Page 40 of The Marriage Debt

The second floor feels colder. Lev’s door is cracked open. I step inside, expecting to find him playing, but his bed is empty. I check the bathroom, the sitting room, and the hallway. Nothing.

I find him ten minutes later curled up on the wide velvet chair in the corner of the master bedroom, fast asleep. It's too early for his nap time, but he hasn't been sleeping well at night lately. His face is pressed to a bundle of fabric, small fingers clutching something black. I get closer and realize what it is.

One of Mateo’s button-down shirts.

The sleeves are too long. The collar hangs low on his shoulders. He’s swaddled in it like it’s his favorite blanket. Half the buttons are done, half left undone. The cotton is wrinkled and stretched where he’s been holding it too tightly.

I kneel beside him and smooth the edge of the fabric away from his face.

“Lev,” I whisper. “You want me to carry you to bed?"

He stirs but doesn’t open his eyes. His voice is low, sleepy, and mumbled against the collar. “It smells like him. I sleep better that way.”

I freeze for the second time in only a few minutes.

I look at the shirt again, then at his face. There’s no hint of worry there. No fear, no confusion. Just comfort. And I don’t ask how he got the shirt. If he's in Mateo's room, he's probably been snooping where he shouldn't be. Mateo would be furious.

I carry him to his bed without waking him fully. He folds into my arms, still clinging to the edge of the shirt. I lay him down, pull the blanket over his legs, and tuck the shirt around his shoulders like it belongs to him now. Maybe it does. Maybe this whole thing is about him now.

He shifts once, then settles, and I sit on the floor beside his bed, knees pulled up, arms resting on the mattress. The room is dark but still enough that I can hear every breath he takes.

He didn’t ask for safety in words. He found it in the scent of a man who doesn’t say much but leaves a shadow big enough to sleep inside.

If I tell Mateo, he'll let it go to his head, which will make his already overinflated ego worse.

20

MATEO

The reports spread across my desk lay out every number and name with surgical precision. They confirm what I already suspected. The leak is internal—old, embedded, patient. Carlo Mazzanti has been with the Rossi name behind him for eleven years. He has no flagged activity on record and no disciplinary marks. He maintained consistent mediocrity and held access to the things Anton never paid close enough attention to.

His banking trail doesn’t pretend to be clever. Two deposits were routed through a fabricated business in Milan and moved again to a holding firm registered in his wife's maiden name. It links directly to the Madrid transfer. The pattern is subtle enough to blend and careless enough to show arrogance.

I push the report aside and open the secure line. The message is short and direct.

Mazzanti is the target. His location has been confirmed. The order is standard disposal with no theatrics.

I send it and close the channel before the read receipt pings back. The man handling it doesn’t need reminders. He has been waiting on a name. There will be no warning, no confrontation, and no second chance. A traitor with that much time inside the house does not deserve the courtesy.

I close the laptop, set it in the drawer, and slide it shut with the flat of my palm. The lamp stays on. The rest of the room remains dark. I sit back in the chair and wait until I hear the reply come through—a simple word.

Received.

Outside the window, the perimeter lights cast a long spill of amber across the trees. The light reaches just far enough to remind anyone watching that someone is always awake and always watching.

The family bleeds from the inside when no one cauterizes the wound. I’ve stopped pretending that Anton understood that.

I leave the office, locking the drawer behind me. My shoes hit the tile in even strides, each step pulled forward by desire. After a stressful day, there is only one way I intend to relax, and it's with her.

I pass the gallery wall, the hallway corner where Lev left one of his wooden traps half-finished, and the cabinet where Lila keeps her tea.

Upstairs, the bedroom door is open. Lila’s in bed, her back against the headboard, legs curled under her. She has a book in her hands, the spine bent from too much use. She doesn’t acknowledge me when I walk in, but the slight shift in her posture tells me she felt me the second I stepped through the door.

I unbutton my shirt as I cross the room, stripping it off and dropping it over the chair beside the bed. My hands go to my belt next, but I don’t undo it yet. I stand at the edge of the mattress and look down at her. She doesn’t glance up, doesn’t speak. Her eyes stay fixed on the page, like she’s trying to convince herself that I’m not the thing taking up all the space in her chest.

I reach down and take the book from her hands. She lets go without argument. Then I grab her by the knees and pull her down the bed in one sharp motion. She gasps and braces against the sheets, but she doesn’t stop me, doesn’t tell me no.

She never does. Not when I touch her like this. Not when she wants it more than I do.

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