I felt that in my soul.
It didn't stop me from trembling as I burrowed into him though. He guided me out of the house, and I resisted the urge to ask questions. I got into the car, Matteo in the driver's seat, and didn't even argue when he pulled me over the center console and crushed me to his chest. "Teo, what—?"
"When we get home. I'll explain everything when we get home." He set me back to my seat, and I buckled up.
"Why not now?" I asked when he put the car in gear and started down the driveway. The gate opened at the end, and we escaped Gabriele's manor in one piece.
Or two.
"I can't have you trying to run. I need you locked down first," he admitted, and my heart clenched.
"It's bad, isn't it?"
"Do you love me?" he asked.
"You know I do."
"Then that's all that matters."
I hung my head, tears threatening to fall. Matteo had shot someone.
His own uncle.
And he didn't seem the least bit remorseful. "That's not the first time you've shot someone, is it?"
"When we get home."
I released a quiet sob, turning my attention to stare out the window.
I was so fucking screwed.
✽✽✽
The door to Matteo's office closed behind him with a quiet click. He turned to face me, a thousand emotions flitting across his normally impassive face. "You need to understand that what I'm about to tell you will change nothing."
"Teo, you're scaring me," I whispered, stepping back as far as the space would allow when he prowled toward me. He caged me between him and the desk, touching my cheek so gently I might have thought I imagined it had my eyes been closed.
"Anyone but you would be right to be afraid. Anyone but you would have to be stupid not to be, but I'll never hurt you, Angel," he whispered. "I wish I could be a better man for you, but I'm not, and I can't be."
"Why can't we just leave? Go somewhere and be someone else?"
"This is all I know. They raised me to run the family businesses, and I can't abandon that legacy. I'd always be a threat to whoever tried to take over, and we'd never be safe. Not really."
"I don't understand." I shook my head, staring up at him with glassy eyes.
He sighed, touching his forehead to mine. It felt final. It felt like he knew, no matter what he demanded, that whatever came next would cost him.
That it would cost him me.
"My family has run this city since my grandfather was in charge. Nothing happens here without our say so."
"You make it sound like you’re some kind of mob boss." I shook my head with a dark chuckle, my smile fading when his eyes caught mine. He didn't laugh. Didn't flinch. "No. That's ridiculous."
"We call it more of a syndicate, but the premise is the same," he said, voice low.
Quiet, as if waiting for me to scream.
"But mobsters deal drugs and sell weapons!" I whisper hissed. "They sell women, and you told me you didn't do that."
"I told you I didn't take part in sex trafficking. The women who work for me are willing and very well compensated—" The sound of my hand striking him across the face echoed through the otherwise silent office. I stared at him in horror, waiting for the beast to strike. But to my amazement, he only nodded. "I deserved that."
"You think?" My eyes went to the ring on my finger, staring at it as tears slid down my cheeks.
"Don't even think about it," he snarled at me, pulling my attention away from the ring that suddenly felt like a shackle to a life I didn't want.
"I don't want to be a mob wife."
"Too fucking bad. I told you, this changes nothing," he stressed, pressing into me tighter. "I do what I can to keep innocent people from getting caught up in this world, Ivory. I'm not a good man, but I'm not the worst there is. Me in charge is what's best for the city."
"You shot your own uncle!" I protested.
"He disrespected you!"
"Was it the first time you've shot someone then?" I asked with a grimace, because he and I both knew that I didn't want to know the answer to that question. I needed to bury my head in the sand and pretend the day never happened.
"No," he admitted.
"Have you killed before?" I whispered, and his face shuttered as he stared at me.
"Don't ask me questions you don't want the answer to, Angel."
"Oh God," I cried, flinching away from him. But I had nowhere to go. Nowhere to run. "You're a murderer," I whispered.
"In my life, it is kill or be killed. I have done what I need to do to survive."
"This is why you left me, isn't it? You need a good little Italian wife to make your mob happy. Fuck, I'm so stupid," I winced.
