Redeemed (Dirty Air Series Book 4)

by Lauren Asher

  His face catches me off guard, full of anguish as he stares me in the eyes. “You have me.”

  “Yeah, for how long?”

  “As long as you want me.” His arms tighten around me.

  As long as you want me.

  As long as you want me?!

  What does someone say to that? How does someone even feel about that?

  Santiago cups my chin with the gentlest touch. “I don’t know why Matteo ran away. I can only assume he’s in shock, and that he will come around sooner rather than later to the idea of you. But I promise you that you’re not alone in this. You do have people who lov—care about you.” His cheeks flush. “I care. Brooke cares. So it’s not about the amount of people who do—but rather the quality of that care—that matters. I might be a bit biased, but whoever doesn’t care about you is crazy, because you are single-handedly one of the best people I know. And I’m not the least bit sorry if they run away, because that means I can keep you all to myself. Because with you, I like being selfish.”

  My vision blurs. Something in the way Santiago looks at me has something in my chest coiling around my lungs, squeezing the oxygen straight out of me.

  Santiago is everything I didn’t realize I was missing in my life. Security. Friendship. Love. The tiny voice in my head whispers.

  I’m growing dependent on a person and I can’t deny the fear I have toward that. And cravings are bad. Cravings lead to destruction and heartache, and I’m not sure I can kick a bad habit like him. Everything about him sings to the broken part of my heart that desperately wants to be cared for. To be loved and cherished because I matter. To love someone else fully, and not let a day go by that they don’t know it.

  “I like you a lot,” I whisper. It’s not a declaration of love, but it’s the most I can do for now.

  He presses a soft kiss at the corner of my lips. “I like you a lot too. I like you a lot more than anyone else.”

  He runs his hand through my hair. It soothes me, easing the ache in my chest.

  “When do you know if you like versus love someone?” My hoarse voice breaks the silence between us.

  “I can only speak from personal experience, but I think I can tell when it takes all my self-control not to stomp across my neighbor’s yard and knock him out for making my girl cry.”

  Everything stops. My heart. My breathing. Santiago’s hand brushing through my hair.

  I blink up at him. “Personal experience?”

  He nods.

  “You love me?”

  “I’d be insane not to.”

  I can’t think, let alone speak. I wrap my arms around his neck and pull his lips to mine. Tears trickle down my cheeks, but I ignore them. Santiago kisses me back. It’s a battle of tongues clashing and lips smashing together. I’m intoxicated, getting drunk on breathing in his life.

  He pulls away. “I love you, Chloe. I love you so damn much, sometimes I ask myself if it’s normal to have an uncomfortable feeling in my chest whenever you’re not around.”

  “I don’t even know what loving someone else feels like, let alone how to accept it from someone.” I frown, hating how true the words are.

  “Will you let me show you?”

  His simple question steals my breath away. I nod my head, desperate to replace the ugliness Matteo left behind. There’s nothing I want more than Santiago’s love. I want to know what it feels like to be the center of someone’s world, even if it’s for a few hours.

  Santiago rises from the couch and places me on my feet. He grabs my hand and drags me through the house toward his bedroom.

  My pulse point throbs as he throws me on the bed. Heavy breaths leave my mouth, covering the clicking noises of Santiago removing his iWalk. A steady buzz takes over my body. My skin grows hot beneath my clothes, and I rip off all obstructions.

  Santiago crawls over my body, chuckling. “You want to know what love feels like?” He cups the area begging for him. A single finger traces my arousal, spreading it.

  “Yes.” I nod my head up and down. Do I ever. How can someone ever say no to him? He looks at me in a way I’ve never recognized before.

  “Loving you feels like I found a life raft in the middle of a raging ocean.”

  “Is that supposed to be romantic?” I tease.

  He tugs on my hair, forcing me to arch my back. His lips trail down my neck before sucking on my nipple. Eager hands touch every inch of my skin as if he needs to commit my body to memory.

