Chapter 28

Matteo's POV

The moment we stepped into the penthouse, I loosened my tie, tossing it over the armchair like the noose it had become after an evening built entirely on chaos and silence.

Alessandro walked in slowly, eyes scanning the foyer like he was looking for ghosts memories left behind in polished surfaces and half-empty wine bottles, or maybe just a piece of his fractured legacy.

He paused at the hallway’s end, frowning toward the spare bedroom, voice low but firm when he asked, “Is your brother not staying here anymore? I asked your assistant to prepare that room earlier this week.”

My throat tightened.

The kind of tight that meant a conversation was coming one I’d avoided for so long it had started to rot in the walls, even if no one dared breathe its name aloud.

“He’s not here,” I said, coldly, deliberately, each word clipped like scissors against paper, not even bothering to pretend the answer was innocent or temporary or anything but wrapped in years of resentment.

Alessandro turned slowly, those piercing eyes slicing through my tone like a scalpel. “Matteo, are you still at war with that boy? I thought we buried that feud when your father passed.”

“No,” I said.

Flat.

Unforgiving.

“The war never ended. We just got better at pretending we didn’t want to kill each other when people like you were around to care.”

He sighed.

Heavy.

Old.

A sound like a stone dropping into water.

Then, without another word, he pulled out his phone and dialed a number I hadn’t seen on my screen in over a year and for good reason.

“Ryan,” he said. “Come to the penthouse. Now. No excuses.”

I turned away before I could roll my eyes, already bracing myself for the inevitable, for the fuse Alessandro had just lit between two men who only knew how to burn each other.

An hour later, the doorbell rang.

And there he was.

Ryan Russo or rather, Ryan Lawson, my mother’s son by another man, my father’s tolerated inconvenience, and the reason I don’t believe in second chances anymore.

His smile was tight.

His clothes are still perfect.

But his eyes?

They carried the same challenge they always did the silent promise that whatever peace this house had tonight, it wouldn’t survive dinner.

“Brother,” he said, stepping inside like he belonged, like this wasn’t a battlefield disguised as a dining room, like we hadn’t almost come to blows the last time we shared oxygen.

“Wrong house,” I muttered under my breath.

He heard it.

Grinned.

Didn’t reply.

Just walked past me and shook Alessandro’s hand with fake warmth and too much charm an act the old man had stopped falling for before Ryan grew out of braces.

“Hello, grandpa. I missed you so much,” he said hugging Alessandro tightly. 

Oh, my little pumpkin I missed you too, Grandpa said with a cute old smirk.

Dinner was quiet at first.

Too quiet.

The kind of quiet that comes before a symphony of knives clinking against china, or better yet, words sharpened into weapons by years of childhood jealousy and adult disappointment.

“So,” Alessandro said after a long sip of wine, “how are things at the office, Matteo? Any impressive young assistants catching your eye lately?”

I froze.

Ryan smirked.

“Oh, you mean Sarah?” Ryan asked, casually slicing into his steak, the word falling from his lips like a dare, like a slap disguised as conversation and served medium-rare.

“She’s impressive,” he added. “Smart. Funny. Probably too good for that assistant role.”

I clenched my jaw, stabbing my steak like it had offended me, like the plate might soak up all the things I couldn’t say out loud.

“Don’t talk about her,” I said, voice low, too quiet, the kind of quiet that hides explosives beneath velvet and forks and a grandfather who suddenly regretted putting us in the same room.

“Why not?” Ryan said, tilting his head. “You’ve barely looked at her unless it’s to glare. Or scold. Or stand frozen while she’s getting humiliated by your girlfriend in public.”

Alessandro cleared his throat.

I didn’t.

Couldn’t.

Wouldn’t.

Instead, I looked him dead in the eye and said, “She’s none of your business. And if you had an ounce of respect, you’d keep her name out of your damn mouth.”

“And if you had an ounce of a heart,” Ryan said, leaning forward, eyes flashing, “you’d admit you’re in love with the only woman who ever looked at you without fear or paycheck.”

