Page 64 of The Scars We Keep
“But you didn’t,” I say, watching him carefully.
“No,” he says.“I didn’t.”
“Why?”
A heavy loaded silence sits between us. The kind of silence that lingers too long and says more than words ever could.
Lorenzo exhales slowly.A controlled release of air that sounds like surrender.
“Because you saved my life once,” he says.“When I was a kid.When I had nothing and was ready to put a bullet in my own head because I couldn’t live with what happened to my family.You sat with me.You didn’t lie when I asked questions, and that kept me breathing long enough to find a reason to keep going, to hunt the man who killed my family.”
He pauses and averts his gaze, as if making eye contact while saying this is too much for him to bear.As if admitting the debt out loud makes it real in a way he is not ready to face.
“I owe you for that, Matteo,” he continues.“And I don’t forget debts, even when paying them costs me.”
Loyalty.The thing I told him was fiction.The thing I said people only claim when they want something, angling for advantage or trying to manipulate you into letting your guard down.
And here he proves me wrong.
And yet, I protected my father’s secret for years while Lorenzo searched for answers I could have given him with a single sentence.
If he finds out now, it destroys everything.It destroys the fragile trust we just built and any chance we have of working together to survive what is on the way.
So I keep my mouth shut.Bury the truth a little deeper.Tell myself it’s strategy, a smart play in a situation where one wrong move gets us both killed.
“Emery,” I call out.
She steps out from the recessed doorway, moving with the same calm confidence she always has.One hand rests on her stomach while the other holds the knife most people don’t know she carries until it is too late.
Lorenzo’s eyes flick to her.Recognition flashes across his face.
“Hello, Lorenzo,” she says.
Lorenzo nods, a small gesture of respect.
I turn my attention back to him, to the terms that will keep us all alive long enough to matter.
“I will stay away,” I tell him.“I will stay dead while you handle the Alessandro problem.”
Lorenzo’s shoulders relax slightly.
“But,” I continue, and the tension snaps back into place.“You keep me updated on every move that fucker makes.Every alliance he builds, and every piece of information you get about where he is and what he is planning.I need to know what’s coming before it’s too late.”
“Agreed,” he says at last.“I will keep you in the loop.But you stay out of it, Matteo.No matter what you hear or how bad it gets.You do not come back or show your face.Ever.As far as the world is concerned, Matteo De Luca is dead.You let me handle it.”
“And if you can’t handle it?”
“Then you run.”His voice is cold.“You take Emery and disappear.You go somewhere even I can’t find you.If Alessandro gets past me, you will not have time to fight.You will only have time to run.”
If Lorenzo falls, we are next.And there will be no second chances.Just blood and fire and the end of everything.
Lorenzo is right.
Emery and the baby come first.
Always.
No matter who falls or how much blood is spilled in the process.They are the one thing I will not sacrifice.The reason I walked away from that world in the first place.
