Page 179 of Vicious Intentions
As the words leave me, another realization settles in. I’m alone. Completely alone on this private beach. I could run. I could use this to my advantage and just run.
If my calculations are right, it’s only a few miles into town. A twenty-minute walk at best. I’m sure there must be a few places still open at this hour. Especially since it’s the Fourth of July in a couple of days. There must be bars, restaurants, and maybe even a few stores and cafes open. I’m sure I could find someone to lend me a Wi-Fi-enabled phone so I can call my parents. So I can tell them where I am so they can come and get me.
So why don’t my feet move? Why am I not running?
Memories of the day we spent in town earlier today flash in my mind in answer. How Matteo held my hand as we walked down the street, looking into shops and eating gelato. It felt so normal. Like we were a real couple. A couple in love. He letme buy whatever I wanted. I ate whatever I was in the mood for. And we talked for hours about music and literature, all our favorite subjects. I even went to a salon to fix the hack job I did on my hair a few weeks back. It had been such a glorious day. To end it by running away from him… No. I can’t do that. I can’t do that to Matteo.
Besides, if I called my parents and told them where I was, they would probably send Stella and Marcello. And I know my siblings well enough to know how that would end. They wouldn’t just save me and take me home. They would come into this house and paint the walls red with Matteo’s blood. Even if I pleaded and begged for them to spare his life, they would still kill him, if only to erase the threat of him ever trying to kidnap me again.
The thought alone sends an unwelcome chill down my spine. I don’t want Matteo to die. I might still ache for my family in Chicago, but Matteo… he can’t die. Yes, I want my freedom back, but not if it costs him his life. Never at the expense of his life. If that’s the price I’ll have to pay to be free, then I’d rather remain chained to him.
Besides, it wouldn’t be so bad. Spending the rest of my life being loved by him. For all his faults, Matteo does love me. There are very few certainties in this life, but that is one I would stake my very life on. I see Matteo’s love in every glance he gives me and every touch. In every tender gesture and fleeting smile. If this is my prison, my hellish future, can I really say I would be unhappy? That I would not savor every moment of it? Love it, even?
These thoughts burn through my mind as I step back into the house. I shrug off his cardigan, leaving it draped over the couch, and make my way upstairs.
A frown settles on my face as my eyes drift over the now-empty walls. For a moment, I almost see the frames that used toline them, ghosts of what once hung there. And when I pass the master suite that Matteo avoided like the plague, my frown only deepens. I should have realized then that something was wrong.
Though I did sense that something was off when Matteo said he’d never been here, my suspicions rose further when I ventured throughout the house and saw no proof of his or his brothers’ existence, only Carlo Junior’s. This whole place felt less like a home and more like a shrine to the Donatos’ firstborn.
I’m glad I burned every picture in this house. If it were up to me, I would have burned Carlo Junior’s, too. But Matteo loves him, and I didn’t have the heart to go that far.
Still, I refuse to look at his face, hence why I took his brother’s pictures down along with his diabolical parents’. No matter how many justifications my husband gives, his older brother could have protected Matteo if he wanted to. Family protects family. That’s what a real brother would have done. Carlo Jr. was over a decade older than Matteo and the others. He wasn’t a child when their mother hurt them. He knew exactly what was happening. He could have stopped it. He chose not to. Which means, deep down, he must have believed he was better than them.
There was a time when I hated that Marcello killed Carlo. That time is gone. Now, I would give Marcello my full blessing and have him snap his neck all over again.
My thoughts drift back to the first day I met the Donato brothers. The way Raffaele handled the controller was as if he had never touched a video game before. At the time, I thought he was humoring me, covering for the fact that I didn’t know how to play.
Now I know better. The three youngest Donatos never had a normal childhood. Matteo hinted that Raffaele had been spared the worst of it, but I doubt that means he escaped unscathed. Noone does in such a hostile environment. But Raffaele is not my concern. My husband is.
As I crack open the door to our bedroom and find Matteo in bed, asleep, wearing sweats and a T-shirt, my frown settles into something permanent. Now I understand why he always came to bed covered up. He didn’t want to scare me. Show me how deep his scars went. But now that I have, I don’t want him hiding anymore. Not from me. I want all of him. Every scar. Every broken piece. I want to touch him and make him see himself the way I do. Because my husband… is beautiful. His darkness calls to my own, and I’m tired of pretending otherwise.
After brushing my teeth and changing quickly in the bathroom, I slide beneath the cool sheets, turning onto my side to face Matteo. He lies on his back, one arm draped above his head, eyes closed. I bite my bottom lip, regretting not coming to bed when he did. If I had, he would have touched me, made me see stars, and I would have fallen asleep in his arms, just like I have for the past two nights.
“You can touch me, wife,” he says with his eyes still shut. “If consent is what you need, then you have it. You always have it,” he says, alerting me that he’s still awake.
I swallow dryly, my pulse quickening at his words.
“How do you know that’s what I was thinking about?”
Ever so leisurely, he turns his head my way, his obsidian stare making my skin break out in goosebumps.
“You’re my wife,vita mia. I know every thought in your head before you even think it.”
“No, you don’t,” I chide, “If you did, then you wouldn’t have come to bed with your clothes on.” His throat bobs just as his gaze falls to my lips.
“A mistake I won’t make again,” he retorts, his voice that deep, raspy timber that I love so much. I watch him as he risesfrom the bed and takes off his T-shirt, flinging it to the floor. “Better?” he asks, falling back beside me.
My gaze falls to his sweats, my brow arching. “I think you forgot something.”
He lets out a chuckle. “You always were bossy when you got horny, baby,” he laughs, pulling down his sweats and then kicking them off the bed. “What about now? Better?” I stare at his boxers and how he refused to take those off, but nod just the same.
“It will have to do,” I mutter, drawing another laugh from deep in his chest.
I like the sound of Matteo laughing. He doesn’t do it often. Then again, I doubt he’s had much in his life to laugh about. I’m not sure what it says about our sex life, considering it’s when he laughs the most. Are my attempts at flirting really that bad?
As I throw another glance over at his face again, I realize that the reason Matteo can chuckle so easily is because he feels safe. He can be himself here with me. He doesn’t need to be that scaryCosa NostraDon. He can just be Matteo.
My Matteo. My Caro Mio.
