Chapter 233 After The Fire

Chapter 233 After The Fire
Ivy POV:

I woke to white light and a slow beep.

For a second I didn’t know where I was. I tried to sit up and my body said no. Pain flared and then settled into a dull burn everywhere at once.

Hospital.

The smell gave it away. Clean air with something sharp underneath. Plastic. Disinfectant. Skin that had been scrubbed too many times.

My throat was dry. My lips felt split. One eye didn’t open all the way.

I blinked until the room stopped shifting.

There was a chair beside the bed.

Matteo was in it.

He wasn’t sleeping. His eyes were open, fixed on me like he’d been afraid I’d vanish if he looked away. His shirt was wrinkled. There was dried blood under one nail. His hands were clasped tight, knuckles pale.

He didn’t speak at first.

Neither did I.

We just stared at each other until my pulse stopped trying to sprint out of my chest.

“You’re awake,” he said.

His voice cracked on the last word. He cleared his throat like he hated that it showed.

I swallowed. It hurt. “How long?”

“Since morning,” he said. “They said you’d wake when you were ready.”

I tried to move my hands. Something tugged. An IV. Tape against my skin.

My gaze dropped.

My wrists were free.

That mattered more than it should’ve.

I looked back at him. “Where is he?”

Matteo’s jaw tightened. His eyes didn’t shift. “Contained.”

Not dead, then.

He saw the question in my face anyway.

“Adriano,” he said. “He didn’t let me—” He stopped. Swallowed. “He didn’t let it become a story.”

I let the breath out slow. It made my ribs ache but it also made my head clear.

“Good,” I whispered.

Matteo flinched at the sound. Like it hurt him to hear me speak at all.

He leaned forward a little, elbows on his knees, careful not to touch the bed like he was afraid he’d set off alarms.

“I should’ve been faster,” he said.

“No,” I said, and my voice came out rough. “You came.”

He stared at me. His eyes were red at the edges. Not tears. Just damage.

“I saw you,” he said. “When he held the gun to you.” His mouth tightened. “I’ve never—”

He stopped again, like there were words he refused to give shape.

I waited. I didn’t rush him.

He exhaled through his nose.

“I was afraid,” he said.

The sentence sat in the room like a truth no one was allowed to say out loud in his world.

I blinked, slow.

“You’re not supposed to say that,” I murmured.

“I don’t care,” he said. “I’m saying it anyway.”

Silence stretched.

It wasn’t heavy. It was real.

I looked at the monitor. The line kept moving. The beep kept time.

“Did you kill people?” I asked.

Matteo didn’t look away. “Yes.”

I nodded once.

“And you don’t regret it,” I said.

His expression didn’t change. “No.”

I didn’t ask more. I didn’t need details. I could feel what it cost him just by looking at his hands.

My voice came softer. “Did he touch you?”

Matteo’s eyes flicked once, sharp. Not anger at me. Anger at the question existing.

“No,” he said. “He wanted me to think he did. He wanted me to lose my mind.”

I closed my eyes for a second. When I opened them again, he was still watching me like he was making sure I stayed here.

“You’re hurt,” he said quietly.

I tried to shrug and it was a mistake. Pain climbed my shoulder and made my vision blur.

Matteo stood up instantly, a half-step forward, then stopped himself like he remembered where we were.

“I’m fine,” I lied.

He stared at me. Then he shook his head once.

“No,” he said. “You’re alive. That’s different.”

My throat tightened.

Alive.

I stared at the ceiling for a moment because looking at him was too much.

“I kept telling myself I could handle it,” I said.

Matteo’s voice turned careful. “Handle what.”

“Elio,” I said. “My past. The fact that it would come back.”

He swallowed. “You didn’t tell me.”

“I didn’t want you to look at me like a weakness,” I said.

His eyes sharpened. “I looked at you like home.”

The word hit hard. Simple. Too big for the room.

I turned my head toward him. “Don’t say things like that.”

“I’m saying it now,” he replied, steady. “I’m done being careful with truths that matter.”

I tried to breathe through the ache in my ribs.

“I don’t want you to build your life around saving me,” I said. “That’s not love. That’s a cage.”

Matteo nodded once, like he’d already been thinking the same thing. “I know.”

I watched him. Waited for the usual thing. The possession. The promise that sounded like a threat.

It didn’t come.

His voice dropped. “I kept thinking if I could control everything, you’d be safe.”

I didn’t interrupt.

He stared down at the floor. “That’s what I learned. Control. Force. Make the world behave.”

He looked back up. His eyes were clear now, even with the exhaustion.

“And you’re not a world,” he said. “You’re a person.”

My chest tightened so sharply it felt like a bruise inside a bruise.

“I don’t want your pain in my foundation,” he said. “I won’t build anything that needs your pain to stand.”

My eyes stung. I hated it. I blinked it away.

“You can’t promise that,” I said.

“I can promise I’ll choose it,” he replied. “Every day. Over the easy version. Over the violent version.”

Silence again.

This one felt like a door closing.

I stared at him for a long time.

In my father’s house, love had always been leverage. If someone cared about you, it meant you could be used. It meant you were exposed.

With Matteo, it had always felt like standing near a fire and hoping it warmed you instead of burning you.

Now he was offering something else.

A decision.

No chains. No pretty speeches. Just a choice he’d make and remake.

My mouth went dry. “I don’t want to owe you.”

Matteo’s expression didn’t change. “You don’t.”

I swallowed. “I don’t want to be kept.”

His voice stayed calm. “I’m not keeping you.”

I looked away, then back. “Then what are we doing.”

Matteo hesitated, and for the first time I saw him not as a weapon, not as a myth, but as a man who didn’t know how to ask for something without taking it.

He spoke anyway.

“I want you,” he said. “If you want me.”

My throat tightened so hard it hurt.

A nurse passed by the door. A quiet presence. A glance in. Then gone.

The room belonged to us again.

I stared at Matteo and I felt the old fear rise. The one that said: if you choose, you can lose. If you love, you can be destroyed.

I let it rise.

And I didn’t obey it.

“I do,” I said.

The words came out small. Plain.

The kind of words that changed everything.

Matteo didn’t move for a second. Like he wasn’t sure he’d heard it right. Then his shoulders dropped, just a fraction, like his body remembered how to exist.

He stepped closer to the bed, slow, asking without asking.

I lifted my hand.

He took it like it mattered. Not possessive. Not tight. Just firm enough to be real.

His thumb brushed my knuckles once.

He didn’t say “forever.”

He didn’t say “mine.”

He just looked at me like he was trying to memorize the fact that I was here and choosing him.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“For what,” I whispered.

“For every time you were afraid and I didn’t notice,” he said. “For every time I made you feel like safety meant silence.”

My eyes stung again. This time I didn’t fight it as hard.

“I’m sorry too,” I said.

Matteo’s brow creased. “For what.”

“For thinking you’d turn on me if you knew who I was,” I said. “For not trusting you with the truth.”

He held my hand a little tighter. “I know who you are.”

I let out a breath that shook.

Outside the door, I heard voices. Low.

Luca’s tone. Adriano’s quieter answer.

I didn’t need to see them to know they were there. Standing guard in their own way. Giving us space without leaving us alone.

Matteo kept his eyes on me. “You don’t have to decide anything tonight,” he said.

I gave a small, tired smile. “I already did.”

He nodded once, like he accepted it as a vow without demanding it.

We stayed like that. Hand in hand. No speeches. No plans.

Just one choice, made while my body hurt and his hands still smelled faintly of smoke.

The monitor kept beeping.

And for the first time in a long time, the sound didn’t feel like a warning.

It felt like proof.