CHAPTER 21

Jamie woke with his body already fuming.

Anger.

It sat heavy on his tongue, metallic and bitter, curling at the edges of his thoughts like smoke. For days he had been afraid — trembling, calculating, trying to survive by shrinking himself smaller.

That hadn’t worked.

Fear had given them control.

Silence had given them control.

Obedience had given them control.

So today he would try something else.

He would make Matteo feel unstable. 

'How dare him just decide he gets to keep me. I'm a person!'   Jamie thought.

Jamie stood in the center of his pristine bedroom and looked around slowly. Everything was perfect. The bed made perfectly with elegant corners. The heavy velvet curtains pressed flat. The polished desk reflecting the morning light. 

A cage disguised as luxury.

He moved to the mirror and studied himself.

Bruises from the cove had faded into faint yellow shadows beneath his skin. His lip had healed. His eyes, though — they looked sharper now. Harder.

“You want control?” he murmured to his reflection. “Let’s see how much you actually have.”

He unbuttoned his shirt slowly. Not fully. Just enough.

Enough to make him run wild.

Matteo entered that evening without knocking. He always entered without knocking.

Ownership didn’t require permission. He believed.

But this time, he stopped two steps inside the room.

Jamie was leaning against the desk, sleeves rolled carelessly, collar open just enough to expose the faint line of his collarbone. One ankle crossed over the other. Casual.

Waiting.

Matteo’s gaze flickered once — quick, involuntary — then returned to Jamie’s face.

“What are you doing?” Matteo asked his voice gruff.

He tried to keep it even. Controlled.

Jamie pushed off the desk slowly and walked closer.

“Getting bored,” he said lightly. “Thought I’d entertain myself.”

Matteo didn’t move.

Jamie closed the distance between them, stopping close enough to feel the warmth radiating off Matteo’s body. He smelled like cedarwood and expensive cologne — and faintly, like smoke.

Jamie lifted his hand and adjusted Matteo’s collar as if it had always been his right to do so.

“You watch me constantly,” Jamie said softly. “Figured I’d give you something worth watching.”

Matteo’s fingers wrapped around Jamie’s wrist.

Firm.

Not violent.

But undeniably strong.

“Don’t,” Matteo said.

The word was low. Dangerous.

Jamie tilted his head. “Don’t what?”

“Pretend.”

Jamie’s pulse skipped.

“Pretend?” he echoed.

“You think I don’t know when you’re acting?” Matteo asked.

His grip tightened just slightly.

Jamie smiled — slow, deliberate.

“Is it acting,” he murmured, “if your reaction is so real?”

Matteo’s jaw flexed.

There it was.

The crack in the air.

Anger wasn’t loud in Matteo. It was controlled, compressed, like pressure building behind stone.

“You’re trying to provoke me,” Matteo said.

“Maybe I’m trying to see under all those layers,” Jamie replied, voice barely above a whisper.

“Of what?”

“Of you.”

For a moment — a dangerous, suspended moment — Matteo looked at him like he might give in. Like he might pull him close and erase the tension with something reckless.

He leaned own and hovered over Jamie's lips. Brushing it lightly with his.

Then Matteo released him abruptly and stepped back.

“You mistake my self-control for weakness,” Matteo said.

Jamie’s smile sharpened. “Do I?”

Matteo stared at him a long second.

“You’re playing with fire.”

Jamie leaned closer again, whispering near his ear.

“You've already burned me.”

That did it.

Matteo stepped away fully this time, putting deliberate distance between them.

His voice, when he spoke again, was colder.

“Keep pushing.”

“And?” Jamie challenged.

“And I may stop holding myself back.”

The threat wasn’t loud.

That made it worse.

Jamie held his gaze, refusing to flinch.

“Good,” he said.

Matteo’s eyes darkened — not with cruelty.

With conflict.

That flicker of something human beneath the control unsettled Jamie more than rage would have.

Matteo turned and walked toward the door.

But before leaving, he paused.

“You think this makes you have power over me?,” he said without looking back. “You've already played all your cards.”

The door shut.

Jamie’s legs gave out the second he was alone.

He collapsed onto the bed, breathing hard.

His hands were shaking.

He wasn’t fearless.

He was terrified.

But for the first time since the cove, he had seen something new in Matteo.

Not just anger.

Not just control.

Restraint.

And restraint meant struggle.

Which meant Matteo was not as invincible as he wanted to appear.

Jamie rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling.

“Good,” he whispered to himself then let out a bark of laughter.

If Matteo was struggling, then this wasn’t a cage.

It was a battle ground in the process of war.

And Jamie had just fired the first shot.

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