  I groan as he inserts a finger and presses his thumb against my clit. His touch is electric. Thrilling. Adoring.

  This is what love is. Being cherished and revered because the person wants to, not because they have to.

  He leaves behind a faint kiss at my pulse point. “Loving you is like being stranded in a desert without food or water. Like I’m half delusional, wondering if this whole damn thing is a mirage, because nothing should feel or look this good.” His slow torture takes a turn as he increases his tempo and inserts another finger inside of me.

  His expert touch ignites every cell inside of me. Heat rushes across my skin as he strokes my most sensitive spot, forcing my back to arch off the mattress. All too soon, he leaves me panting as he makes quick work of the condom.

  He returns, lining himself at my entrance. “And most of all, loving you is realizing heaven isn’t a place, but a person.”

  I clutch onto his back as he slides into me. Waves of heat roll across my skin as I take every inch of him. The feeling is unlike anything I’ve experienced before, with a surge of emotions hitting me all at once. Santiago’s words seep into the crushed part of me, reviving something I forgot existed in the first place. The part my mother broke. The part I hid from the world after years of anger and disappointment.

  Tears leak out of my eyes, soaking the pillow underneath me. The way Santiago looks at me sets me ablaze from the inside out. I feel like a phoenix begging to rise again.

  His thumb wipes away one of my tears. “I love you, Chloe. And it’s okay if you don’t know what it means to be loved by someone, let alone love someone else because I promise to love you enough for the two of us. To love you every day to make up for everyone else who failed miserably.”

  He really does love me. Deeply. Madly. Unconditionally.

  I tighten my legs around his waist, pulling him as close as possible to my body. “I want that kind of love.”

  His lips clash against mine like lightning clapping through the stormy sky. It feeds the hunger building inside of me. His love surrounds us, healing me in the process.

  He pulls me back into the moment, kissing me into a mindlessness. Together, we find our release.

  This is bliss.

  This is love.

  This is us.

  39

  Santiago

  Sleep evades me as I consider everything Chloe shared about Matteo. Something about the situation doesn’t sit right with me, and I can’t shake it. I need him to understand why this is so important to Chloe. She deserves a chance to explain herself, and he needs to listen.

  It takes an insane amount of willpower to crawl out of bed and leave Chloe behind. She looks peaceful, mindlessly grabbing a pillow in my absence. I’m tempted to stare at her for a few minutes but decide against it. I’ll never leave if I keep it up.

  After putting on my prosthetic and some clothes, I make my way toward Matteo’s house. I press the ringer on his gate.

  “Chi e?”

  “Santiago Alatorre.” I keep my voice neutral.

  Nothing happens. Minutes pass, and not a single sound comes from the speaker. I move to press the button again but stop myself when the gates creak open.

  Morning sunrays guide my walk up his long driveway. I barely pay attention to my surroundings, instead focusing on Matteo standing on his porch.

  “Come inside.” He sighs and ushers me through his front door.

  I take in my surroundings, eyeing knickknacks and photos lining the walls.

  “I know w
hy you’re here.” He takes a seat on an old chair.

  I follow suit, taking a seat across from him. “I need you to talk to Chloe. Today.”

  “I can’t.” He shakes his head.

  “Why the fuck not?”

  He pauses. His eyes move around the room, landing on a spot behind my head. “Because I’m not her father.”

  “She has a DNA test that says otherwise.”

  He visibly swallows as he avoids my gaze. “I heard. But the test is wrong. I’m not her father.”

  I can’t believe this guy. “I’m curious to know who you think the fuck her father is then if it’s not you.”

  He looks up at me with eyes that weren’t glassy a second ago.

  What the hell?

  A single tear streaks down his cheek. “I can’t be Chloe’s father. I’ve never been with a woman from America, and I was faithful to my girlfriend—now ex-wife—at the time of Chloe’s conception. She’s not mine. She can’t be mine.”

