“Come on in, Anton.” He waved at the man that sat in a chair in the reception area as he took off his suit coat and put it on the coat rack. “Talk to me.”
“Turns out that intel you got was true. It was the de Silvas that attempted to carry out the hit on your wife.” Anton looked Matteo square in the eye and Matteo knew that meant that it was best not to ask the big man with the cold, light-green eyes and hard jaw, how he’d attained that information. The whole idea of using Anton to carry out his orders was to keep his name out of the police department’s files.
“So, she’s out of danger now. Good.” Matteo took his seat behind the desk and pushed invoices and purchase orders out his way. He pulled a laptop from his briefcase and put it in the empty space he’d made. “Or is she?”
Anton hadn’t answered him as quickly as he should, and Matteo understood that hesitation. “Find out who ordered the hit then, if it wasn’t the de Silvas or the senator’s nephew. Or the senator. Fuck, we have too many enemies.”
The family had a lot of enemies, a lot of rivals, and it could have also been any number of organizations. Or people. Matteo had a suspicion, but it wasn’t one he wanted to fully acknowledge, not yet.
“Yes, boss. Will do.” Anton tapped the top of Matteo’s desk as a goodbye and left the office. He had a job to do and Matteo knew he’d get it done, no matter the cost.
Matteo knew he had a new problem; one he hadn’t quite counted on back when he’d made the decision to marry Marie. His enemies and rivals now knew he had a weakness: his wife. They would use that weakness as much as they could to take him down.
If he’d married her simply to save her from Celeste, he might not care, not much anyway. But he’d come to need her, to need the reassurance of her smile, the warmth that her smile gave him, and the happiness that the sound of her voice brought him. He needed the friendship she gave him and the care that he’d never had from anyone before.
His phone buzzed beside his laptop and he picked it up. “What do you want, Trina?”
“Are you going to keep her locked up forever?” His cousin’s impatient voice bombarded his ear and he pulled the phone away from his head and turned on the speaker. He was alone in the office, so it wasn’t a problem.
“Why do you have to be so fucking loud, Trina?”
“Because I’m a New Yorker, dumbfuck. Why the hell you think I’m so loud? Now, are you going to keep your wife a prisoner forever or not? Because I’d like to go out to lunch with her today if you don’t mind.”
“Not gonna happen, Trina. Sorry, but she stays put.”
“I hate you right now, do you know that?” She huffed for a long moment and swore under her breath. “Look, I know you’re caught up in the throes of your first time of being in love, but you can’t smother her like this, you’ll just drive her away. You have to let her out of that apartment soon or she’ll lose her mind, Matteo!”
“She’ll be fine, and you can visit her whenever you like, you know that.” He looked at one of the purchase orders on the pile he’d made and narrowed his eyes. That was far too much lumber, what the fuck were his builders doing on that project?
“You aren’t even listening to me now, are you?” She didn’t sound happy, and he knew she’d make him pay for it somehow, but right now, he didn’t care.
“Gotta go, Trin, talk to you later.” He ended the call and went about looking through the recent purchase orders.
That bastard running his work crew was trying to make a little money on the side it looked like. As soon as Penelope, the receptionist/accountant came in, he’d have a talk with her about the foreman. Then he might have to call Anton back in for a new job.
Greedy bastard, he thought as he waited for his laptop to load.
He turned on his VPN, the best money could buy, and looked at the file on a site on the dark web that Anton left for him. The takedown of the de Silvas had been brutal, from what he could see in the pictures, but it had to be. The world had to know you didn’t fuck with Matteo or his family. Even if Matteo couldn’t be traced back to that takedown.
Trina started to text him then. One every five minutes. Finally, he called her back.
“Stop, will you?” He scrubbed at his smooth jaw with a frustrated hand and sighed. “If she’s at home, I control the situation, I control who goes in and who comes out. My men keep her safe. If she’s out with you, anyone can attack her. I can’t have that.”
“Fuck me. Why can’t you just say you love her then, Matteo? Why keep her in the dark on that?”
“Because I don’t.” He said it gruffly, without conviction, because he knew it was a lie.
“Fucking liar. You do and you can’t handle it. That’s why you’ve suddenly become Bluebeard with his wife locked away from the world. Just try not to kill her or cause her to kill herself by keeping her locked away for fuck’s sake.”
“That’s just a little bit rude, Trina.” Matteo frowned and glared at the wall. “Am I going to have to cut off your allowance for a month?”
“Do it, see if I care.” Trina accepted his dare and spit it back at him. Damn.
“Seriously?” Matteo could think of a dozen other ways to get Trina off his back but knew she was right. Deep down, he knew she was.
“Seriously, Matteo. You need to tell your wife you love her and get her away from here. If she can’t walk freely around New York, maybe you should take her somewhere else, where she’s fucking safe.”
“Now that would be a perfect idea if I didn’t have to be here. But, you know I have to be in New York, I can’t leave the family business to anybody else. Not when she’s only just given me the reins.”
They both knew he was talking about Celeste.
“It’s not even really our family business, Matteo. Technically, it’s Marie’s isn’t it?”
“Ah. Yes, I suppose it is.” He’d known that they’d even talked about it, but to hear Trina say it out loud really brought the words to life.
“But, you can’t give up the baby you were trained your whole life to take over, can you?” Trina sighed loudly and clicked her tongue. “I don’t think this is going to end well for you, Matteo, not at the rate you’re going.”
“That’s a chance I’ll have to take, Trina. She’s worth it.” It was all a little confusing, this being in love after the life he’d lived. The things he’d been trained not to need.
“She is. Look, I know you’re doing your best, but you have to let her out, soon, Matteo. She can’t go on like this too much longer.”
“Yeah, yeah, go put your face on or something, Trina. I got shit to do.” Matteo hung up before she could interrupt him again.
Damn women, always on his ass. Except Marie wasn’t. She had promised him she would be a good little wife, and she had been. She’d done everything he’d ever asked of her and it was unfortunate that he had to pay that obedience back with what amounted to imprisonment. That was the way it had to be until he figured out who had put the hit out on her. Then she could leave.
He thought over what Trina had said about going somewhere, about leaving New York. It might come to that at some point, but he didn’t think it had gone that far yet. Not yet.