Chapter Twenty One
I spend two more days playing board games with Vince. I’ve determined he’s not a bad guy—but he is shit at board games. At least he’s not a sore loser.
“You should bring Mia tomorrow,” I tell him, clearing up the Monopoly board after soundly trouncing him.
“Nah, I’m keeping her away while Mateo’s mad at you,” he says, pulling out his phone to check it. “Cherie’s bringing Jenga. I’m gonna beat you at Jenga.”
“Well, we’re having Sunday dinner again this week, so she’ll have to come to that anyway. And you don’t have to keep her away—he’s still mad at me, but not like before. He’s not going to…” I pause, unsure how to word this, since Mia specifically told me not to talk to Vince about her time with Mateo. “He won’t drag her into this,” I summarize.
“Sure he would.”
“Maybe he would’ve at one time, but he won’t now. He loves me. Whatever we have to do to work this out, he’s going to keep it between us.”
Vince sighs, watching me drop the box back on the game and set it aside. “Look, Meg. You seem nice. A little nuts, but nice. You’re stuck with him now, and I get that. But don’t lie to yourself about who he is; you’ll only end up disappointed. Mateo isn’t a good guy. He’s not a loyal guy. He killed the last woman who cheated on him—it’s a shitty thing to do, yeah, but he killed her for it—when he has no problem doing the same thing to someone else.”
“She tried to turn him over to the police, Vince. She betrayed him in every way she could. Look, I’m not a woman-hating woman; I’m not excited that he killed Beth. I wish she were alive on a beach in South America somewhere, living it up. I’m not saying it’s okay—he is responsible for the deaths of both our former partners. I’m sure there’s a lot more blood on his hands than I’d ever like to consider. I don’t know why I can live with that. I can’t explain it. But… honestly, I almost never see that side of him. He’s not like that with me. And I don’t know the whole history with you guys, and I don’t think I want to, but… it’s just that: history. I’m here now. He wants me; he doesn’t want to lose me. Maybe I can’t leave physically, but he can’t force me to love him. He knows if he brought Mia into this, he would lose me.”
Vince shrugs, but he still doesn’t look confident. “I hope you’re right. Regardless, I’m not bringing Mia here until I have to.”
“You all need to learn how to trust people,” I tell him, shaking my head as I get up to move Monopoly to the chair. “At least the people in this house—we’re all family here.”
“Tell that to whoever planted a phone that could’ve got you killed,” Vince returns.
I grimace, glancing back at him. “Wow, that’s a good point. Maybe I should be less trusting.”
Vince smiles, shaking his head, and heads out to the hallway to wait for Cherie.
---
Mateo comes to the bedroom in time for bedtime stories tonight. Ju brings the girls in and we all snuggle up in his giant bed. I fall a little more in love with him with every syllable that falls from his beautiful lips.
When the story’s over, the girls balk about going to bed. I think this is Lily’s fault; it seems like Isabella used to be more obedient. I never want to stop snuggling with Mateo either though, so I totally get it.
“Can we go to the doll store again?” Isabella asks.
“Maybe. Or we could do something else. There’s more to life than the doll store, you know,” he says, dropping a kiss on her forehead.
“I think we should get ice cream,” Lily tells him, poking his arm to get his attention back.
“We could get ice cream,” he agrees.
“And books,” she adds.
“Also doable.”
“Isabella’s like my sister, isn’t she?”
That’s a new one. I ease up, planning to take the pressure off answering, but before I can, Mateo tells her, “More or less, yeah.”
Isabella jumps in, now that Lily brought it up. “I saw you guys kissing.”
“Oh yeah?” Mateo asks, grabbing my arm and tugging me over to place a big, theatrical kiss on my cheek. “Like this?”
Both girls giggle. Lily shakes her head and drawls, “No.”
“Like you love her,” Isabella specifies.
“I do,” he says, again without hesitation.
I watch Lily, a little unsure how this is going to go over. We’ve talked about Rodney a little bit when she brought him up, but it hasn’t been as much as I expected. Rodney was always out and he was never involved with bedtime rituals like Mateo is. Since we moved out of the house he lived in and into a whole new life, it doesn’t seem like she even misses him.
I never thought him being a crummy dad would turn out to be a good thing, but it has made the transition a lot easier.
“Well, I love you both,” Isabella announces, diving into me and Mateo for a hug I’m not at all braced for.
“And me,” Lily objects.
Mateo wraps his arms around all of us, dropping kisses on the tops of little girl heads and then briefly brushing his lips against mine.
I’m so overcome for a moment, I think I might cry.
Which reminds me—I need to ask Mia to buy me a pregnancy test.
