Chapter Twenty Eight
My mouth goes dry and my mind races. The party is being busted—and what the hell is going to happen now? I’m going to be hauled into the police station, no clue how to get out of talking, Mateo is going to be arrested—this is a fucking disaster.
Then Potbelly brings a finger to his lips, indicating I should be quiet.
It’s too late to warn them anyway. It’s too late to tell Mateo… I don’t even know what I could tell him, because this is it.
They’ve got him.
I should feel relieved, but… I don’t.
Potbelly takes a step forward and I stumble back several steps, but then he moves past the door, in Mateo’s sight, and I’m baffled because he hasn’t even pulled a gun.
“There you are, you lazy bastard,” Mateo says, congenially.
One of the other guys groans and jokes, “Aw, the boys in blue. We’re gonna have to take it down a few notches, guys.”
I don’t know what the look on my face must be right now, but some mash-up of disbelief and what-the-fuck is my guess.
“Mia,” Mateo says, nodding at me. “Grab them cigars.”
I turn slowly, trying to make sense of things—and fast. Mateo obviously knows they’re cops, and it does make sense that he would have some on his payroll, but… the potbellied cop obviously knew who I was at the door, when Mateo couldn’t see them, and he told me to be quiet.
My blood runs cold as I realize they’re double-crossing him. They’re obviously here as friends, cops on his payroll, but when they’re not here, they’re trying to turn people close to him to testify against him.
I don’t know what to do. I could wait and see how things shake out, but what if Mateo, guard down, says something in front of them they could use?
He’ll find out they talked to me. He finds out everything. And they’ve seen me here tonight, so they’ll never believe me again if I tell them I don’t have anything to offer them. They’ll come after me, and because I can’t turn on him… what’s going to happen to me?
My hands are on the cigars, but I can’t move. The whole world is suddenly crashing down around me and it’s hard to breathe. It’s hard to see a way out of this.
I drop the cigars.
I turn around and look once more at the table.
Then, before I can talk myself out of it, I walk over to Mateo. “You’re out of cigars.”
With a perplexed frown, he says, “No, I’m not.”
I nod. “Are there more in the back? Can you show me?”
His expression clears and he leans back, giving me a probing look. Quietly, he asks, “You want me to take you to the back room, alone, to show you where the cigars are?”
Sighing to myself, I say, “Yes.”
He nods once, then moves to stand. “You gentlemen’ll have to excuse me for a minute. I have to help the lady locate some more cigars.”
I wish he’d hurry the hell up. Those stupid cops probably know what I’m about to do, and we’ll all be lucky if they don’t stop me before I can.
My hope is that they’re outnumbered, with no back-up outside. That’s the only way this works.
At the same time, I don’t even want to think about what Mateo’s bound to do to them if they’re on their own.
As he follows me into the back room, he says, “I have to admit, this surprises me.”
“Trust me, it’s a last resort.”
But he’s had even more to drink than usual, and he’s relaxed. His hands drop to my hips and he moves closer, not aggressive, just… strangely playful. “You want to play, Mia?”
“No,” I say, removing his hands, but surprised that he lets me.
“Oh, come on.” He leans in, the scent of his cologne hitting my nostrils as his lips move to my neck. My sensitive, sensitive neck.
I grab his hair, tugging his mouth away from my body. “Stop. I need to tell you something.”
“That you like hair-pulling?” he asks with a sensual smile. “Thank you. I approve.”
He reaches a hand toward mine, doubtless to give it a tug, but I grab his wrist. “Mateo, those two guys that just came in are cops.”
His eyebrows rise, but he does not look impressed by my intelligence. “Yes, I know. That’s why I give them money. Don’t get too excited though, they won’t arrest me.”
He’s still teasing, and while it’s a little refreshing, there’s no time for this. “Yes, they will,” I say, a little desperately. “Those guys are not your friends, Mateo. They stopped me Monday before school. They asked me questions about you. They wanted me to give them information, to… testify against you.”
All amusement vanishes from his face, and a scary stoicism takes its place. “Monday?”
Swallowing, I bob my head.
“You didn’t tell me.”
Fuck. “No. I… I didn’t tell them anything, I told them to leave me alone. I probably should’ve told you, but… it was just… there was a lot going on.”
