Chapter 48

**Lily**

After spending a couple of days at Matteo’s house, I started to feel antsy. I had been living on my own for so long, that I was missing my space. The fact that his family just walked into the house at their leisure made me feel restless as well. It felt like being watched all the time, and I could not relax anywhere else than the bedroom.

When I had told Matteo that I was going to call around to get people to fix my apartment, he told me that he was already on it. However, he was not ready to tell me when it was going to be finished. I don’t know whether it was because he didn’t know, or whether he didn’t want me to leave.

All I knew was that I was ready to have my own space again where I could invite my friends and have a relaxing time. Matteo didn’t seem too accepting of that though.

I just sucked it up, gritted my teeth and continued going on. The one fight that I lost was about my job. Matteo insisted that I quit my job, for obvious reasons. I mean, witnessing the murder of a senior isn’t particularly a healthy work environment, but still. I liked my job, and I liked working with Zara and Will. It did feel like I was disappointing them.

I tried to convince him in every way that I could think of, but he would not sway on this topic. If I was going to be with him, then I needed to quit. I don’t think it was about Noah being killed, but more about being around the Bruno famiglia. I guess I could understand that he didn’t want me to make things easier for them when they were his archenemies. I did try to convince him by playing the angle of being an informant, but he just said that he had enough of those. He knew what I was supposed to be doing for them, and that there was nothing that I could tell him that he didn’t know already. Well, the murder of Noah was pretty new to him, but all of a sudden that did not count anymore.

Our arguments came to the point where Matteo just took my phone out of my hand and dialed Zara to let her know that I quit. He didn’t give her a reason, just mentioned that someone would be in to hand in my laptop and to pick up my stuff from my office. I wasn’t even allowed to go myself to say goodbye.

So, now I was back to applying for jobs. I sure as hell wasn’t about to live off Matteo’s money, I had too much pride to do so. Just when he figured out that I was applying, he told me to stop it and that I could just work for him. I don’t know about that though, I needed something of my own where I wasn’t going to run into him every second of the day.

That’s how I got here, sulking on the couch, going through the letters and pictures that were in my mom’s secret box. I was trying to get something more out of them that could help Valeria to get something.

Yesterday, we went through the property deeds. She was able to figure out that the plot of land in Italy was my mom’s for a long time already, from way before I was born. The house in Sweden, she bought only six months before her death. I didn’t get it though, why did she feel like she needed a house in Sweden, when she easily could have built a house on the land she already had? Every answer we thought we got led us to many new questions, and that was beyond frustrating.

I felt someone fall on the couch next to me.

“What are you looking at?”, Luciano asked me, taking one of the letters from my hands. I was dismayed at the ease with which he just took these personal things from me.

“Who sent these love letters to you?”, he asked me curiously. For a second, I am stunned, but then I realize that at least half of this family was born in Italy, so it was no wonder that they could actually read and speak Italian. I plucked the letter from his hands and put it back in the box.

“It’s none of your business.”, I said harshly. I wasn’t ready to share this with just anyone.

“Everyone here knows your business, Lily.”, Luciano smirked, and took a picture from mom’s box. I grunted and tried to rip it from his hands, but he made sure to hold it out of reach for me.

“Luciano! Give it back to me!”, I whine, trying to yank his arm down.

“Wait a minute,”, he said. The look on his face changed from playful to serious and thoughtful. “I know this man.”

“You do?”, I asked surprised. Valeria had tried before to find out who this was but was unable to discover anything. Luciano nodded, grabbed my hand, and dragged me to Matteo’s office.

“What’s it this time, Luciano?”, Matteo chuckled. Luciano slammed the picture on the desk.

“Look at this. What does it look like to you?”, Luciano challenged him. Matteo was taken aback by Luciano’s seriousness. Matteo took the picture and stared at it for a bit. After about a minute, he turned around and pulled a book from the shelf. He searched for a page and compared the picture to what I guessed was another picture.

“You’re right. But who is the woman, and why do you have this picture, Lily?”, Matteo asked me. He sounded almost like he was accusing me of something. I just had no idea why.

“The woman is my woman when she was way younger. I found this picture in her stuff after she died, but I had never seen it before in my life.”, I shared with them. I still didn’t know what the big deal was.

“Care to share how your mom knows Mario Bruno?”, Matteo asked me. His eyes narrowed slightly, but the cold look in his eyes made me shiver. I had never been on the receiving end of his mafia leader ways, but I guess this was what it felt like. He was so cold and deadly as he spoke to me.

“I don’t know! I never knew who the man was! And Valeria and I have been trying to find out my mom’s history. You know all this, Matteo!”, I was pleading, but not sure why I was doing this. I had this feeling that I needed to beg Matteo for something.

“I don’t know what to believe Lily. First, you are telling me that Tommaso killed Noah in front of you, when no one even knew he was dead. Now, you have a picture of your mom with Mario Bruno for some vague reason. You tell me, Lily. Are you spying for the Brunos?”, Matteo asked me venomously. I was starting to get nervous. Why didn’t he believe me?

“What do I need to say to make you believe me?”, I was getting desperate, but at the same time also angry that he didn’t even believe me.

“How did your mom know Mario?”, he walked over to the chair in which I was sitting, and leaned over me, his hands on the armrests. I was pushed backwards and forced to look up to Matteo. At this point, my anger was winning.

“Fuck you, Matteo! Choose what you want! If you want to be with me, you better believe me that I’m telling you the truth!”, I shouted angrily, and spit in his face.

Luciano jumped up when I did, but Matteo waved him off, as he wiped my spit off his face.

“Control your temper, Lily!”, Matteo ordered me. By now, I was seeing red.

“You don’t get to order me around, Matteo! I’m out of here!”, I yelled, and pushed him back and stormed out of the room. I just wanted to get my stuff and go back to my own house.

Matteo managed to bring out the best and the worst in me. I had always been a calm person, no extreme highs, no extreme lows, but he managed to push all my buttons in a second. Around him, I behaved in ways that I didn’t recognize from myself. On one hand it wasn’t a good thing, but I felt alive around him. I felt good most of the time.

I ran up to the bedroom and pushed my stuff into my bag and walked out. I had called a cab running up, so as soon as I could I walked up to the front gate.

I needed to breathe.