her head and drawls, “No.”
“Like you love her,” Isabella specifies.
“I do,” he says, again without hesitation.
I watch Lily, a little unsure how this is going to go over. We’ve talked about Rodney a little bit when she brought him up, but it hasn’t been as much as I expected. Rodney was always out and he was never involved with bedtime rituals like Mateo is. Since we moved out of the house he lived in and into a whole new life, it doesn’t seem like she even misses him.
I never thought him being a crummy dad would turn out to be a good thing, but it has made the transition a lot easier.
“Well, I love you both,” Isabella announces, diving into me and Mateo for a hug I’m not at all braced for.
“And me,” Lily objects.
Mateo wraps his arms around all of us, dropping kisses on the tops of little girl heads and then briefly brushing his lips against mine.
I’m so overcome for a moment, I think I might cry.
Which reminds me—I need to ask Mia to buy me a pregnancy test.
---
Normally, when I wake up in the morning, Mateo is already gone. He’s an early riser, and I would stay in bed until noon if I could.
But when I rise on Saturday, Mateo is sitting in the armchair next to the bed. He’s hunched over, staring at the ground. The solemn expression on his face startles me and I push up on my elbows, looking at him.
“Mateo?”
He looks up, and the expression on his face alarms me even more. He still looks tired, even though he’s been sleeping since I’ve been in bed with him again, but more than that he looks… defeated? I’ve never seen it on his face before, so I can’t be sure.
“What’s wrong?” I ask quietly.
“You’ve never met Salvatore Castellanos, have you?”
It’s not like every other time he brought this up—he’s not bitter or jealous. It sounds like he’s finally accepted it.
“No,” I verify. “Not before that day at the Chinese restaurant, I guess.”
He nods slowly, like his head weighs a hundred pounds. “Francesca’s gone.”
I scowl, confused. “What?”
“Francesca. She’s gone. She’s been gone. I didn’t notice because…” He trails off, but I know why he didn’t notice.
Pushing up so my legs are dangling off the bed, facing him, I ask, “Well, what does that mean? Did someone take her?”
“It means she was the leak.” He pauses, but I still can’t quite wrap my head around it. “She planted the phone.”
I swallow, going back over every interaction I’ve ever had with Francesca, trying to piece it together. I never got the impression she loved me, but she didn’t seem to dislike me, either. “But… why?”
Mateo shakes his head, sighing. “I don’t know. I haven’t been looking into her. I didn’t know anything required my attention.”
“Did she leave a note or anything? When did she leave?”
“I don’t know yet,” he says, squeezing the bridge of his nose and closing his eyes. “I’ve invested all of my energy into trying to catch you, so… I’m sure her trail’s gone cold.”
Easing off the bed, I go to him and wrap my arms around him. “I’m so sorry, Mateo.”
A little laugh bursts out of him. “You’re sorry? I’ve been punishing you for something you didn’t even do. I locked you in the basement—my father used to do that to his wives, and I did it to you.”
“Adrian locked me in the basement,” I remind him.
“To keep you safe from me,” he stresses.
“And look, I’m safe,” I point out.
“Meg…”
Climbing in his lap, I wrap an arm around his neck and kiss him. “I’m not mad at you. I’m just relieved you finally know I was telling the truth.”
Shaking his head, he meets my eyes. “I don’t deserve you.”
“Yes, you do. And even if you didn’t, you’re not getting rid of me now.”
“Oh, I didn’t say I was going to give you up,” he says, his hand tightening around my waist. “Only that I don’t deserve you. I’m not a noble man; I don’t suffer noble man afflictions.”
Snuggling against him, I ask, “What do we do now?”
“I’m going to make this up to you. I’ve been an asshole to you. I hurt you. What can I do to make it better?”
“Well, if you’re handing out favors, I do have one. I want a girls’ night with Mia. Vince won’t let her over here because he’s too afraid of what you’ll do, and now that you’re not in a blind, vengeful rage… I want her to come hang out with me. She might say no, so I might need your influence. Not because she doesn’t want to,” I add, like he cares, “but just because of Vince.”
“Done. Tonight?”
“Sure,” I say, unable to push down my excitement.
“I’ll grab you some wine from the cellar. What else does this require?”
“I think just the girls. You get Mia here, and we’re pretty much good.”
He nods his head. “I can do that. I’m actually relieved it’s that, because I do need to play catch-up tonight. As soon as I get a handle on where Castellanos is, I’m taking you out.”
I like the sound of that. “To a speakeasy?”
“I’m not going to tell you where; you’ll see when we get there. It’ll probably be Monday, unless you want to cancel Sunday dinner tomorrow.”
I shake my head. “Let’s do Monday. I think it’ll be good for everyone to have a normal family dinner tomorrow night. Though it will be really weird not having Francesca there.”
Nodding solemnly, he’s quiet for a moment. Then he looks back at me, as if he’s just thought of something. “You’re a bookkeeper.”
“Unofficially, yes.”