The way he studies me makes me squirm. There’s usually some trace of amusement when he looks at me, whether because he thinks I’m being a naïve idiot, or because he’s enjoying the game only he knows he’s playing with my life. But right now, he’s dead serious, and it sends fear like I’ve never known traveling down my spine. If he would’ve looked at me like this the first time he pulled a gun on me, I probably would’ve dropped dead from a heart attack and saved him the trouble.
“I should’ve told you,” I say, quietly. “But… I don’t think we can dwell on that right now. What do we do?”
His hand slowly moves to my neck, his thumb brushing my jaw, and then he leans in and kisses me. My hands go to his chest, pushing against him. “Mateo,” I say, against his mouth. “Stop it. This is so not the time.”
But he’s not pushing, and…he’s smiling.
Meanwhile I’m frowning, confused, wondering if he’s lost it.
“You’re something else, Mia,” he tells me, touching my face again, but kindly, like he finds me adorable.
I can only stare, wide-eyed.
“They are my friends,” he states. “I sent them to talk to you Monday.”
“What?” I ask, faintly.
Shrugging, he says, “I had to see what you’d do. I had to see if you’d turn on me or remain loyal.” Cupping my face in his hand, he says, “You passed.”
Shock courses through me as his words sink in. Sheer horror follows, realizing he’d been testing me, and if I would’ve talked, if I would’ve told the men who swore they could protect me about the information he let Adrian share in front of me….
How long had he been setting me up for this?
My mouth is still gaping open when his mouth finds my neck again, his hand moving between my legs. Arousal stirs at the touch of his fingertips and I push him away again, shaking my head.
“You… you…”
“Mm hmm,” he verifies, catching my wrist and going back to my neck.
“But… but… they tried to give me the number to the police station. They said they could keep me safe if I…”
His lips leave my neck and he moves closer to my ear, whispering in a rough, silky tone, “Sweetheart, if you ever betray me, God Himself won’t be able to keep you safe.”
Relief should be pouring through me, but it’s only a trickle. I’m stuck in horror, because I can remember sitting in that car, wanting to talk.
“But you didn’t, so you won’t,” he continues. “I built you up, broke you down, took everything from you… and you didn’t turn on me.”
A sickening thought gets lodged in my gut. I’ve seen how Mateo works now, I’ve been manipulated according to his designs, and now I’m wondering…
“When did you…?” I shake my head, pulling back from the kisses he’s leaving along my neck. “How long have you…?”
I don’t know how to ask, but he doesn’t make me. Mateo pulls back so he can look at me, and while he doesn’t exactly move away, he does stop advancing on me.
“Mia, anybody with a gun to their head is going to tell you they won’t talk. It’s survival, plain and simple. I’m the predator, you’re the prey. I have my teeth to your throat, you’ll promise me anything I want to try to make it out alive. You may even think you mean it. But when it comes down to it, when it really comes down to it, you can’t know unless it happens. Vince wanted to keep you alive. He was a pain in the ass about it from the get-go, but I wasn’t about to take that chance. You’re young, fragile; I never thought you’d hold up under the pressure. I had to trap you. I had to take everything away from you. I had to ruin your life, betray you—I had to make you despise me, make you want to see me behind bars more than you wanted anything.”
“You did all of this just to see if you could make me talk? You… raped me as part of a plan? As a means to a fucking end? To make me hate you—which I had every right to!—to…to…?”
“Yes,” he says, not allowing me to finish the in-progress implosion of my brain. “And despite having every motivation to, you didn’t talk. You passed. Congratulations.”
“Do I get a fucking ribbon?” I ask, dumbfounded.
He smiles. “Better. You get your freedom.”
That knocks the fight right out of me. I don’t think I heard him right—or I misunderstood him somehow. “What?”
“I’m never the most trusting guy in the room, but… you’ve shown me I can trust you not to say anything against my family. You don’t have to be afraid of Vince leaving you anymore. If he does, you’re free to move on with your life, removed from the Morelli family. Or, if you’re hooked, you can give me a call,” he says, winking.
“Vince… he was in on this? Sunday night…?”