---
Normally, when I wake up in the morning, Mateo is already gone. He’s an early riser, and I would stay in bed until noon if I could.
But when I rise on Saturday, Mateo is sitting in the armchair next to the bed. He’s hunched over, staring at the ground. The solemn expression on his face startles me and I push up on my elbows, looking at him.
“Mateo?”
He looks up, and the expression on his face alarms me even more. He still looks tired, even though he’s been sleeping since I’ve been in bed with him again, but more than that he looks… defeated? I’ve never seen it on his face before, so I can’t be sure.
“What’s wrong?” I ask quietly.
“You’ve never met Salvatore Castellanos, have you?”
It’s not like every other time he brought this up—he’s not bitter or jealous. It sounds like he’s finally accepted it.
“No,” I verify. “Not before that day at the Chinese restaurant, I guess.”
He nods slowly, like his head weighs a hundred pounds. “Francesca’s gone.”
I scowl, confused. “What?”
“Francesca. She’s gone. She’s been gone. I didn’t notice because…” He trails off, but I know why he didn’t notice.
Pushing up so my legs are dangling off the bed, facing him, I ask, “Well, what does that mean? Did someone take her?”
“It means she was the leak.” He pauses, but I still can’t quite wrap my head around it. “She planted the phone.”
I swallow, going back over every interaction I’ve ever had with Francesca, trying to piece it together. I never got the impression she loved me, but she didn’t seem to dislike me, either. “But… why?”
Mateo shakes his head, sighing. “I don’t know. I haven’t been looking into her. I didn’t know anything required my attention.”
“Did she leave a note or anything? When did she leave?”
“I don’t know yet,” he says, squeezing the bridge of his nose and closing his eyes. “I’ve invested all of my energy into trying to catch you, so… I’m sure her trail’s gone cold.”
Easing off the bed, I go to him and wrap my arms around him. “I’m so sorry, Mateo.”
A little laugh bursts out of him. “You’re sorry? I’ve been punishing you for something you didn’t even do. I locked you in the basement—my father used to do that to his wives, and I did it to you.”
“Adrian locked me in the basement,” I remind him.
“To keep you safe from me,” he stresses.
“And look, I’m safe,” I point out.
“Meg…”
Climbing in his lap, I wrap an arm around his neck and kiss him. “I’m not mad at you. I’m just relieved you finally know I was telling the truth.”
Shaking his head, he meets my eyes. “I don’t deserve you.”
“Yes, you do. And even if you didn’t, you’re not getting rid of me now.”
“Oh, I didn’t say I was going to give you up,” he says, his hand tightening around my waist. “Only that I don’t deserve you. I’m not a noble man; I don’t suffer noble man afflictions.”
Snuggling against him, I ask, “What do we do now?”
“I’m going to make this up to you. I’ve been an asshole to you. I hurt you. What can I do to make it better?”
“Well, if you’re handing out favors, I do have one. I want a girls’ night with Mia. Vince won’t let her over here because he’s too afraid of what you’ll do, and now that you’re not in a blind, vengeful rage… I want her to come hang out with me. She might say no, so I might need your influence. Not because she doesn’t want to,” I add, like he cares, “but just because of Vince.”
“Done. Tonight?”
“Sure,” I say, unable to push down my excitement.
“I’ll grab you some wine from the cellar. What else does this require?”
“I think just the girls. You get Mia here, and we’re pretty much good.”
He nods his head. “I can do that. I’m actually relieved it’s that, because I do need to play catch-up tonight. As soon as I get a handle on where Castellanos is, I’m taking you out.”
I like the sound of that. “To a speakeasy?”
“I’m not going to tell you where; you’ll see when we get there. It’ll probably be Monday, unless you want to cancel Sunday dinner tomorrow.”
I shake my head. “Let’s do Monday. I think it’ll be good for everyone to have a normal family dinner tomorrow night. Though it will be really weird not having Francesca there.”
Nodding solemnly, he’s quiet for a moment. Then he looks back at me, as if he’s just thought of something. “You’re a bookkeeper.”
“Unofficially, yes.”
“Could you help out at the bakery? Francesca ran the place, and right now there’s no one to do that. You don’t have to do it permanently if you don’t want to, but until I can figure out what to do with it.”
“Sure, no problem. Should I go over tomorrow?”
“It’s closed on Sundays, but you can go Monday.”
“My first day of work, just in time for me tell you all about it during date night,” I tell him, lightly whacking his arm. “Look at you, modernizing.”
Mateo rolls his eyes. “Like I said, temporary.”
“If I want. You said if I want.”
He can argue all he wants, but I’m smug. He doesn’t argue, because he has people to intimidate into doing his bidding and enemies to track down, but he does roll his eyes at me in rebuttal.