  “Are you denying this because you’re afraid of your ex-wife or son finding out that you were unfaithful back then? Is that it?”

  He shakes his head. “No. Not at all. My ex is the least of my worries.” He shuts his eyes. “It’s just not possible. I’m being truthful, I swear it.”

  I try to wrap my head around the nonsense Matteo spews from his mouth but I struggle.

  “The test linked Chloe to you. I don’t care what fantasy you create to deal with this, but Chloe is your daughter.

  He bolts out of his chair. “No. You need to understand. There’s only one possible way Chloe is related to me.”

  Something about the wild look in his eye has me biting on my tongue.

  He paces the small living room space, running his hands through his hair. “Mio fratello mi sta fregando, persino dall’aldila.”

  “What?”

  “My brother is still screwing me over.”

  My heart halts in my chest. I don’t dare breathe. I don’t dare move. I can’t do anything but look at Matteo in silence.

  Brother?

  Matteo doesn’t bother saying anything as he leaves the room.

  I tap my fingers against my knee. The slamming of different drawers in the distance lets me know Matteo is still somewhere nearby. At least he hasn’t run away from the property before he has a chance to clear up whatever the fuck is going on.

  The longer I wait, the stronger my nausea grows. What did he mean by his brother screwing him over?

  Matteo steps back into the room, clutching a picture frame. He wipes the glass with his sleeve before passing it to me.

  Fuck. I couldn’t have made up what I was seeing even if I wanted to. And damn, I want to because this is the last thing I expected.

  The frame rattles as the shaking in my hands increases. There are two identical Matteos standing side by side. One Matteo beams at the camera while the other keeps a neutral face, looking rail thin and pale.

  Matteo runs a finger across the face I stare at. “That’s my twin brother. Dominic.”

  Thank God I’m sitting down because I don’t think I would’ve made it to a chair before passing out.

  Matteo returns to his seat across from me. “He’s the only explanation for all of this. I never had sex with someone in New York...and my brother...he would get into all kinds of trouble when we visited my mom.”

  I don’t care what his brother did as long as I can get his sorry ass here pronto. Chloe won’t give a damn about Matteo’s rejection if I can manage to secure her real father.

  “Where is your brother? I need to find him. If I can convince him to come here, then he can get to know Chloe, and it’ll solve all our problems.” And then she will stay.

  I can fix this. Sure, Chloe spent the whole summer getting to know Matteo instead of her real dad. But it’s not exactly time lost. He is her uncle after all.

  Matteo’s reddened cheeks lose their coloring. “My brother can’t come here.”

  “Why not? Where is he? I’ll pay for anything he needs to get here.”

  Matteo’s head hangs against his chest.

  My stomach drops, and a chill spreads across my skin. “Where is your brother, Matteo?” I bite out harsher than intended.

  Matteo sits in silence, staring at his hands.

  My patience wanes as Matteo fails to respond. “I’m going to need you to tell me how I can get in contact with Dominic. I don’t care if he’s a bad person or troubled, I just need to meet with him once to clear the air. I’ll fix the rest.”

  He looks at me, pain etched into his face like permanent wrinkles. “You can’t get in contact with my brother because he’s dead.”

  40

  Santiago

  I choke on my breath of air.

  Dead?

  Dead?!

  How the fuck am I supposed to fix this if the one man I need isn’t alive to begin with? I wipe my sweaty palms down my pants.

  What the hell is Chloe supposed to do if her father isn’t even alive?

  I settle on one question despite the flood of them filling my head. “What happened?”

  Matteo places the picture frame facedown on the coffee table. “My brother had issues.”

  “What kind of issues?”

  “The kind that end with an early death.”

  I can’t say I’m exactly surprised. Based on the one interaction I had with Chloe’s mom and the stories, it seems like she had a type.

  “I’m sorry about your loss.”

  His head drops. “Me too. The pain gets easier, but then something like this happens to bring it all back again.”

