CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
The sun filtered through gauzy curtains, casting long amber streaks across the gallery’s upper office where Alessia now spent most of her time. The desk was cluttered, documents half-read, a cup of coffee untouched, her phone glowing with unanswered calls. The atmosphere carried the soft hum of a place trying too hard to remain still. Matteo leaned against the doorframe, arms folded casually across his chest, the shadow of a smirk playing at the corners of his mouth.
“You’re distracted again,” he said, voice low, the kind of low that made it difficult to know whether it was concern or control.
Alessia glanced up, already on edge. “I just got off the phone with the lawyer—”
“You shouldn’t have,” he interrupted, stepping into the room, tone sharpened now. “I asked you to wait.”
She frowned. “He’s one of the few people left who knew my father intimately. If something happened—”
Matteo set a folder on the table with a heavy thud. The sharp sound silenced her. “Look at this.”
She hesitated, then opened the folder. Screenshots. Surveillance stills. Transcripts. One grainy photo showed her lawyer — a lean man with tired eyes — outside what looked like a De Luca warehouse. Another showed a cropped image of him handing off a manila envelope to someone whose face was blurred.
Alessia flipped the page. A bank record, a deposit traced back to a shell company known to be laundering funds tied to Giuliana’s syndicate.
“You think he’s leaking my movements?” she asked, heart pacing fast now.
Matteo didn’t answer immediately. He knelt beside her chair instead, placing a hand gently over hers. “I didn’t want to believe it either. But Giuliana’s been three steps ahead of us every time. Someone’s feeding her.”
Alessia pulled her hand away, standing abruptly. “No. He’s not like that. He’s known me since I was little. My father—”
“Your father trusted Giuliana too,” Matteo cut in, rising to his feet with the slow precision of someone who didn’t like being questioned. “And look where that got him.”
His words landed hard.
She turned away, arms crossed, trying to think — to breathe — but everything felt fogged. Her nightmares had returned worse than ever. And now this?
Matteo approached, voice softer now. “This isn’t about right or wrong, Alessia. It’s about survival. You can’t afford sentiment.”
The phrase sat bitterly on her tongue. But something about the photos… the records… the undeniable feeling that someone always knew her next move… it all added weight to Matteo’s accusations.
“Have you spoken to him since yesterday?” he asked, gently brushing a stray curl behind her ear. The intimacy of the gesture made her shiver.
“No,” she whispered.
“Then do it now.”
“What?”
He pulled out her phone and handed it to her. “Call him. Watch how he reacts.”
With reluctant fingers, she dialed the lawyer’s number. It rang. And rang. Then went to voicemail.
Matteo watched her closely. “Call again.”
She did. No answer.
A third time. Straight to voicemail.
Her chest tightened. “This doesn’t prove anything. He could be—”
Matteo gently took the phone from her hand. “How much risk are you willing to take? How many people do we have to lose before you start trusting your instincts… or me?”
She didn’t reply. Her eyes were glassy now, not from sadness, but from the slow erosion of certainty.
He stepped in, wrapping his arms around her. Not forcefully. Tenderly. Possessively. She didn’t pull away.
“You have me,” he murmured against her hair. “That’s enough.”
The quiet between them stretched thin, heavy with unsaid things.
Later that day, she sent a message to the lawyer.
We can’t talk anymore. I’m sorry.
And then she deleted the thread entirely.
That night, she sat alone in her room, tossing her phone onto the bed in frustration. Three calls to the man. No answer. No warning. No explanation. The lawyer — who once told her she reminded him of Serafina when she was younger — had simply gone silent.
“No one ever answers,” she muttered bitterly, curling up on the bed, heart sinking as her trust crumbled brick by brick.
From the hallway, Matteo lingered just beyond the door. He hadn’t left. And he’d never been more in control.
That night, Alessia stood at the edge of Matteo’s bedroom, arms wrapped around herself, eyes darting from corner to corner like the shadows might turn on her. The ache of everything she’d severed weighed on her shoulders — the lawyer, the unanswered calls, the sense that with each step forward, she was giving something of herself away.
Matteo didn’t say anything at first. He simply pulled back the sheets on the far side of the bed and nodded once.
She hesitated. Then wordlessly crossed the room and slipped in — fully clothed, like armor. She didn’t ask questions. Didn’t demand answers. She simply curled into his side as if he were the only solid thing left in a world that had begun to dissolve. Her breath trembled against his shirt, her hand gripping his sleeve with the desperation of someone trying not to drown.
He let her hold on.
And when her breathing finally evened out into sleep, Matteo slowly slid out from beneath her arm, as careful as a thief.
Her phone lay abandoned on the nightstand, screen cracked, blinking with one solitary notification.
1 new voicemail.
He picked it up, thumbing through the display like it was second nature.
From: Marco.
He listened. Silence first. Then a voice — rough with exhaustion, urgency behind every word.
“Alessia… I don’t know if this will get through. He’s not who he says he is. They’ll twist you until you don’t remember who you were. Please, listen. You’re still my niece. You still have time—”
Matteo deleted the message.
No hesitation. No expression.
Then he placed the phone gently back on the table beside her sleeping form, returned to the bed, and let her press into his warmth again, like a moth seeking fire, unaware of the burn.