Page 14 of House of Lies

“I don’t even know why you sound surprised.” I tilt my head.

He nods without asking me about other things he doesn’t seem to remember. I unbutton his shirt. His muscles tense up as I begin to clean the wound. I hadn’t known he had so many tattoos. One of them catches my eye—a massive tattoo on his chest with two crossed daggers and a snake weaving through them, consuming its tail. There are others, some larger and some smaller: a skull, a rose, and a gun. There are scars on his skin that hold untold stories. I don’t care enough to ask about them. I struggle to conceal my smile at the realization that someone has hurt him. He can bleed. I focus on avoiding direct contact with his skin. It’s not the blood that disgusts me; it’s the situation that makes me sick. He doesn’t deserve a gentle touch.

“Why didn’t you reply to my text?”

Mattia raises his hand but stops halfway. I raise an eyebrow, trying to anticipate his next move. He appears uneasy.

“I couldn’t make up my mind.” I shrug, soaking the towel again.

I watch his blood swirl down the drain. My hands tremble.

“It was a rather simple question.”

Except it wasn’t. I had believed that surrendering would mean admitting defeat and accepting my fate. I depend on him, and without him, I am nothing. He has worked tirelessly to make me believe this. However, I’ve come up with a different plan.

“Nothing about this is simple, Mattia,” I declare. Examining the wound, I realize it’s not as deep as I had initially thought. “Perhaps you should call the doctor,” I suggest, regardless.

“I’ll be fine.”

He will be, unfortunately. And I will have to endure another day by his side.

“Tomorrow, then?”

For whatever reason, this marriage has become vital to him. And I swore to myself that I wouldn’t give in. In the dead of night, as I lay awake, staring at the ceiling, I promised myself that he would never touch me again. But now I’ve changed my plan. I’ve devised a better one.

I’m going to give this marriage a chance.

I’m going to make it work.

I will become the perfect wife, showing him how it could have been if he had given me a chance.

I’ll give him everything he wants.

And then I’m going to fucking kill him.

CHAPTER 8

Kaz

It’s always one step forward, ten steps back with Caelia. She’s one of the few people in the world who puzzle me, keeping me in a state of constant wonder. Tonight, however, is different. It’s the first night in a while when she doesn’t flinch, and the wall between us feels less daunting. It wasn’t Caelia who built this barrier, but Mattia, and she continued to add bricks until not even the sky was visible.

She’s patching me up, although I didn’t ask. I have some experience with suturing wounds and removing bullets, so it’s nothing that will kill me. But I enjoy having her delicate hands care for me, her breath tickling my skin whenever she comes closer. I didn’t feel anything when it happened; I was too focused on neutralizing one of Ermanno’s men guarding the crates of drugs.

My tattoos and scars have always been a fluke in the plan. I replicated the ones Mattia had visible but refused to rid myself of my own. Keeping them hidden from others had never been an issue. His wife is an entirely different story. I came up with a stupid plan to never allow her to see me naked in case she paid too much attention to Mattia’s skin, and tonight, not only did she catch me off guard when she came into my bedroom, but she confessed he never saw him naked. I can’t comprehend how messed up their marriage has been so far.

Although our deal is off, I have kept my promise. And she has kept half of hers. She joins me for either breakfast or dinner, often remaining silent. She’s there, but not really. There’s an ocean stretching between us that I still have no idea how to cross, and every time I think I might be better off just giving up, she smiles or replies to a question I asked, making me see behind the hurt and the pain. And it keeps me going.

“How about watching a movie instead?” she suggests out of the blue. “And I could sleep here if that’s okay with you.”

No, it’s not okay. It will be torture, driving me to the brink of madness. I can barely share the same space without snapping and fucking her senseless.

“Only if you promise not to make me sit through a rom-com or some other shit.”

She presses her lips together, struggling to hold back her laughter. There will come a day when she won’t be able to hold herself back, and I will hear how that sounds. It may prove addictive, but I’m willing to risk it. How far can I fall?

“What do you know about rom-coms?”

I have a younger sister who loves that shit. I can’t tell her that, so I grin.

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