Page 23 of Matteo
But their beginning had been neither simple nor easy—a story my sibling and I were subjected to constantly but secretly reveled in. It didn’t take long to learn that theirs was the type of love people searched high and low for.
I cleared my throat and they turned my way, Mom’s face lighting up with a smile.
“Matteo!” she cried. “I thought you’d be asleep by now.”
“Not yet.”
“It’s been a hard day,” she reprimanded softly. “You need to rest.”
I shrugged, striding into the office with long steps, then leaning against the executive desk from which my papa ruled his empire. Money laundering. Drug shipments. Weapons. You name it, the Vitales had a handle on it.
And one day, that would be my legacy too.
“You should be asleep too,” I remarked, noting the strain of fatigue on her face.
Mom chuckled. “We must be getting old if our son’s telling us we need to go to bed.”
“You’ll never get old.” It was true. She was the epitome offorever young.
“That’s right. You’re just as beautiful, if not more, than the day I met you,” Pa murmured, kissing her forehead. She smiled, her eyes sliding over his face longingly. It had always been like this with them, for as long as I could remember.
“Pa, can I talk to you?”
He raised an eyebrow in my direction. “Everything okay?”
Mom’s face immediately tensed, and Pa stroked her shoulder.
“Everything’s fine,” I answered quickly. “It’s… business.”Kind of.
Mom laughed. “Since when have I been excluded from business?”
Pa tilted his head, looking at me. He must have seen something on my face, because he lowered his head and whispered something into Mom’s ear that had her rising from the chair.
“Don’t stay up too late, you two.” Ma walked up to me and raised her hand. I lowered my tall frame so her palm could come to rest on my cheek. “I love you, Matteo.”
“Love you too.”
Once her light footsteps were out of earshot, my papa said, “Now, what’s troubling you, son?”
I took a deep breath before I uttered the words I’d been playing around with for hours—years. “I want you to talk to Nico Morrelli and arrange a marriage contract.”
CHAPTER TEN
ARIANNA
Screams, bullets, and fire yanked me from sleep.
My body was drenched in sweat and my breathing labored. It was always the same nightmare plaguing me, and now it had been fed with another scene.
I rolled onto my back and stared at the white ceiling. It took everything in me to rein in my spiraling thoughts and memories. Over the years, I’d mastered blanking my thoughts. It was a hard skill to learn, but it came in useful during times like these.
Inhaling to a count of ten and exhaling to six, I focused on keeping my vision unfocused. There’d be no more sleep for me tonight, despite the still pitch-black skies and moonlight pouring in through the window.
I slid out of the bed and made my way to the balcony. Careful not to make too much noise, I pressed on the door handle and swung it open, following the path out onto the large stone terrace.
The night air was crisp but pleasant, caressing my overheated skin and chasing the demons that lurked in the shadows. I walked around the house where the lights of an Olympic-sized pool illuminated the night, and sat down on thelounge that was blanketed in shadows, away from the pool’s glow.
I tilted my head back and began my usual routine. There was Andromeda, a barred spiral galaxy and the nearest to the Milky Way. It was the most distant object in the universe, visible to the naked eye.
