Page 99 of The Killer Cupcake
"Debs, don't—" Matteo's voice cracked.
She buried her face in his chest, sobbing hard. Junior's tiny fingers tangled in her hair. He tried to soothe. Matteo crushed them both against him, as if he could shield them from the horror. And tears slipped down his face, as his own trauma from his mother’s suicide surfaced.
An hour crawled by. Junior had escaped earlier, leaving a trail of toys, but now he stumbled back, climbing Matteo like a tree before collapsing against his father's chest and putting his thumb in his mouth.
"I should put him to bed," Debbie mumbled, swaying as she stood. The cognac hit hard. He’d poured enough.
Matteo caught her hand. Moving like a man in a dream, he locked up the place, killed the lights, and pulled her upstairs.
Junior's crib waited in their room for nights like these, when closeness mattered most. And Matteo never truly slept, always ready for his son's escape attempts from the crib in the middle of the night.
He stripped the boy down with practiced efficiency, changing him quickly.
"Didn't bathe him. Can't remember if he ate." Debbie's words came out broken. "Can't remember anything today."
His eyes found hers in the dark. "I've got him, Debs.”
She leaned against the doorframe, watching. Her gangster. Her baby's father. More tender with their son than she'd ever dreamed possible. Better than she deserved. The thought ambushed her with memories of her father's gentle hands when she was a girl, of how she had migrated from Mississippi with him, riding upon his sturdy shoulders. He was a stern disciplinarian, but he’d only taken his belt to her twice in life. He was their rock. He broke his back and bent his knee beforemen lesser than him to give his family all he could. His patient teaching and silent love carved her into the woman she would become.
Matteo looked back to see Debbie shivering and on the verge of another emotional collapse. She wore a dress and no shoes. He pulled the blanket up over his son and went to her.
"Want to take a shower?" he asked softly, thumbs brushing the tears from her cheeks.
She nodded, unable to speak.
He pulled her to the bathroom and left the doors open. Matteo was always listening for Junior. His hands were careful and tender as he peeled away her clothes. He did his best not to make any of his actions sexual. Though even distressed Debbie undressed made his loins ache. He reached in and twisted the taps to turn on the water until steam billowed.
Matteo stripped and followed her in. The warm water pounded her shoulders while he soaped her back with firm strokes, then turned her to wash her front. His hands moved with purpose—cleaning, caring. He barely rinsed himself, urgent to get her warm and dry.
Within minutes, he guided them back to their bedroom, where Junior slept peacefully in his crib.
"Matteo?" She said in barely a whisper.
"What is it?" He tucked her into bed, skin against skin.
"Do you think—was it bad? The torture?" Her voice cracked.
"Your father was iron, Debs. Whatever they did, he didn't give them satisfaction. Hell, he probably put a couple in the ground before they finished him."
She shattered again. He wrapped himself around her, blankets sealing them in. She pressed into his chest, wrung out and hollow.
"When Mama's stronger, I'm telling her everything. About us. How you've saved us—me and Junior—over and over. WithMagdalena. And now. You're my guardian angel, Matteo. God's gift."
His smile felt like broken glass. She didn't know the truth—the bodies he'd left cooling in their own blood, the screams he'd drawn out with his blade on those who survived. She knew only this version: lover, protector, father. Not the Butcher who stalked through nightmares, and took the aggression Cosimo sealed in him out on the guilty and deserving. He'd keep it that way.
"Debs, when the dust settles, I've got plans for us. Vegas, just as we talked about. We'll go without my father's blessing—I'm building my own connections now. We'll bring your mother, find her the best doctors money can buy. Get the hell out of New York while we can." His voice dropped lower. "What's coming... it won't be good, baby. Mama Stewart warned me it would be bloody. She said Harlem would strike back, and that's exactly what my father's counting on. It's how he'll convince the other families to unite—to wipe Harlem off the map. This is going to be war, Debs. I won't have you and Junior anywhere near it."
The room fell silent.
He glanced down to find her breathing steady against his chest, lost to exhausted sleep. Matteo released a long breath, his gaze fixed on the shadows dancing across the ceiling.
"It's going to be war," he whispered to the darkness.
Matteo’s breathingcame faster and sudden. The need for oxygen brought his consciousness out of the deep sleep he’d finally achieved before his mind could grapple with the intense seizing in his dick. The strikingly hot shots of pleasure in hispelvis that spread heat through his balls. His back arched up on the bed, and his jaw clenched through a deep guttural grunt.
Debbie nearly swallowed his dick. She suctioned her jaws harder, and her tongue did a loving glide over his stalk as her head bobbed beneath the sheet. He lifted the sheet to look down the line of his body. His hips moved and rolled involuntarily from the assault. And his woman gave him the dick-suck of his life.
“Damn it, Debs, stop,” he said, but he wanted her to go further.