"No. My uncle believes that women are a weakness. People only use the ones we love against us, and to protect Lino and I he forced us to stay away from the women we love. He threatened you, and I had no choice but to walk away to keep him from hurting you, Angel. Believe me. Nothing else could have ever made me leave you."
"You expect me to believe you broke me to protect me? I wasn't worth walking away from this shit?! You chose this over me, Matteo. You do not get to sugar coat that. The wealth, the power, God. Is that all that matters to you?"
His hands grasped me around my waist, twisting me around until he bent me over his desk.
I gasped, swatting at his hands behind me as he hefted my dress up over my ass. The hand at the back of my neck kept me pinned in place, unable to even begin to fight him. "Stop it!" I shrieked, flinching when he tore my thong down my legs.
"And what about you, Angel? What happened to my adrenaline junkie who couldn't get enough of the rush of doing something wrong? Who loved to drive my fast cars without a license and dared any cop to fuck with her?" His fingers pressed between my thighs, finding me already growing wet in response to his skilled manipulations of my body.
"I was a stupid child!" I yelled. "I did stupid shit, and it got me in a stupid situation."
"No, the only thing you did that was stupid," he said, releasing himself from his pants and pressing inside me slowly until he filled me to the brim. "Was doing something like that without me to protect you." He groaned, and I heard him fumble around in a drawer of his desk.
"What are you doing?" I whispered; my head turned the wrong way.
"Before you go accusing me of shit I didn't do, I've never fucked anyone but you in this house. This is for all those nights when I'd sit here, working late, and imagining your pretty fucking lips wrapped around my dick." I had no clue what he was talking about, but it came a little clearer the moment a bottle uncapped, and cold liquid trickled down between my cheeks.
"Matteo!" I gasped, squirming away when he pressed his thumb against that forbidden place.
"I'm going to show you just how good it can feel to be bad, Cara mia."
"Teo!" I screamed, wincing when that thumb popped inside the outer ring of muscle and pressed inside me. His cock worked my pussy, sliding in and out of me in slow, intoxicating strokes that teased my g-spot without ever sending me over the edge.
"You are mine. This pussy is mine." His thumb left my ass, leaving me with a bizarre empty feeling until he replaced it with a long finger and pressed in mercilessly.
"It hurts," I whispered.
"This ass is mine," he continued as if he hadn't heard me. "You say it hurts, and yet your pussy is strangling my cock and so fucking wet I can hear it." He added another finger, making me burn from the inside out. That same dark pleasure I got when Matteo did things, I shouldn't like set me on fire, coiling in my core and waiting to explode.
"Let me come," I begged, not even recognizing the deep rasp of my own voice.
"You come when you take my cock in your ass." He gave another teasing roll of his hips, tormenting me in all the best ways. "You ready for that?"
"Just do it already," I hissed, feeling strangely brave in the face of what I was so sure would tear me in two. That dark side of me craved the t
hings Matteo did, the way he took control of my body and demanded what he wanted without preamble.
He groaned, pulling his fingers free. He abandoned my pussy in favor of rubbing lube all over himself if the squeezing sound of the bottle behind me was any sign. With both his hands used, he finally had no choice but to let go of my neck. I turned my head to look back at him, watching him. For the first time when I looked at him, I knew exactly who he was. Exactly what he did.
It changed nothing. Didn't change the fact that I loved him with every fiber of my being.
I hated myself for it, knowing I could love a monster capable of such unforgivable sins.
When the head of him pressed against my ass, I tried to relax. While I may not have had anal before, I knew enough to know tensing up was not in my best interest. He stilled me with a hand at my hip, guiding himself inside slowly and making me whimper beneath him. The stretch was uncomfortable, outright painful even, but the way pleasure built with every minuscule thrust into me was undeniable. Wrapping a hand around me, Matteo worked his fingers at my clit in slow, tantalizing circles, adding more pleasure to the mix to overwhelm the pain. He paused, pressing his forehead to my back momentarily when his balls touched my pussy. "You like this," he groaned, and the slickness coating his fingers was undeniable. He pulled back, pressing back in slowly.