“Could you help out at the bakery? Francesca ran the place, and right now there’s no one to do that. You don’t have to do it permanently if you don’t want to, but until I can figure out what to do with it.”
“Sure, no problem. Should I go over tomorrow?”
“It’s closed on Sundays, but you can go Monday.”
“My first day of work, just in time for me tell you all about it during date night,” I tell him, lightly whacking his arm. “Look at you, modernizing.”
Mateo rolls his eyes. “Like I said, temporary.”
“If I want. You said if I want.”
He can argue all he wants, but I’m smug. He doesn’t argue, because he has people to intimidate into doing his bidding and enemies to track down, but he does roll his eyes at me in rebuttal.
Chapter Twenty Two
“I cannot believe you Mateo’d me into this.”
I grin at Mia, who is so, so tipsy on wine right now that she can’t sit up straight. “In my defense, I knew you’d say no.”
Jabbing a finger in my direction, she says, “That’s why you Mateo’d me. Vince thought y
ou guys were bros. He’s gonna be so pissed at you now.”
“I don’t want Vince to be pissed at me,” I object. “We’re totally bros. I just needed some girl time. I asked Vince nicely to bring you, he told me no. I had to go over his head.”
She’s smirking, which is funny since Mia doesn’t usually smirk, and pointing a wobbly finger at me. “Mateo.”
I shrug, taking a drink of my bottled water. “I’ve been called worse.”
Mia shakes her head, taking another sip of her wine. “How’d you do it?”
“Do what?”
“Harness him. You can, like, wield him now. How did you do that?”
“I can’t wield him,” I say, laughing at the absurdity of such a thing.
Her blue eyes widen so earnestly, I have to force myself not to laugh. “You can. You do. You want something, he makes it happen. Usually he’s the one pulling the strings, but you figured out how to pull his. How?”
I shake my head in denial. “I don’t pull his strings. I just love him, and he loves me. I think I get to borrow a little bit of his power by virtue of being his woman—it’s still all his, I just get perks.”
“You seem so happy with him,” she says, like I’m exceptional actress.
“I am,” I agree.
She shakes her head for way too long, bobbing. “I never saw that coming. Mateo seemed like the kind of guy who would be impossible to handle. I thought he’d need an actual doormat, not some mouthy, bold weirdo.”
I laugh hysterically at being called a weirdo, and Mia laughs with me, just because she’s really drunk.
“You need to help me with this wine,” she states, emptying her glass and then pouring some more.
I reach out for it, afraid she’s going to spill it all over Mateo’s sitting room. He’s not fond of mess, and I don’t want to bother a maid.
She manages to get it all in the glass and put it back down. “This is fun though. I’m glad we can do stuff like this. I never actually imagined Mateo with someone, but if he was, I didn’t picture her liking me.”
“The doormat, you mean?” I ask with my own smirk.
“Yes,” she drawls. “I’m way more jealous than you. When I first met Cherie, I didn’t know she was Vince’s sister, and I was so jealous of her.”
“Cherie’s really pretty,” I say, nodding. “I’m just not a man babysitter. Rodney tried to make me jealous a few times, but it failed hard. The way I see it, I shouldn’t have to follow you around making sure you keep your dick in your pants.”
Snorting indelicately, she says, “Again, how did you end up with Mateo?”
“I don’t see him cheating. If he didn’t use you to punish me when he literally thought I was here to kill him for my rival boyfriend, he’s not gonna. I mean, I don’t know your history with him, but I think he’s smart enough to know better. Cheating on someone you care about is just about the dumbest thing a person could possibly do. If you’re cheating, you’re either so stupid you don’t know you’re going to make your partner stop loving you, or you want out. Mateo’s not stupid, and if he ever wants out, I’m fucked anyway.”
“You can’t leave him?” she questions, though she’s nodding like she already assumed.
I shake my head, fingering the locket hanging around my neck. “Nope. I took this death necklace and signed over my soul.”
“He loves to acquire souls,” she tells me, peering at the locket. “What’s inside?”
“I don’t know, I haven’t been able to get the damn thing open. Probably pictures of some old people I don’t know, so I’m not that worried about it. I mean, I don’t ever want to leave him anyway, but no, it’s not an option.”
“That used to be my life. When Vince and I first got together—well, when Mateo first met me—I was in that same predicament with Vince. I didn’t get a necklace out of it, but Mateo made it so if Vince ever got sick of me…” She draws a solemn line across her neck, indicating her death.
“Ew,” I say, frowning.
She nods. “It’s not like that anymore, now we’re just in a normal relationship, but yeah, that kind of pressure was not easy to deal with. I always thought being with Mateo would’ve been that kind of pressure every single day of your life. Like, just this suffocating fear and paranoia. He’s so much and how does one woman sustain him?”
I shake my head. “It’s not like that at all.”
“I was convinced it would’ve been.”
I watch as she takes another sip of her wine, considering her words. “Do you mean for anyone, or for you? Were you entertaining the idea of a relationship with Mateo?”
