by Eden Summers
Holy fucking shit.
The Cappellettis.
“What is it?” Matthew frowns. “What’s wrong?”
All the blood drains from my face.
“Layla,” he demands. “Fucking ask. Talk to me.”
“Your mentor is Emmanuel Costa’s brother-in-law.” My voice is barely audible as a tremor takes over my limbs. How could I forget? How could he not have told me? After all this time, he kept his connection to the Costas a secret. “Is this a setup? Have you been playing me since the moment we met?”
“Stop. No.” His upper lip sneers. “My mentor is Emmanuel’s enemy. They despise each other. Lorenzo can’t stand the man his sister married. None of his brothers can.”
I shake my head. This is too much.
Too many secrets.
Too heavy a reliance on trust that I never should’ve given.
Warning bells and calls for calm poison my blood, the warring toxicity increasing. I’d been happy with him. At home. I’d been empowered and invigorated and blissed.
And all this time, we’d both been lying. To ourselves. To each other.
He has no idea who he’s introduced to his infamous mentor.
“I’m leaving.” The words are a pained whisper over the bile at the back of my throat.
“Not like this you’re not.” He stalks toward the entry, preempting my escape. “Once I’ve answered all your questions and you have the information to make an informed—”
“This isn’t merely about making an informed decision. No matter what you tell me, it won’t change the fact I have secrets of my own. Secrets that make this situation worse than the hell it already is.”
His face loses the tense edge. “I know you, Layla.”
“You keep saying that, but you have no clue.”
“You’re wrong.” His voice lowers, the edge of hostility replaced with a tone I can’t describe. Pity? Regret? “I know who you are.”
There’s something different in his conviction this time. Something more pointed in his confidence over my character. Something capable of twisting mercilessly at my stomach.
My pulse increases. My panic, too.
I shake my head, ignoring his faith. Needing to brush it off.
“I know your name,” he continues. “Your family. Your legacy.”
I hold my breath.
He’s bluffing. He has to be.
Only nothing but fortitude stares back at me.
A spike of panicked nausea rolls through me. “No.”
If he knew, he never would’ve brought me here. Never would’ve introduced me to Lorenzo. Never would’ve said all those dreamy, optimistic things.
“Yes.” He gives a somber smile. “You showed your ID to one of my bouncers. That was after Bishop had instructed them to take notes if someone matching your name and description showed up.”
No. I keep shaking my head, denying my secrets have been his for what… days? Weeks? He knew all this time and didn’t say anything?
“You’re Layla Hart,” he continues. “Sister to Cole Torian. Daughter to the infamous Luther Torian. And part of the notorious crime family that rules over Portland.”
My shoulders hunch with the verbal blows that punch like a physical assault, but this time, it’s not shock that overwhelms me. It’s shame.
I didn’t want him to find out about the sinister shadow cloaking me.
Bile sears the back of my throat, scarring, choking.
He’d known this whole time. During the lovemaking. Through the conversations and seduction.
“How could you?” The contents of my stomach surge for attention.
I stagger around the coffee table, dashing for the far hall, needing the bathroom. I shove open the closest door finding more candlelight in a room of darkness, the flames dancing from tea lights along a vanity and reflecting in the wall-to-wall mirror.
I scamper toward the faint hint of the toilet in the corner, falling to my knees beside the shower as coffee and croissants desert my body in rolling waves of dread.
I submit to the devastation. The loss of hope. The failure.
Each purge claws at me, scratching away parts of the fairy tale I never should’ve believed in but couldn’t stop myself from falling for.
How could I have been so oblivious to the truth?
I continue purging until nothing but acid escapes. That’s when I hear him entering the room, his footsteps approaching before he clatters something to the vanity beside me.
I want to scream for privacy. To yell at him to leave me to my destruction. But he moves closer, his hands finding my hair with gentle authority, pulling the errant strands away from my cheeks as more bile floods my lips.
“We’ll work this out.” He speaks with confidence.
I spit, clearing the dredge from my mouth. “Get out.”
“I’m not going anywhere, amore mio. You’re stuck with me.”
His vow makes this worse. The caring hands. The affectionate determination.
I shrink away from him and reach over my head to flush the toilet. First shame, now humiliation. Add to that the stupidity and danger. The naivety and gullibility.
I’ve created a Molotov cocktail of mistakes. All I need now is to strike a match and let the flames take hold.
I pull myself to my feet, appreciating how he keeps his distance as I approach the sink that now holds company with my toiletry bag. I close my eyes briefly, thankful for his thoughtfulness and desperately despising the sensation at the same time.
How could he do this to me? How could he keep both secrets—his and mine—when alone they’re problematic, but together they’re catastrophic?
