Page 27 of Unleashing Mayhem
Matty froze at the counter, a tub of butter in hand. “You do?” he asked, not daring to turn around just yet.
“Did I not tell you I came to this realm with selfish pursuits in mind?”
Matty frowned down at the counter. “Some would say actions speak louder than words.”
“And what about my actions do you find displeasing?”
“I’m not sure,” Matty hedged.
He really wasn’t. He knew enough to know he was being unreasonable. He wasn’t owed Nightmare jumping his bones at every opportunity. No one was ever owed the touch of another being.
But Matty wasn’t used towantingthings. His life before had been about survival. Avoidance. And now he’d summoned this demon to his side and the demon was bigger and scarier than anything Matty had ever seen and Matty wanted him tostay. And he wanted him closer. And he maybe wanted to crawl under Nightmare’s skin and fuse them together so Nightmare couldn’t ever leave.
It was terrible, this wanting.
And possibly not very normal.
But Matty would worry about that part later.
Matty finally summoned the courage to turn around, only to find Nightmare leaning forward in his seat, his taloned hands clasped on the kitchen table. He looked so strange and out of place in this quaint New England kitchen. Tall and gaunt and gray, his antlers wreathed in shadow.
“We have a task to complete, Matteo,” Nightmare told him, his raspy voice as gentle as it was capable of. “I need you to aid me in finding Dominico Caruso.”
Matty bit his lower lip, only distantly aware that at some point his wounded skin seemed to have healed. “So you can leave?”
“So I can keep you.”
The hope those words induced was sharp and painful, so Matty ignored it, choosing instead to butter his muffin in silence and bring it to the table.
Nightmare grasped Matty’s wrist when he was within reach. “How do I find Dominico?”
After a moment of deliberation, Matty motioned for Nightmare to scoot back from the table, then took a seat on his lap. If they were going to be talking about terrifying things, Matty wanted to be as close as possible to his terrifying demon. “I don’t know.”
“Who does?”
Matty thought it over. “Ivan, maybe. Sascha’s brother. He’d be keeping track of Luca’s key players.”
“Ivan Kozlov. The incubus’s mate.”
Matty twisted to look back at Nightmare. “How do you know that?”
“Call him,” Nightmare ordered brusquely, completely ignoring Matty’s question.
Matty looked down to his muffin. If he ate slowly enough, he could delay things by…twenty minutes? He’d need to chew really thoroughly though. Crumb by crumb.
“Now, Matteo.”
Matty sighed, reaching across the table to where he’d set his phone earlier. He pressed Ivan’s contact, mildly shocked when Ivan picked up promptly.
“Matteo Caruso,” Ivan greeted in his cold, monotone voice. “Did you change your mind about the babysitter?”
A lot of people found Ivan pretty scary. His name was whispered with fear in plenty of circles; Matty knew that much. And Matty even got it—he really did. Ivan was a cold and intimidating mob boss, and Matty had only ever seen him smile for his gorgeous incubus mate.
But also, a couple months ago, during one of his visits, Ivan had walked up to Matty—nestled in blankets on the couch, fighting back tears as he selected another horror movie to keep himself awake—and apropos of nothing, had told him, “The kind of men who raised us, they should never have been in charge of children.Fuckthem.”
And then he’d walked away without another word.
So overall, Matty thought Ivan was pretty okay.