“I did, briefly, a couple times. At one point, Vince did get sick of me. Mateo’s fault, but I thought Vince didn’t want me anymore, and this was before Mateo freed me, so I was pretty much out of options. If Vince didn’t want me, Mateo was gonna kill me—unless he was still toying with me, then I got a reprieve for however long. But, yeah. If Vince and I wouldn’t have patched things up, I probably would’ve ended up with Mateo.” Grinning, she sways toward me. “Guess it’s a good thing that didn’t happen, huh?”
I’m not sure if I wish I was drunk with her or not, but this conversation would probably be more fun with alcohol flowing through my veins. “How did that… I mean, how did he free you?”
“I fucked my way out,” she states without hesitation. “You know how when you’re in a gang and you want out, everybody beats the shit out of you, and if you survive, you’re out? Well, Mateo’s the whole gang, but I survived him and he gave me my freedom for it.”
“He’s a swell guy that way,” I remark.
She snorts. “Swell, yeah. Don’t talk to Vince about that though, he doesn’t know I voluntarily slept with Mateo to get us out. Or, he might, but we pretend he doesn’t.”
“Mateo didn’t hit you though?” I ask, to be sure, given her example.
Scowling, she verifies, “No, just an analogy. I don’t think he’s angry enough to hit women. I’ve never seen him that angry until he thought you cheated. Oh, buddy.”
“Yeah, he doesn’t take infidelity well.”
“No one does, he just has unchecked power. In the throes of fresh betrayal, no one should have Mateo’s power. If Vince did, he would’ve wiped Mateo out a long time ago.”
“Not you?”
She shakes her head, grabbing her wine. “He knew it wasn’t my fault. I mean, he acted like it was, but what could I really do?”
“Not cheat?” I return lightly.
“I didn’t have—” She stops, frowning, and then nods, a little more grounded. “Yes. You’re right, that would’ve been the right thing to do. But I had to get us out of this house, and he Indecent Proposal’d me, and I said fuck it.”
I shrug, shifting my position on the couch. “I’m not here to judge. Obviously, you and Vince worked it out, and I’m glad.”
“I’m not, like, a cheater. It’s just, he’s Mateo.”
I smile faintly, nodding. “I understand. I’ve never cheated, but I’m glad I didn’t meet Mateo when I was married.”
“Right?” Her eyes widen. “He’s like a force of nature. There’s just something about him.”
“You still think so?”
“Of course. I mean, obviously not that I would act on, but that’s why I had to get out of this house. I’ve never met someone who had such a magnetic pull. Even though you know what he is, and you know he’s terrible for you, you can’t help being just… drawn to him. Right?” She looks to me for validation.
I nod sympathetically. “Yeah, I wouldn’t disagree.” Not super thrilled that she still feels it, but hey. Whatever, right?
“Vince is so much easier to handle. When I first met him I thought he was scary, but then I met Mateo. Now Vince feels like… gentle ocean waves lapping around you after a goddamn hurricane.” Cutting her eyes to me very seriously, she says, “Mateo is the hurricane.”
“I surmised as much.”
“Vince is great,” she says, all dreamy
now. “I love Vince.”
“Do you love Mateo?”
She’s had enough wine not to shut me right down, and she takes a moment to think about it. “Yeah, I guess I do. Not the way you do,” she adds, even drunk. “Not the same way I love Vince, but… I don’t want him to be lonely, even when he’s an ass and he deserves it. I want him to be happy. I care about him. I don’t know if I have Stockholm syndrome or I just feel like he’s family,” she tells me, grinning. “But when I realized you were making him happy, I was so glad.”
That puts my mind at ease in more ways than one. While not jealous by nature, I was starting to get a smidge worried about all her talk of being drawn to him. Mateo is a very magnetic person, and I don’t expect no other woman will ever be drawn to him, but preferably not one who already has a sexual history with him.
Also given the various times I’d doubted the actual nature of their sexual history. If it was as bad as I’d feared during the worst moments, she wouldn’t love him.
“Don’t tell Vince that though,” Mia adds, seeming to realize what she just said. “Obviously he wouldn’t understand.”
“I wouldn’t,” I assure her.
“I still dream about him sometimes.”
Shaking my head, I uncap my water and take a drink. “Man, I wish I was drunk right now.”
Eyes widening as if she’s just realizing, she asks, “Why aren’t you?”
I’m not sure this is the right time to say so, but I’m not sure there is a right time, so I say, “I haven’t had a period since I moved in.”
Somehow her eyes go even wider. “Are you pregnant?”
“Maybe. I haven’t taken a test yet, but I’ve been emotional and I don’t normally miss periods. Lots of unprotected sex, so it’s not an unreasonable guess.”
Nodding, she says, “He hates condoms. I was so relieved when I wasn’t pregnant. But also a little sad, just the tiniest bit, because I realized since Vince doesn’t want kids, that was probably my only chance. But it would’ve been a disaster, so it was definitely a good thing. Are you excited, or not so much?”
My eyebrows are still hiked up over that last piece of information. “You thought you were pregnant by…?”