Page 159 of Falling in Reverse

And that’s what makes him dangerous and inhumanly cruel.

“Come here, Bay.” With two fingers, he motions once for me to follow his direct order, and I find my feet moving until Cairo’s hand wraps firmly around my forearm.

I don’t want him to get hurt, not that he doesn’t deserve it.

However, Levi shouldn’t be far away, right? He’ll be looking for me.

“What’s this?” Matteo leers with knitted brows. “Have we replaced me already?”

The sudden uprise of more memories floods my brain. The way he used to touch and pinch me. The jagged knife he’d threaten and scare me with. Each and every single one of his and his men’s groans as they jacked off in front of me bare to them so Matteo could brag about what he got to fuck every night.

He was never going to share me.

Not then.

And definitely not now.

“You forget the English language?”

“Go fuck yourself,” I spit out, my temper surging forward to protect the kid still inside of me that’s terrified of him. All the times I had wish I stood up and left him. The stretch of gloom-ridden thoughts to make it all stop and take a whole bottle of my mother’s pills.

My ex’s solemn expression rises to the sky. “Is this what they’re teaching you in South Shore? How to be a disrespectful bitch?”

“The fuck do you want, De Leon?” Cairo barks out impatiently. “We were just leaving.”

Matteo drags his head back and forth. “Not with her, you aren’t.”

“Go ahead,” I mutter. “Levi will be here any minute?—”

“Shut the fuck up,” he leers underneath his breath. “And listen to what I say this time.”

“Why don’t you come back home, and I’ll give you more than all this.” My ex gestures to a street.

Whoopie-fucking-do.

Mindlessly, I shake my head. There is no happy abode with him in it. Just tainted abilities and years of recalling myself pulling my shit together and not wanting to end my life right there. I’ve never felt a deep depression the way I did then. I’m not even sure if that’s what it was. All I know is that not waking up the next morning, or driving my car off the nearest cliff, wouldn’t have been the worst thing that happened to me.

“What do you want?” Those four words escape my mouth as a violent shiver rolls up my spine in silent warning.

Questions and Matteo do not go hand and hand together.

“Many things,” he emits. “But that’s something we’ll discuss later. In front of better company.”

He’s stupid for even thinking there’s going to be an opportunity for that, and he’s sure as hell privy to what happened the last time he didn’t let me go.

Levi beat his ass so badly he couldn’t move off the bar floor.

“I’m not interested in gang life,” I deadpan, because that’s his life now. Mine is so much different with a family to support and a never-ending battle to get out of debt.

“I can keep you out of it.”

“No…you can’t. Last time I checked, you were still someone’s bitch.”

Matteo takes a step forward, his expression deadly as he stares back at me. “Someone’s bitch? Don’t go spewing that ugly shit. You know I don’t like it when you’re mean to me.”

I perk a brow and notice how he’s trying to loosen his shoulders, which is a clear indication that he remembers where he is and who’s around. He fucks with Cairo, then he has Torin and Reeve to deal with. “You mean when I stick up for myself?”

“When you keep fighting what it is—us. You left without saying goodbye. I haven’t seen you in years.”

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