Filed to story: Bound by Honor (Aria & Luca) Drama Story
“It could take weeks,” he said. “I won’t return until I’ve caught her.”
“I know. If Aria had run, I would have done the same.” I would have followed her to the end of the world. I hadn’t wanted to marry, but Aria had changed everything. She was my wife, and I would never let her go.
He nodded.
“I will make a few arrangements to have guns delivered to you in Amsterdam. I’ll check if I can find Rolfo so he can call his family in the Netherlands. You should pack what you need. You should be at the airport in two hours.”
“You should tell Rolfo to get a fucking mobile. The guy is still stuck in the 1970s.”
“He is almost seventy. I doubt anything in this world could convince him to use a mobile. I’ll drive to the Roma. He’ll be having dinner there. I’ll be back before you have to leave.” With that, I headed inside. In passing I told Romero, “I’ll be gone for a couple of hours. Make sure Aria stays in the apartment.”
“Will do, Boss,” he said as I stepped into the elevator. Romero wouldn’t let anyone drug him.
ARIA
I was tired, and I missed Luca. After my quick shower, I had crawled into bed. I was still sore but I didn’t mind. I only wanted things between Luca and me to return to how they were before today. It wasn’t even that late yet, only around seven o’clock, but the day’s events had been draining. I sat up when the bedroom door creaked open. The movement was too cautious, too quiet to be Luca. I slid out of bed when Matteo slipped into the bedroom, then turned to me.
My spine stiffened. “What are you doing here? And where’s Romero?” I moved around the bed but stopped halfway between it and the door.
Matteo’s lips pulled into a dangerous smile. “He’s outside, taking Luca’s call.”
For a moment neither of us moved. I wasn’t sure what to do. I didn’t want to call out for Romero’s help-yet. For one, I wasn’t sure if he could hear me out on the roof terrace, and I didn’t want to overreact. If I called Romero now, he’d have to tell Luca about this, and then things between him and Matteo would turn sour. I didn’t want that to happen because of me. I’d messed up enough already.
He advanced on me and I staggered back. “Why are you here?” I asked with forced calm, but I couldn’t suppress the small tremor in my voice.
The coldness in Matteo’s eyes tightened my stomach with icy fear. “Getting the information Luca is incapable of obtaining. We both know you planned everything with Gianna.” He stalked closer and I whirled around. This wasn’t Luca. This was Matteo, and he was a man out for blood. A man who was used to getting what he wanted, and Gianna was the one thing he wanted more than anything. I rushed toward the bedside table, reaching for the drawer with the gun. I wasn’t even sure what to do with it. I could hardly shoot Matteo, or shoot at him. My fingers brushed the handle when Matteo’s hands clamped down on my hips. I was suspended in the air for a second before I landed on my back on the mattress, the air leaving my lungs in a whoosh. And then he was over me, and I froze. I had never been in bed with someone other than Luca. I began shaking.
Matteo’s eyes were calculating as he pinned my wrists at my sides, his body straddling my legs. “Perhaps pain isn’t the thing you fear the most,” he said in a low voice. He was appraising me like a means to an end. Matteo harbored the same monster as Luca, but his wasn’t contained in my presence.
I wasn’t sure what I feared the most right now. Matteo was very high up, but there was also the fear of what this meant for his relationship with Luca. I doubted Luca would forgive Matteo for this; he’d kill him, and that in turn would kill Luca. “Let me go before you do something you’ll regret,” I muttered with false bravado. Goose bumps erupted all over my skin. Matteo’s eyes took my reaction in. His calculating quiet freaked me out.
He still hadn’t done anything. He was conflicted. I could see it in his face. I needed to use that opening. Matteo liked me, perhaps not enough to stop him, but he loved Luca, and Luca loved me. “I have only ever been with Luca. This is the first time I’m in bed with someone else, Matteo,” I whispered.
Matteo released my wrists. “You are Luca’s,” he said quietly. “I would never dishonor you like that. Not even when it’s obvious how easily I’d get the answers I want if I did. This isn’t Vegas and I’m not that kind of man.”
Still towering over me, he reached behind his back, and pulled out one of his knives. This wasn’t Luca. Matteo didn’t love me. And I’d heard the stories. I knew what he could do, what he enjoyed doing. Like Luca, he knew no mercy, but with Matteo there was no love protecting me.
“I won’t tell you where she is,” I lied, because it could only be a lie. I wasn’t that strong.
“You will,” he said. The blade gleamed in the dim light streaming in through the windows. “Nobody can hold on to their secrets when I deal with them.”
“If I scream Romero will be here in a heartbeat. He will protect me.”
“He will try. And who says I’ll give you the chance to scream?”
He lifted the hem of my camisole and I began squirming, not used to someone else’s closeness like that. I stilled when the tip of the blade touched my skin below my belly button. “This is a very sensitive area. Many nerve endings. Even a small cut will be very painful.”
“Matteo, please,” I whispered. Scream, an insistent voice in my head said, but I needed to give it another try, for Luca.
He raised his eyes from the blade to my face.
“I know you are angry that Gianna ran. You are angry at me for helping her. I know you would do anything to get her back, but Luca won’t forgive you for this.”
“He will kill me, as he should,” Matteo murmured.
Matteo and I stared at each other for a while because we both knew it was the truth. Slowly Matteo lifted the blade but he didn’t put it away. It was still there, still between us, still too close to my flesh.
“He trusts you,” I said.
Matteo glanced down at the way he was still straddling me. My fear was beginning to fade, knowing my words had gotten through to him. I could have cried from relief.
Matteo’s mouth thinned. “This is betrayal. You are his. I shouldn’t be here.”
He got off me, and I quickly sat up and scooted to the back of the bed. Matteo watched me, a flicker of regret passing over his face before it disappeared.
“We are monsters, Aria. Luca and I both. We have always been. We will always be. Don’t make the mistake of forgetting that. Everyone thought he was going to break you, that you’d kill yourself within weeks of your marriage. But here you are. That Luca treats you the way he does is a gift you should cherish and not trample on.”
He turned to leave.
“I won’t tell him about this,” I rushed to say before he could open the door.
Matteo looked at me over his shoulder, dark brows pulling together. “You should tell him. What I did was wrong.”