  “I can’t imagine what it’s like to have a sibling who struggled and passed away. The thought of losing my sister alone makes me sick.” I love Maya with everything in me. If she battled the same problems as Chloe’s dad, a part of me would struggle with her.

  “You have no idea the things I did to help him out. I’m not proud of half of them, but I didn’t have a choice. He was my brother.”

  “I can tell you cared about him a lot.”

  “It wasn’t enough in the end. I failed him. And now, he’s not here, and Chloe… God, what am I going to do?” He runs both hands through his dark hair.

  “You need to tell her the truth.” I disguise the tremble in my voice. The idea of this makes me sick with nausea.

  As much as I hate what happened to Chloe’s father, avoiding the topic won’t bring him back. Chloe deserves to know what happened to him before she invests more of her feelings into her relationship with Matteo.

  “He’s still getting me into trouble, even after all this time.”

  “If you don’t mind me asking, what happened to him?”

  “Drugs, alcohol, legal issues. You name it, he struggled with it. He was a mess up until the day he died, but I loved him despite it all. The summer before he passed, he got into some harder stuff, and his body couldn’t keep up. He died of cardiac arrest in the middle of a rat-infested apartment in New York City. He wasn’t even found until two days after he passed. My mother was absolutely destroyed. And me—” He clears his throat as he brushes away a single tear away from his cheek.

  Shit. What an awful way to go. “I’m sorry for your loss. Truly I am.”

  “Losing a brother is hard. But losing a twin is like someone cut off my arm.”

  I cringe.

  He swears something in Italian. “Sorry, that was a bad choice of words. It’s just, when I lost my twin, it was like I lost a part of myself that I never got back. Even with all his problems, we were close. I mean, we were mirror copies of one another, and we loved it.” A small smile spreads across Matteo’s lips. “It got us in all kinds of situations growing up. But I was loyal to a fault, and I bailed him out way too many times in life. Maybe I was part of the problem, always saving him. It took me a decade to let go of my guilt about his death. I was consumed by the idea that maybe if I had gotten him help sooner, he could still be here today. Maybe he could’ve had this conversation with you after
all. Maybe he could’ve met his daughter.” His eyes fall to his lap. One tear slips down his face before landing on his clenched hands.

  “I can’t imagine how hard it was for you.”

  “How am I supposed to tell Chloe that I’m not her father and that her real dad is dead?” His voice cracks.

  “I’m not sure there is an easy way to tell her.”

  He shakes his head. “I don’t think I can do it. It would destroy her.”

  “What do you mean ‘you don’t think you can do it’? You need to tell her.” I don’t like the look on his face. I don’t like it one bit.

  “How do you tell someone their real father is dead? How can you expect me to do that?”

  “I don’t know how you should tell her, but you will do it. She deserves to hear it from you.”

  “What if you told her instead of me?”

  I sputter. “What?” This man is absolutely psychotic.

  “Yes. You’re her boyfriend. She trusts you the most. It would be easiest coming from you than me—someone who is basically a stranger. You can soften the blow, and then I’ll share who my brother was with her once she’s ready.”

  I can’t find the nerve to break her heart. Not when I worked the whole summer to gain it in the first place.

  I shake my head from side to side aggressively. “No way. You’re not putting this on me. She deserves to hear it from the person who was closest to her father. And that’s not me. I can’t answer any of the questions she might have.” And the last thing I want to do is break her heart. I’d rather have Matteo be the one to do it.

  I can’t find it in me to rip someone’s dream away from them. It’s happened to me, and that kind of pain can be devastating.

  “Cazzo.” Matteo pinches the bridge of his nose.

  I don’t need a translator to draw my own conclusions about that phrase. His hesitation and dislike about the plan isn’t my problem. To be honest, I don’t give a fuck how upset this situation makes him. Chloe needs to hear this news from someone, and he’s the best choice. He can help her mourn the loss of her father better than I can.