I retrieve my toothbrush without a word, cleansing my mouth of the humiliation while his gaze taunts the back of my neck.
I rinse and spit, rinse and spit, scrubbing the enamel from my teeth as if I were dislodging my mistakes. But no matter how hard I scour, he doesn’t disappear, and neither does the romantic flickering firelight.
He remains quiet behind me until I turn to face him, broken, hollow, and defeated.
“How?” I croak. “How could you keep this from me?”
“It was no secret to either of us that we had things to hide. You wanted your privacy and I needed to keep mine until I figured out who you were.”
“But you figured it out,” I accuse. “You learned who I was days ago and never breathed a word of it. You never even acted differently.”
He stares into my eyes, hard and strong and powerful. “I never acted differently because where you come from doesn’t matter to me. It doesn’t change a thing.”
I scoff.
“And I didn’t say anything,” he continues, “because I held out hope you’d tell me yourself. I wanted you to trust me.”
“Yet you knew exactly why I couldn’t. There’s a reason you never gave me your truth either. I’m only learning it now because you were forced to confess.”
“I wasn’t forced to do anything. You don’t think I could’ve convinced you your original assumption was right? That you were the target of the shooting? That the Costas were behind this?” He lowers to sit on the edge of the bathtub, his penetrating eyes all the more commanding in the candlelight. “I could’ve hidden for a lot longer. I could’ve hidden forever if I wanted. But I brought you here because I was done with the secrecy. Shooting or not, I would’ve told you who Lorenzo is before we returned to D.C.”
Pain radiates beneath my sternum.
Burning, branding pain.
“Did you do it for information?” The question sears my throat. “To get insight on my family?”
“Fuck your family,” he spits. “I said I was out, Layla. And despite knowing how much you love to question me, it’s the fucking truth.”
I want to deny him. To deny all of this.
I sink against the vanity, then slide to the floor, my ass planting on the cold tile.
“We both had our reasons to keep quiet, amore mio. There’s nothing wrong with
that. It doesn’t mean what we have isn’t real. I fell for you long before I found out who you are.”
I swallow over the mint taste dominating my tongue, wishing I was somewhere else. Anywhere else… Yet somehow I still want to be here with him. To remain where attraction rules and affection flows.
“Well…” I lick the dryness from my lower lip, committing the sight of him to memory. “It was fun while it lasted, I guess.”
He presses his mouth closed, the tilt of his chin swift as he narrows his stare.
“My family can’t find out about this. I need you to let me walk out of here and pretend we never met.” My heart squeezes with every word, hating their necessity.
“They can and they will. And I’ll be right by your side when they do.”
I whisper a pained laugh.
He continues to believe we have a future, and my heart wants to believe it, too. If only it were possible.
“No.” I shake my head. “I’m begging you. You have no idea how my brother will treat me if he learns I’ve been sleeping with someone who worked for the Cappellettis.”
“Lorenzo and Cole aren’t enemies.” He slides from the edge of the tub to sit on the tiled floor opposite me, bolstering my naivety with statements that simply aren’t true. “As far as I know, they’ve never had anything to do with one another.”
“Doesn’t matter. Competition is competition. And stupidity is still stupidity.”
“You say that as if either one of us had any control over this.” He stretches one suit-covered leg toward me. I’m sure it’s to test how jittery I am at the proximity. “Do you think I’d be here if I had the ability to walk away?”
“We’re not star-crossed lovers, Matthew.”
“Aren’t we?” He raises a brow.
I’m not sure if he’s being derisive or insane.
I glance away, hating how he makes me feel warm through the icy chill of reality. We’re not star-crossed anything. No matter how much I crave the opposite.
“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.”
I lower my gaze to his chest, attempting to relive every moment we’ve had together in the hopes of understanding. Not only the implication, but what this all means for me and my plans.
“What are you thinking?” The alcohol on his breath brushes my lips, filling my lungs, intoxicating me. “What did I say this time?”
Is it wrong to still be here? To still want to make this work despite the strangling complications?
God.
My head screams with indecision. My heart yearns to salvage the unsalvageable.
“Layla?” He drops the second bottle to the tiles, his fingers finding the sensitive skin below my chin to gently lift my face to his. “Talk.”
“Explain how this all started,” I whisper. “How we met. What was going through your head. Were you trying to manage the threat I posed toward the Costas? Have you kept me close because I can achieve the things you can’t? Or because you’ve needed to distract me from my plans?”
Because I’ve been distracted.
Entirely.
Completely.
I inch back, needing space, only to be fastened in place against his lap by strong hands clutching my waist. “Are you with me for a purpose?”
