Chapter 2

Matteo left his father’s sitting room without saying a word, they clung on his chest with so much weight. He moved upstairs to his room, —on the hallway,large portraits of Romano were arranged, his painted eyes seemed to judge him, past the corridor where men in dark suits stood with dark shades covering their eyes, almost like people who could buy time. Immediately he got to his room,he fell onto the bed the way a man folds a letter he no longer wants to read: careful, slow, as if he had lost himself.

Night stared at him through the window. Matteo stared at the ceiling as if it could answer the question his father had thrown like a gunshot: marry a girl he had bought. Marry. The word sounded like broken glasses to him, like a coin dropped into an empty fountain. He replayed memories— Dominic’s soft deep voice, the particular curl of Dominic’s mouth when he laughed, the way Dominic’s hands brushed his body and how it made him wet his underwear. A warmth spread across his body, then became cold again. He had promised Dominic everything with his kisses, with the small commitments they made private: how they held each other’s hands, the breath they took together in the midnights, the soft confession of their love. Where and how could he find a soul mate like him and keep an honest heart?

His phone rang; Dominic’s name popped on the screen. He watched the screen and put the phone’s face down on his bedside . Dominic called again. And again. Matteo let them all go to voicemail. Each unanswered call was its own small betrayal, but he didn’t know how to explain himself yet— how could he say them without hearing his lover’s voice break?

Dominic, in his own apartment, sat at his desk with a file open and the glow of his laptop reflecting on his face like the color of a guilty angel. He had called as he usually did — three missed calls, a pause, called again and again— because there was a meaning to Matteo’s quietness and Dominic clung to it. The lawyer’s fingers hovered on his phone’s keyboard, then typed a single line in a draft message: You’re late. Are you okay? He didn’t send it. He was a man of control and contracts; he knew how to craft loopholes and futures. He did not know what to think and how much fear was in his chest when Matteo did not answer.

 Dominic couldn’t sleep that night. He thought about Matteo’s lips, the faint scar at the corner that shifted anytime he smiled. He pictured the way Matteo’s arms folded into himself whenever he felt overwhelmed. He imagined the Don’s voice, low and full of authority, and the cold certainty of a man who could buy and sell futures like commodities. Dominic’s mind reminded him of the consequences; his throat tightened around a dozen unsaid apologies and a vow to keep Matteo safe at all costs.

It was morning already— bright and fair. Matteo still lay where he had fallen last night, the dim sound of the swimming pool threading through the heavy curtains. The sun seemed to be away from him.

Downstairs, the Don’s sitting room smelled of scotch and new leather. Dante’s morning voice had its own weight; he used it to move men and markets. He picked up the phone before the call connected, barking brief instructions as if the line were a man he wanted ordered into place. Dominic’s number appeared on the screen.

When Dominic answered, he always sounded professional because everything meant business to him. “Signore Romano,” he said, the formal address smooth as silk.

Dante already knew he always went straight ahead to business in every conversation. “Cortez. The coastal plot — the one on Via Lido — I want the transfer sealed by Friday. The fish operation will expand, and we need the paperwork to be ready by then. No mistakes, no delays. You arrange the council approvals. I will have my men at the registry.”

Dominic’s voice tightened his voice before he spoke. “You mean the Caputo property? I can draft the deed of conveyance and schedule the notarization. I’ll ensure the legal presentation looks—” He paused, because even neutral phrasing carried risk. “—clean. What about the current tenants?”

Dante chuckled over the phone. “I’ve handled tenants and nuisances. I need discretion. Your loyalty will be rewarded. If anyone asks too many questions, you know what I expect.”

There was a kindness beneath the command, the kind that made men who feared him do worse things than obey. Dominic swallowed hard, taught to be calm in order not to feel the pressure. He was careful with words. “As you wish, Signore. I will prepare the documents. Delivery Friday morning?”

“Friday,” Dante agreed, then sharpened. “And Cortez?”

“Yes?”

“Remember whose name is on every line. Keep my family’s reputation very safe like your life. And if I find out your attention is divided… you will answer to me, not your heart.” The sound of his last words were unreadable. Dante was a man who punished leaks the way a surgeon cuts a human body.

Dominic listened to everything he said carefully to avoid mistakes. He wouldn’t dare to lie to the Don when it matters the most. “Understood Sir,” he said. “Everything will be prepared.”

