“You’re mine.” He leans over, grabbing my ankles to slide me forward between his open legs, my dress bunching beneath me. “I’m yours.”
“Don’t.” I plaster my hands to the tile. His thighs cage me. His chest is within reach. “I’m not doing this with you.”
“You have no choice. You walk, I follow. We won’t be apart.”
I glare. “How predatory.”
“It would be if you didn’t crave me, too, Layla. If you didn’t want this, I’d let you leave. But you do. And I won’t allow you to give up on something we both want just because of what your brother may say or do.”
“My brother may say or do something that puts you six feet under. Do you understand that?”
“I have no issue with Cole and he has no need to have one with me. If he wants his sister to be happy, he’ll give us his blessing.”
I scoff. “It’s not that simple.”
“It can be.”
“No. I let down my guard when I shouldn’t have. He doesn’t even know I was in Denver. That I was watching the Costas. He’ll think you’re trying to get information through me. That you could be—”
“I could be doing a lot of things, but I’m not.” He cups my cheeks in his heated palms, demanding I believe him with an expression that bleeds sincerity. “I don’t want to be anywhere near that lifestyle anymore. I don’t need money. The only thing I want from your family is you.”
No. This isn’t how it works.
I make mistakes and I pay for them. I don’t win prizes. I don’t come out in front. I bleed and burn and ache. I suffer and agonize and endure.
This misplaced longing and hope has no right to be inside my chest.
“I didn’t want to become distracted by you.” His thumb strokes my cheek. “I didn’t want any of this. But I’ll be damned if I give it up.”
I wince, believing him with every ragged beat in my chest. Succumbing. Yet I still know so little. I need more information. “How long had you been homeless?”
His face falls. In a blink, he’s defensive and inching away to rest back against the tub, his palms falling from my face. “Not long. A few months. Maybe more.”
“You don’t remember?
“I remember enough… It’s—” He huffs a sigh. “Give me a minute.”
He shoves to his feet and stalks for the hall, his loud footsteps echoing into the living room momentarily before returning. This time, he enters the bathroom with the contents of the hotel minibar in his hands. “This conversation requires alcohol.”
He reclaims his position a breath in front of me, dumping the liquor bottles to then grab my waist and deposit me on his lap.
“Matthew.” My protest is weak as I clutch his shoulder. If I had any chance of leaving it was before proximity set in. It needed to be prior to the chemistry shift and the attraction deluge.
“What?” He taunts me with a raised brow and snatches the tiny scotch bottle from the tile, unscrews the lid then takes a gulp. “In answer to your question—” He takes another mouthful. “—I’m not sure exactly how long I was homeless because I try my best to forget.”
I steel myself against the empathy. Against agony.
“I spent frozen nights under bridges and inside dumpsters. Then I started breaking into cars to have somewhere clean to sleep. It didn’t take long to start cashing them in for drugs and booze, which is how Lorenzo found me.” He finishes the remainder of the scotch and drops the bottle, the plastic bouncing against the tile. “Apparently, I’d built a name for myself for being the sorry son of a bitch who was smart enough to hot-wire a car, but too self-destructive to find himself a safe place to stay.”
My muscles tense, every inch. “Are you still using?”
“Hell no. Back then I was a stupid teenage kid, and I was suffering.” He holds my gaze, his face tense. “Prior to losing everything, I had a girlfriend, Layla. A beautiful, happy, and motivated girl who made my shitty family life livable. We had plans to skip town together. To start fresh.”
Dread creeps into my veins, the horrible sense of foreboding suffusing me.
“But she…” He pauses, scrunching his nose in anger, his brows slicing in vicious strokes. “She died.”
My heart creeps into my throat, the tightness cutting off air. “I’m sorry.”
He grabs for another liquor bottle and cracks the lid. “It was a long time ago. But in the moment, she was all I had. I adored everything about her. Her smile. Her laugh. Her light… then that light was gone and my grief became rage.”
I have no words. And I’ve suffered through enough unwanted placations and anecdotes about loss since Benji’s death to know silence is a far kinder response. All I can do is blink at him through burning eyes and hope he understands my support.
“So Lorenzo’s generosity wasn’t only a home for the homeless,” he continues. “It was a distraction for the crazed. Not to mention stability and power for someone obsessed with revenge.”
“Revenge?”
His lips flatten in a tight line, his free hand tangling in the material of my dress. “Grace was murdered.”
I close my eyes, his pained journey hitting too close to home.
I always knew we were one and the same. Two people from different parts of the country living such similar lives it hurt. Now it’s so much more than that.
We’ve traveled an identical path. Climbed equivalent mountains. Battled the same enemies.
His indoctrination into the mafia seems understandable now. Acceptable. And the fact he got out… I shake my head, overwhelmed with admiration. Burning from it. Blistering with the need to whisper my support.
I reach for the liquor bottle. His strong fingers let go of the prize to allow me to take a gulp. The burn of vodka hits my tongue, my throat, then sears its way into my empty stomach.
I want to tell him I understand. That I know how he must have felt. But instead, a question seeks supremacy, bubbling from my lips. “Do you know who killed her?”
“I do.” He nods. Succinct. “I’ll give you one guess.”
27
Layla
“Emmanuel killed her?” The question tears up my throat.
Matthew nods.
His revelation only makes our paths more entwined. It’s him and me. There’s not a soul in the world who could understand what we’ve both been through. Only us.
“Does Lorenzo know?” I ask.
“Yes. My hatred wasn’t something I could hide.”
“But you’ve never…” I let the sentence fall short.
He’s been in the same room with his girlfriend’s murderer. He watches him. Stalks him. How can he not react?
“There isn’t a day when I don’t think about ending his life,” he confesses. “But as you know, there are rules. Lorenzo might despise his brother-in-law, but the man is still his sister’s husband. He’s not to be touched.”
“So you keep an eye on him instead.”
“I snoop to find things I can sabotage.” He reclaims the vodka and finishes the bottle. “Being unable to physically hurt him doesn’t mean I don’t do it financially.”