The plates between us were forgotten now, the food untouched, heat rising faster than the wine could cool it two grown men slipping back into the boys who never stopped throwing punches behind walls.

“You’re obsessed with control,” Ryan snapped, slamming his glass down. “That’s all Sarah ever was to you a challenge to conquer, not a woman you ever truly deserved.”

“And you’re obsessed with attention,” I growled back, “always chasing what isn’t yours, always needing to be the one people choose, even when they’re smart enough to know better than to trust you.”

Alessandro let the words fly for a moment longer, then cleared his throat sharply, the sound slicing through tension like a blade ancient, authoritative, the kind of noise that silences lions mid-roar.

“That’s enough,” he said coldly. “You want to fight, do it with your fists outside this is my house, and I won’t have it poisoned by testosterone and stupidity over one woman.”

“She’s not just one woman,” Ryan muttered.

I didn’t look at him.

Didn’t need to.

Because I knew we were both already bleeding from wounds Sarah didn’t even know she’d opened in the hearts of two men raised to lose her.

Alessandro stood slowly, cane tapping once.

Then twice.

Then he looked at both of us and said the words that blew every wine glass off the table metaphorically, but violently all the same.

“Sarah will marry Matteo,” he said.

Simple.

Final.

Like it had already been written into the walls of this family, carved beside the company’s founding date and the sins of every Russo man who came before me.

Ryan shot up from his chair, chest rising, hands clenched. “No,” he said. “Not. Matteo’s in love with Isabelle he always has been. Ask him. Hell, look at their history.”

I said nothing.

But not because it was true.

Because I didn’t owe him the truth not when the only truth that mattered was Sarah’s name already stitched into every part of me I’d tried to bury.

“She doesn’t belong to you,” Ryan added, voice shaking now not with fear, but fury. “She never will. She belongs to me and she knows it, even if she’s afraid to admit it.”

I rose too.

Calm.

Controlled.

A storm on a leash.

“She’s not a thing to be owned,” I said quietly, every word etched in steel. “But if she belongs anywhere it’s here, with me. Whether she realizes it yet or not.”

Alessandro stepped back, sighed again this time deeper, heavier, and turned toward the staircase, his cane tapping with a little more weight than before, as if he carried disappointment in both hands tonight.

“You want to tear each other apart?” he muttered, not even looking back. “Fine. But do it without me. I built this house with fire, and I won’t watch you burn it.”

And then he climbed.

One step at a time.

Leaving behind the two men he once called grandsons now just rivals drowning in love and ego, too proud to stop, too broken to walk away.

***

The room felt colder after Alessandro disappeared upstairs, as if the heat had followed him like a loyal servant, leaving only the echo of his disappointment and our tension behind in silence.

Ryan was still standing, arms crossed, his jaw tight with defiance, like he didn’t regret a single word he’d thrown across the table, even if they’d sliced deeper than either of us admitted.

I poured myself another drink not because I needed the alcohol, but because the sound of the glass hitting wood felt like control, something solid I could still hold while everything else spiraled away.

“She doesn’t belong to you,” I said again, voice low, eyes fixed on the bourbon swirling in my glass like it held the answer to every wrong turn we’d ever taken.

Ryan scoffed, took a step forward, and said, “Neither does she belong to you, and if you think letting your grandfather parade her like some prize changes that, then you’re more pathetic than I thought.”

My eyes lifted.

Met his.

Unflinching.

“You walked out,” I said coldly. “You left her there, humiliated, drenched, and trembling and now you think she’ll run back to you because you vanished when she needed someone?”

His jaw tightened.

Just slightly.

But he didn’t deny it.

Didn’t defend himself.

Just picked up his coat from the chair and slung it over his shoulder like he was already halfway out of this war, even though the battlefield still burned beneath us.

“Watch yourself, Matteo,” he said quietly. “Because when she finds out who you are the man behind the office, behind the empire she won’t want the throne you keep offering her.”

I didn’t respond.

Didn’t need to.

Because the moment he walked out that door, I already knew what came next and this time, I wasn’t letting her choose in silence.

I was going to fight.

Even if it destroyed everything else.