"Fuck!" I moaned, wiggling my hips to get more friction from his fingers.
"Not yet," he ordered, stilling me with a slap to my left butt cheek.
"You said I could come when your dick was in my ass. Did you not get the memo that it's in there? Because I sure as fuck did," I argued. He chuckled, humor in every little inflection of that deep voice.
"Oh, I sure as fuck got that memo, Angel." He pulled back, picking up his pace when I didn't protest. His strokes were still soft, downright delicate compared to the way he normally took my pussy, and I could feel his eyes watching the spot where he entered me so gently. "You look so fucking beautiful taking my cock in your ass."
"Fuck you, Teo," I groaned, and his fingers left my clit in favor of pressing two inside my pussy. "Oh God," I cried, thrusting back against him. "Please."
That thumb of his pressed to my clit, and I detonated around him on a cry. Heat scorched my insides when he followed me over the edge, and we stayed in place long enough to catch our breaths.
Matteo pulled free and brought me to shower without another word.
I felt like I'd changed. Like the Ivory I'd been before was gone, replaced by a woman who would let a murderer fuck her ass and love it.
It left me feeling numb.
Because I didn't recognize myself when I looked in the mirror. Matteo was content to hold me close, smothering me so he knew that I hadn't left. He didn't say it, but I could see the panic in rare moments. I knew he didn't want to lose me anymore than I wanted to lose him, so one of us would have to concede.
I knew it would be me.
It always was.
Twenty-Seven
Matteo
Ryker stood just inside the door, welcoming me inside with a nod. "Is he alive?" I asked.
Another nod in response, but the tension pouring off him was tangible. It impressed me the man was still alive.
The dealer who had shot his woman's husband had been a very idiotic man.
There was no doubt in my mind that he wouldn't walk away with his life. Even if I'd been so inclined, which I wasn't, there would be no way to talk Ryker down from the cliff. Not after I'd seen the pictures of Calla sobbing with her two children clinging to her.
"What are you going to do about the woman?" I asked as we walked toward the freezer. Her husband hadn't been a good man, the crooked cop that he was, but she hadn't had the slightest clue about that. So wrapped up in the picture perfect life they lived, she never saw the darkness that lurked beneath the surface in the man she'd married and shared a bed with. She didn't know him. Not in the slightest. The reality made me grateful that the truth was out with Ivory. No matter how much the truth of who I was had hurt her, the pain was done. She could heal, and there would be no more secrets between us.
Not that she'd ever find out about, anyway.
"She needs time," he answered gruffly, one of the rare twinges of emotion crossing over his face. Only that woman and those kids could bring out anything that even remotely resembled humanity in the enigma that was Ryker. "They aren't ready."
"No, they're not," I agreed. "It would take a cruel man to uproot them right now."
He nodded. "She hasn't worked in years. Never needed to. I'll send money. Take care of them until they're ready to understand."
He opened the freezer door, schooling his harsh features back into the mask of indifference that he was so gifted at. I wondered if it was conflicting for him. He didn't want Calla and the kids to suffer but having Chad out of the way undoubtedly freed up the place he wanted to fill more than anything.
I stepped in behind him, glaring at the beaten pulp that remained of the overzealous street dealer who worked for me. His eyes were nearly swollen shut, but even with all that, he still recognized me the moment I walked in. "Mr. Bellandi," he sobbed.
"Who gave you permission to kill the cop?" I asked.
"No—nobody, sir. He saw me dealing, was gonna arrest me. I didn't have no choice!" the guy sniveled, greasy hair hanging down to his shoulders in a matted mess of blood and his own filth.
"Tell me, what do you think is more valuable to me? A low-time street dealer who buys more of his own product than he sells or a cop on my payroll who makes evidence disappear? Hmm?"
