جميع فصول : الفصل -الفصل 80

Chapter 71Nicolas’ POVI pushed the door open and stepped inside. The place was way quieter than I expected with a few people at the bar who did not look up. Mateo was already at a table near the back, with a black coat still on, and one hand around a glass. He watched me walk the whole way like he had known I would come.I stopped in front of him.“Sit,” he said.I sat. My pulse was loud in my ears. Up close the snake tattoo looked darker with its head sharp under his jaw.“You followed me,” he said. Not a question.“You’ve been following me first. Café. Street. Everywhere. Who the hell are you?”He took a slow sip and set the glass down. His eyes stayed on mine calmly like he was bored.“Mateo. I already told you that.”“Not enough. Why were you at the cemetery. Why do you keep showing up. What do you want.”He leaned back a little. The corner of his mouth moved like he found the questions funny.“Boy, the answers you’re looking for can lead to your death.”The word boy landed hard

Chapter 73Nicolas’ POVI went when he texted the address. I always did. Even after the whiskey-drawer comment that had sat in my chest like a blade for days. The room was the same one with the mirror. Mateo stood by the table, black shirt open at the throat, snake visible. He did not smile.“Sit.”There was a wooden chair in the middle of the floor. I sat. He moved behind me and I felt the rope wrap around my wrists first before I even saw it. He pulled it tight to the arms of the chair. Then my ankles, bound to the front legs so my knees stayed spread. I tested the knots. They did not give.He set a phone on the table in front of me and turned the screen so I had no choice but to look. His thumb hit play.The video was clear. Well lit. My father was on his back, legs open with Mateo between them. There was no mistaking either face. Mateo’s hand was around my father’s throat. My father’s mouth was open on a moan I had never heard from him in life. They moved together hard and filthy,

Chapter 75Gus’ POVI came home to find a stranger in our sitting room wearing a smile that belonged on a billboard for something expensive and most certainly fake.He sat between my parents like he had always been there. And had on some dark clothes, clean shoes, with a watch that caught the light every time he moved his hand. My mother kept offering him more tea while my father kept agreeing with everything the man said before the sentence even finished.“You must be the son,” the man said, standing up to greet me with his hands out. I took it because the alternative was standing there looking rude in my own house. His palm was dry and confident. “They have told me about you. You’re a hard worker with a quick mind. Exactly the kind of person who deserves better than this.”I let go first. “Better is a big word.”My father laughed, the nervous kind. “He has a mouth on him, but he is a good boy. Sit. Listen. This man can help.”The stranger sat again and placed a folder on the low ta

Chapter 77Gus’ POVI woke up to the sound of the lock turning.There was no staff uniform on the chair. Just a pile of clothes that already knew my size. Dark shirt. Dark pants. Soft fabric that felt expensive and wrong on my skin. The door only opened from the outside, and Dante was the one standing in the frame when it did.He looked at me like he had slept fine. Well I had not.“Put those on,” he said. “You are not going downstairs today.”I almost asked what the alternative was. Then I remembered the door that locked from the outside and the way he had said day one was only half finished. So I changed. My hands felt clumsy. Everything felt clumsy. The room was too quiet and my pulse was already too loud.He did not leave while I dressed. He just waited, arms loose at his sides, watching like the act of me putting on clothes he chose was somehow interesting. When I finished he nodded once toward the main suite.“Sit.”I sat.The day stretched in strange slow pieces. Dante took c

Chapter 79Gus’ POVI was still trying to get my jaw to close properly when Dante’s expression shifted.He smiled.Not the cold almost-curve he sometimes wore. A real one. It changed his whole face. Softer around the eyes but still dangerous in a completely different way.“It’s nothing,” he said. “I trust Salvatore. You can get up and leave now.”I squinted at him. That was rude as hell. A minute ago he had been quivering over my face, cumming so hard it looked like he had been denied release for decades. Now he was back to that cold sharp self like none of it had touched him. The shift left me off-balance. One second I was still tasting him and feeling the ghost of the straps on my wrists. The next he was dismissing me like the entire night had been a minor scheduling inconvenience.I gathered my clothes in silence, shoved them into the bag that had somehow appeared by the chair, and headed for the door. My legs still felt unsteady. Every step reminded me of the way he had filled my