“No,” Mateo says, his smile disappearing. “No, that...” He pauses. “I did not anticipate that he would… That was a surprise. I mean, it certainly helped, but no, that was all him.”
“So, you’ve only been toying with me for this? It was never real, it was… you were just… manipulating the circumstances until you did enough damage to test me?”
He takes a few seconds before he answers. “Well, yes and no. Obviously, it really happened, but my main motivation was this. I didn’t think you’d enjoy rape, but I thought you’d probably enjoy murder far less. Made a judgment call.”
I don’t know what to feel anymore. There’s logic to what he says, but I don’t know how to process the implications. I don’t know how to file away everything that’s happened to me, or my observations about him as a person. He’s tormented me and Vince, all in the name of testing some theory—an admittedly solid theory, but… wow.
I don’t even notice he’s caught my hand until he presses it against his cock. He’s hard beneath the soft fabric of his pants, and though I’m foggy with confusion, it registers.
“I can think of a way for you to thank me,” he says playfully, his lips brushing my earlobe, sending shivers of pleasure all along my nerve endings.
“Mateo…”
“Don’t worry, I can take away your choice,” he says, tugging me close. “I prefer not to. I confess, while I didn’t hate myself for a single time I fucked you, Mia, I would like to experience you fucking me because you want to, actually knowing it’s my cock inside you.”
I release a breath, knowing I need to get the hell away from him. That goddamn dirty mouth does things to me it shouldn’t, and I don’t want him, I want Vince.
“You said it was all a game. Game’s over,” I remind him.
Rubbing my hand against his cock, he tells me, “There are always other games.”
“With you, yeah, I bet there are,” I say, with a shaky, unconvincing laugh.
I haven’t pulled my hand away, though, and I probably could have. He’s still holding my hand, but if I tried to break his hold, I don’t think he’d stop me.
So why am I still stroking him?
Why can I feel myself getting excited?
“I need to go,” I say quietly.
“I’ll take you home after the game’s over,” he says, moving between my legs.
“Mateo,” I say, my heart pounding with a mix of panic and something else. It’s the something else that’s the problem. “You have to stop.”
“Why delay the inevitable?” he asks, his hand sliding up the inside of my thigh. “Vince is a good kid, but he’s a kid. You need a man.”
“No,” I say, yanking my hand from his cock to grab the one moving between my legs. “What I need is to get away from you.”
“To go back and live at my house, where you’ll see me day in and day out. I will fuck you, Mia, it’s just a matter of when.”
“Jesus Christ,” I mutter, and even though I’m me, and I have control over this situation, I can’t help but believe him.
I don’t know how to explain what I feel for Mateo. It isn’t yearning, it isn’t want. I wouldn’t even call it lust, but he calls to me in some way. I don’t want him, but I’m ensnared all the same.
Feel isn’t even the right word. It’s not an emotional response, it’s a force of nature. Mateo Morelli is a black hole, and no matter how I feel, no matter what I want, I can’t escape from being sucked into him.
As I think that, his finger moves inside my panties.
“Stop.”
He doesn’t, sucking on my neck before saying, “No, don’t tell me to stop. We’ve already played that game. I want to play a different one.”
“It wasn’t a game to me,” I remind him, soberness piercing whatever fuckery he’s practicing on me right now. “It was real to me.”
His hand cups my neck again, and it feels so tender—too tender. “Come on, sweetheart. Don’t hold a grudge.”
I about sputter at his minimizing it to a grudge, but then he’s kissing me and I don’t know what to do. I push against his chest, but he pushes between my legs and a moan slips out of me.
“Fuck,” I say, shoving him harder. “Stop it. Stop it! Stop playing games with me.”
“Just give in. Play with me, not against me.”
I shake my head, scooting closer to the door. “I’m going back out there. I will finish this stupid poker game bullshit, but this is the only game I’m playing with you tonight.”
He sighs, but doesn’t move to stop me as I reach the knob of the door. “Another night, then.”
I freeze.
I could move. I want to move. He won’t stop me, but his words keep me right where I stand.
Because I can’t play this game another night.
I don’t know where it will go, or what the new stakes will be, or who will get destroyed in this one, but I know someone will. And I consider it highly unlikely it will be him.