He winced, fat tears rolling down his blood-stained cheeks. "I didn't know!"
"Even if he wasn't on my payroll, do you think it's more of a hassle for me to get you out of prison for dealing? Or for killing a cop?"
"I'm sorry. I didn't think—"
"Clearly," I spat. "His wife and kids are important to my friend Ryker. I'll let him decide what to do with you. But allow me to make one thing clear. You'll never see the light of day again, so you can save your apologies. I'm not in the habit of employing idiots." I turned, striding for the freezer door. Ryker nodded at me, a little satisfied smirk playing at his lips.
However, he ended the dealer's life, one thing was for sure.
It wouldn't be pleasant.
The dealer's screams started before the freezer door closed behind me and cut the sound off completely.
As soon as I was out of the warehouse, I climbed into the Aston and went home.
It would be the first time I did something unsavory after Ivory learned the truth. She'd given me a look when I left the house at ten at night that communicated exactly what she suspected.
I guess the good thing was that I didn't need to fear she'd think I was having an affair.
Bright side.
I drove in silence, hoping she'd be sleeping by the time I got home. If she asked, I'd tell her the truth. But I still wanted to keep her as sheltered from that side of my life as possible.
She was everything good, soft, and sweet. I loved that about her and intended to do anything I could to protect it.
Even if it meant keeping her in the dark.
When I finally pulled up in front, the house was quiet, nobody but my security moving around the property. I nodded at one of the door guards, moving into the house wordlessly. The sight of Ivory curled up in the center of my bed, tangled in the blankets, made my heart heavy.
I couldn't stand it when she tried to sleep without me, the way her brain felt the danger that came with not being wrapped up in me.
I stripped out of my clothes, showering as efficiently as I could. Even though I had done nothing, hadn't even put hands on the man, I couldn't sully Ivory with the filth of my decisions. I wore my bloodied hands like armor but would never allow them to stain her.
When I was finally clean, I climbed into bed with her, my boxer briefs on just for safety. I didn't tolerate Ivory sleeping naked if I could avoid it and didn't do it myself either. W
ith my lifestyle, the risk of there being an emergency in the middle of the night was too great. I pulled her into me, rolling her under my body like every other night. Her brow immediately settled, relaxing into a content expression even in her sleep.
I knew exactly how Ryker felt about Calla.
Because Ivory was the only thing that made me feel human.
I breathed her in, savoring the humanity that only she could give me.
And fell asleep faster than I ever had after leaving the warehouse where all my greatest sins happened.
Twenty-Eight
Matteo
"Matteo. Mr. Atticus Revere is here to see you. Shall I instruct Pete to open the gate?" Donatello rarely interrupted when I was working, particularly after Ivory started spending her computer time in my office with me.
He never knew when we might be preoccupied.
I wasn't even sorry.
"Yes." I nodded, concern pooling in my stomach. There weren't many men who had my respect enough to worry me when they dropped by unannounced.
"Atticus Revere?" Ivory asked, her lips pursing as she thought her way through the name. "Why do I know that name?"
"He's a pro-football player. Quarterback for Minnesota." I stood, helping Ivory gather up her notebooks. "You can meet him, if you like, but we'll need a few moments. I'm sorry, Angel. I wasn't aware he'd be dropping by."
She shrugged. "I should start making lunch, anyway. How do you know a Pro-football player?"
"My father put him through school. Even when he was in high school, he was an incredible athlete, apparently. But his grades weren't good enough to land a scholarship. My father always loved football. Wanted to see the kid do well, give him the chance he wouldn't have if he hung around Chicago." My father had been a cold man, uncaring most of the time. But God help the man who tried to come between him and his football.
I set Ivory's things on the coffee table when Rev swaggered into the office with an easy smile. I returned it, moving forward to shake his hand. "Good to see you, Bellandi."
Bloodied Hands: A Dark Mafia Romance (Bellandi Crime Syndicate Book 1) Page 19