Dante’s last words were colder than the ice. “Good. And Cortez? Don’t disappoint me.” The line went dead.

Immediately Dominic put his phone down, he took a deep, that might have been a prayer. He thought about Matteo and the sophisticated place his lover found himself of all places in the world— the curve of his light skinned back in the dark, the way he called out his name. He was really scared of Dante just as one is scared of a storm over a fragile boat; the Don was the sea and the men who fell between them were likely not to survive his wrath.

When Matteo arrived at Dominic’s office that afternoon, he looked like a man who had lost himself in deep thoughts. He walked sluggishly with a practiced stiffness — hand on the knob, shoulders looking broad and sexy— but Dominic saw the uneasiness in his look as he walked in. The office smelled of papers and Dominic’s cologne, a masculine scent that was enough to turn a lover on. Dominic closed the file he’d been re-reading and stood up very near, close enough to catch the small, telling details: the way Matteo’s face looked sober; how his eyes kept flicking to the door as if expecting an intruder.

“Why have you not been taking my calls?” Dominic asked without exchanging pleasantries, the question came as a storm into the space between them.

Matteo’s mouth moved. He opened it and closed it again. He could have lied —men would obviously lie for many reasons — but his chest was already heavy with the truth that he wouldn’t be able to control. He sat down opposite Dominic’s desk. For a long moment, he stared at his hands as if they were not his own.

“Papa wants me to get married to some girl he bought,” he said finally. The words sounded like a bombshell, heavy and round. “He—he bought her as a re-payment I think. He said… he said I must take her as my wife to prove I am man enough.”

Dominic’s face shifted in the way that he had not seen ever before. Silence flooded in the room that moment. Papers rustled; a pen lay abandoned like a muted sword.

“Who is the girl?” Dominic’s tone became unexpectedly low.

Matteo shook his head. “He didn’t mention her name to me yet. He told me to get ready. You know how he can be, babe.”

Dominic’s hands—always steady on contracts and courtroom files reached Matteo’s. He touched the web of skin between Matteo’s thumb and forefinger like a surgeon checking a pulse. Heat rushed through his forehead despite the air conditioner. He exhaled deeply. Dominic’s mind pictured the  consequences: the father’s control, the arranged marriage, the Don’s authority and how he gets whatever he wants. He tightened his jaw, then hardened his face. “How long?”

“I’m not sure yet but sooner than we expect”. Matteo said. He had the feeling of a useless man without options. “But you know he won’t waste time”.

Dominic swallowed. He had been the architect of many solutions in his life. He had never  thought about a way to stop a man like Dante from destroying the love of  his life and the only relationship that had mattered to him all his life.

Matteo’s eyes looked straight into Dominic’s. There was an unanswered question in there, the one that turned would make them eat each other up and leave no crumbs: How do we handle this situation? The office suddenly felt like a courtroom.

Dominic’s jaw tightened, and for a long time he let silence do the speaking. He had thought about sentences — trying to figure out plans, safe way out, the way two men could conquer a continent between them — all of it illegal theory and romantic beliefs. None of it was fitting into Dante’s authority and power.

Instead he leaned forward and held Matteo’s hands, placed his forehead to his, and bowed privately. “We will find a way, My Love,” he said, and the words were both vow and weapon. “I won’t let him destroy what we’ve built.”

Matteo’s breath hitched. The world narrowed into the sound of Dominic’s heartbeat and the closeness of Dominic’s lips. They were both so in love; they had learned to live without each other. Now,their beautiful future is about to be put to an end.

They started kissing deeply— not an ordinary kiss of anxious men, but a desperate, deep kiss that seemed that they could eat up each other’s lips. Dominic’s hands moved immediately with the courage of a man who had learned how to take care of things that must not be determined by fate: he drew Matteo closer, fingers spreading across the planes of his face, and then to the slope of his cheekbone, the scar at the side of his lip where Matteo had once cut himself with the knife he found on his father’s table as a child. Matteo, who had always longed to be seen, pressed his body to Dominic’s with all the urges he had hoarded.

For a while, they were only themselves — they gummed their bodies together colliding to the table where they found themselves.

Then the office door clicked.

Both heads snapped up. The sound was mild but they heard it clearly. Their mouths parted at once. At that moment Matteo’s hands tightened on Dominc’s waist, pinning him to the desk with a possessive, masculine force. Matteo’s breath trembling on Dominic’s throat.