No, it will be me and Vince. Again. It will always be me and Vince. Anytime we go up against this man in any capacity, whether in earnest, in a battle of wits, of wills… he is always going to destroy us. Maybe not even on purpose. It’s just what he does. How he plays. He’s a lion trying to play with a kitten—the kitten will always get hurt.
I want Vince, I want to see what we can become, but there’s one thing I know for certain: we will not survive Mateo. We can fight as hard as we want, but he’ll win every time. Whatever Vince and I promise each other, regardless of what we want, Mateo will always wreck it.
Since I haven’t moved, he asks, “Change your mind already?”
“I can’t do another night.” I shake my head, looking down at the floor, baffled by how I could be in this situation right now. “What is wrong with me? I know the truth about you, so why do I still want to believe the lies?”
“Because you’re human,” he says, coming up behind me. His hands come to rest on my hips again. “And you’re sweet. And young. And so idealistic.”
“This isn’t fair to Vince. Why won’t you just stop? Just leave us alone? Let us see if we can build something together.”
“That’s what you want?”
“Yes.”
He mulls it over a minute before saying, “I might have a proposition for you.”
This already feels like a trap, so I sigh, hanging my head. “What now?”
“We both know you’ll end up back in my bed eventually—probably sooner than later, if we’re being realistic. And painfully, for Vince. He’ll have to watch it all unfold again. I’ve charmed you before; you know if I set my mind to it, I’ll do it again.”
“I don’t know that,” I mutter.
“Sure,” he says, unconvinced. “What if we skip all the foreplay? I get you tonight. Once. You give yourself to me one last time, and in doing so, save Vince plenty of torture. It’s a favor, really.”
“No,” I say. “I don’t trust you.”
“Smart.”
I roll my eyes.
“I’ll give you and Vince your own place.”
Turning to face him, I say, “What?”
“It’s proximity to me that wears you down. You live in my house, you’re under my rule. You go where I say, when I say, and do what I say when you get there. That wasn’t an act; that’s your life in my house. What if you didn’t live in my house? What if I gave you and Vince your own space, let you move out?”
Let us get away from him.
Vince’s words run through my mind: “I want something of my own, something to… get me out from under his thumb.”
Monday night comes back to me, how lovely it was just the two of us at Joey’s apartment, making dinner, snuggling as we watched movies, no pressure. Mateo didn’t even exist there.
“We wouldn’t have to see you at all?”
“Well, Sunday night dinner. But you come, you eat, you leave when you’re ready—not like living there. I won’t rock your boat. If you want to try with Vince…this is how.”
God, that’s tempting. “I… I can’t do that to Vince.”
Sighing like he can hardly handle how pedestrian I am, Mateo asks, “Do you know why people lie, Mia?”
“Because they’re cowards,” I reply.
He smiles at the insult. “Because it’s easier. Stop doing everything the hard way. Just lie to him. He’ll love you for it.”
“You’d just tell him,” I toss back.
“I wouldn’t. I won’t. You have my word.”
I snort, and he scowls.
Catching me at the small of my back, he yanks me against him. I gasp, caught off guard, and he says, “Now, now. I’ve never given you my word before. I do have some honor.”
“If you did, I don’t think you’d be holding your erection against me right now.”
“If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have offered you an out at all and I could hold my cock against you whenever I feel like it.”
I can’t really argue that.
Just like I can’t argue against the way my body is reacting to him. When it has every reason to be repulsed by him, the damn thing is somehow turned on instead. I want to believe in myself, in Vince, but there’s too much evidence to the contrary. Vince’s reaction to how Mateo dressed me up tonight—the first time Mateo fucks with him again, and he reacts just the way Mateo intends. He can’t stop letting him under his skin.
And a tiny part of me points out, Vince believed as much as I did that Mateo would forcibly fuck me tonight.
Would this be so much worse?
“You promise you wouldn’t tell him, and you would give us our own place away from you?”
“I do.”
“Do you have a condom?”
He smiles like the devil, about to acquire a shiny new soul. “I do.”
Swallowing once, twice, three times, I meet his gaze, still afraid he’ll screw me over…but more afraid of the alternative.
“Okay,” I say, stomach falling even as the word spills out of mouth. “I’ll do it.”