Page 49 of Shot For Mercy

“Wouldn’t expect anything less,” I reply.

“We—” Matteo looks at Cole. “We’re never getting through this one.”

Cole’s eyes well with tears, and they begin to trail down his cheeks. “Matty, please.Pleasedon’t do this.”

Matteo looks broken, but this feels too much like begging on Cole’s end, and I don’t fucking like it.

“Please, Matty.” Cole shakes his head, the rest of him shaking too. “I—love you. Please.”

This time it’s Matteo who shakes his head. “Are you in love with him?” he asks Cole, who freezes in place. He doesn’t even breathe. “Are you in love with my dad?”

There’s a beat of silence.

“Yes.”

Matteo’s eyes fill with tears now too, and he nods. “Then it’s done.”

“No!” Cole shouts as Matteo turns on his heel and goes to his room, slamming the door and locking it. Cole goes after him, slamming his hand repeatedly onto the wooden surface. “Please, open the door.”

“Enough!” I growl. Cole’s chest heaves as he stops, then looks at me. “Him or me.”

Cole frowns.

“Choose, Cole,” I say through gritted teeth. “You have to choose.”

I watch as he runs his hands down his face, then looks right into my eyes and nods. “You,” he says through a choked sob, and then he heads right back to his room.

I follow after him, trying to locate my clothes through the haze of panic in my brain. Until my phone rings, snapping me right out of it. “Hello?” I say as I pick up Giovanni’s call.

“Brother,” he says tightly, and I hear shouting in the background. My spine straightens. “Luna’s Den has been burned down. A note left behind.”

“Burned—” I stutter. “What?”

“A note was left behind,” he repeats. “For Cole.”

My stomach sinks. “What does it say?”

“An eye for an eye,” Giovanni replies, and when I look over at Cole, his face is devoid of any color.

It seems the Russians really fucked up big time.

This is war now.

It seems like all I do lately is fuck up. While I can’t deny the sex earlier was mind-blowing, the best of my fucking life, it was definitely ruined by Matteo coming into the room and flipping out. Now he’s missing. Moved out. Never to come back.

I’m not naive, I know he meant what he said. We’ll never get through this. What I didn’t expect was for Emiliano to stop me from trying to make it right.Him or me. Choosing gutted me, yet it was also the easiest decision I’ve ever made in my life. I don’t regret it, but I am broken up over it. I’m suffering. Regardless of everything, Matteo is my best friend in the entire world. He’s fucking irreplaceable, and he always will be. There’s no lifetime in which he’s not that for me, and I’m gutted, absolutely destroyed at the thought of never speaking to him again.

I know Emiliano probably thinks I have feelings for Matteo right about now, but it’s not in the way he believes. Matty has been part of my life for over almost two decades. I was just a scared little boy when he took me in, nurturing me, healing me. He’s the most selfless person I’ve ever met, and that’s what gave me hope for the longest time. For years, really. Even before Emiliano and I got together, I dreamed of being in his arms. And a stupid part of me thought Matteo would come to accept us being together. But not like this. Not the way he found out. That had to be the most painful way he could’ve ever found out about us. And I know he’ll never forgive me—us.

When he kicked down the door, I thought it was someone else. Him discovering us was the last thing on my mind, which is why I grabbed my gun from under my pillow and pointed it at him. But nothing could’ve prepared me for the sight before me. Him looking absolutely blind-sided by us, and how angry and destroyed he looked over it.

When he hit Emiliano, though, I snapped. Nobody touches him—no one. Not even him. Even though I know Emiliano welcomed it, I couldn’t stop myself from intervening. And that seemed to piss off Matteo even more. Now, we’re both broken beyond repair, but I still can’t bring myself to regret Emiliano. I don’t know what happens next, but I do hope that now we’ll be out in the open. That this was the push Em needed to close the gap between us.

The vehicle comes to a stop in front of Luna’s Den. Well, what’s left of it, anyway. It’s mostly ashes now. Emiliano’s brothers are standing in front of the burned building along with Amy, and something in me snaps. Before I can get out, though, Em grabs my arm and halts me in place.

He looks tired, and there are bags under his eyes. It’s late—three in the morning—and we should be in bed right about now. But something tells me we won’t be sleeping tonight. We’ll be doing damage control. Plus, I know he won’t sleep a wink with what just happened. He’ll probably just toss and turn, thinking of Matteo and everything he’s lost today. I’ll more than likely do the same, to be honest. It feels like in the blink of an eye, I’ve lost it all. Everything but him.

He is enough, though.

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