Page 165 of Phantom Mine

“Pavona.”

The words hit him like a ton of bricks. He draws back in surprise then surges immediately forward, his eyes flashing furiously.

“No.No, I won’t let you run away this time. This is one question you have to answer,” he murmurs gutturally. “What do you want?” he demands.

I drag my gaze away. “I don’t know.”

Matteo doesn’t let me hide. He never has. He grips my jaw and forces my gaze back to his.

“Yes, you do.Tell me." He crowds me further into the wall, stealing the air from my lungs in the process. His tone verges past desperate when he pleads softly, “What do youwant?”

“What I want is irrelevant!” I exclaim, the words bursting emotionally past my lips. “I know what’s at stake for you. I know you don’t want to marry her, I think I even know who you’d choose if you could, but that’s the thing.” I reach up and clasp his face, my eyes roving over his features to burn one last memory of him into my retinas. “The choice isn’t between me and her, and I know that. It’s between me and everything you’ve ever wanted, everything you’ve ever worked for, which is why I will never,everbe selfish enough to ask you to choose me,” I explain, adding as a belated confession, “No matter what my heart really wants.”

Matteo pins brooding eyes on me.

Five seconds turn to fifteen, then stretch to fifty. He cups my chin and runs his thumb possessively across my mouth. Heavy, half-lidded eyes stare with naked hunger as he drags my lower lip down beneath the pad of his finger.

“Leni…” he whispers hoarsely, his voice raw with unmasked need. “You never had to fucking ask.”

I frown, but he pushes off the wall and away from me. I feel the loss of him immediately. He aims once last impenetrablylong look at me and stalks out of the apartment without a backwards glance.

The door slams shut behind him with a pronounced finality that rips a tear right down the center of my battered heart.

Chapter Forty-Four

Matteo

Red still coats my vision like paint, obstructing my view and blocking all rational thoughts from seeping through. How dare Valentina cry when there’s a permanent ringing in my ears and wailing in my soul at the visual of her standing at the altar, being handed off to someone who isn’t me?

Over my dead body is another man going to call her his wife, and I do mean that literally. The thought alone seeps into my brain and rots away my cells like poison.

I spread my legs dominantly and take a moment to settle into the rather uncomfortable chair before I look back up at Thiago and the line of guns aimed straight at my head.

He stares at me shrewdly, still trying to work out why I just sauntered into his headquarters, unannounced, unarmed, and alone. Driven by my rage, I stormed out of my flat and came straight here without taking a moment to pause and think about whether this was a good idea.

It isn’t, but Thiago is going to promptly fix the deadly mistake he made in betrothing Valentina to someone else, or he’s just as quickly going to find himself trying to dig out of the grave in which I’ll have buried him alive.

It’s taking every ounce of willpower in me to stifle my anger and try to play this somewhat strategically. Asking for Valentina right out of the gate would only have resulted in me getting a bullet to the head, so I’ve offered something I know Thiago wants as much as I want her—my help in finding Adriana’s killer. I’m keeping the fact that she may be alive under wraps for now, a trump card to play later if needed.

“What do you want in return?” he asks.

I spread my arms, the very image of affected congeniality.

“A truce,” I say, using the opportunity to negotiate an alliance that will benefit us both. “No more bloodshed. No more going after members of my family. This ends today. If I walk out of this door without an agreement, then it’s war. But if you can agree to those terms, then I’ll overlook your crimes against my family up to this point.” I smile, knowing he’ll be surprised by my terms. “I think you can agree my offer is extremely generous.”

I am not to be fucked with right now. Does Thiago sense it? I have my lazily charming smile on, but he inspects me closely, cutting through the layers of veneer. My smile fades and my lips pull down into a flat, serious line as I clench my jaw. A muscle in my cheek spasms. There’s no hiding the real emotion I’m feeling anymore.

“And,” I add.

Thiago’s eyes flash and he scoffs. “I knew this wasn’t a selfless pursuit.”

“Never claimed it was.”

“What do you want?” he asks.

I blow out a slow, strained breath, my nostrils flaring.

Relax. Don’t fucking lose it.

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