Chapter 70

**Matteo**

I stumbled backwards a little, when someone ran into me, and my hands reached out automatically to steady us both. It wasn’t until I looked down that I saw that it was Lily. My dear Lily.

She had been avoiding me for a while, and she got quite good at it too. After a while, I just gave up and let her to her own peace. I figured she would come to me when she was ready to talk to me. Lame, I know.

I felt Lily freeze in my arms, but I wasn’t ready to let her go. I looked into her eyes, and I felt my heart pound in my chest again. I felt alive again.

“Lily.”, I whispered.

“Lily!”, I heard someone yell from the porch. My hands squeezed her arms harder than I intended to, I just didn’t want her to leave me. One of my hands reached out to push a strand of hair behind her ear, and to caress her cheek. I might be deceiving me, but I think I felt her lean into my touch a little.

“Matteo…”, she whispered. I cupped her jaw and leaned in to give her a kiss on her lips.

“Lily!”, Guilia panted when she caught up with us, and interrupted me. But when she realized what she was interrupting, I could see the surprise in her eyes. “Come and find me when you are ready, okay? I got us lunch.”, Guilia said to her, and walked away again.

“I probably should…”, Lily started her sentence, looking at me with doubt in her eyes.

“Lily, please.”, I whispered, despair noticeable in my voice. “I’m sorry. For everything.”, I pleaded with her.

“I know.”, she whispered back to me. It’s all I could ask for, and I pulled her close to me to finally feel her body against me again.

“Please, come back to me.”, I whispered with my nose buried in her hair. Lily pulled back and out of my arms.

“Matteo.”, she nodded, and turned around to walk towards Guilia’s office when I caught her arm.

“Lily, we need to talk.”, I said, my voice as professional as I could manage.

“I know, Matteo, but I can’t…”, Lily answered.

“No, not just that. We still have Mario in our cells. I want you to decide what you want with him.”, I told her. It surprised her, I could tell.

“You mean?”, Lily trailed off. I nodded.

“I would kill him for you if that’s what you want. But if you ask me, I think you should have all your answers before I do that.”, I replied to her.

Lily nodded in understanding. “Can I come by your office later?”, she asked with a small voice, slightly trembling.

“Of course, always.”, I told her, and I smiled when she walked away. It felt cold immediately when she had gone. I missed her.

I stuffed my hands in my pockets and continued to walk to the kitchen to finally get my own lunch. Today was a busy day. Once in a while, we called in the guys we had out on the streets for training and other things. It sounds weird, but it was true. I mean you don’t read about the best ways for torturing a person on the internet. I mean, you could, but it wasn’t readily available.

The talking in the kitchen went silent when I entered. One would think I’d be used to it by now, as the big boss, but the opposite is true.

“Hi guys, enjoy your lunch!”, I said cheerfully, and walked to the kitchen to get my own. I was about to take my first bite from my sandwich, when Ennio came to stand beside me.

“You know that Lily is working with Guilia?”, he asked me, his voice low. I looked at him in surprise, while I ate. I shook my head. I didn’t know that, but it made sense now that Guilia would come after her.

“Vita told me that she has been working there for a little while now. They don’t call it working though, but that’s what it is. Women.”, Ennio grinned.

“What is she doing?”, I asked him. Why was I the last to know about these kind of things?

“Finance things. I don’t know! What does Guilia do normally?”, Ennio scoffed. He didn’t care too much about other things than fighting and dealing. It made sense, really. It would be great to have Lily join the family business.

“Anyway, she’s coming over this afternoon to talk about Bruno.”, I told Ennio. I smirked when he looked at me in shock this time.

“You talked to her?”, he asked me, his jaw on the floor. I nodded. Ennio recovered quickly. “Well, good for you. And her. I guess?”, he replied.

“Let me know if you need me.”, Ennio said, and he gathered the group of men in the kitchen to go back to whatever it was that they were training for, leaving me to eat the rest of my sandwich in peace.

Life has been quiet lately. It was weird, but I never thought about what would happen when we actually managed to destroy the Brunos. When mom and dad were still here, there was a constant rivalry between the Brunos and us. Then they killed my parents, and everything Vita, Ennio and I did was to eventually destroy them. Everything else had to wait until after we had succeeded.

And now we had. Nero was dead, Tomasso was dead, Mario was captured. We had killed at least half of their soldiers. We had taken over their territories after the big fight, and several suppliers we were able to take over. I had even sent Serena back to her father. With a warning, of course.

Ennio said I was getting soft, but it wasn’t that. I learned that there was more to life than just death. I wanted that to be our next goal. To not destroy anything, but to build our family.

I was leaning back in my chair when Lily walked into my office. She looked around like she was remembering, trailing her fingers over the desk. Lost in thoughts she sat down.

“Lily?”, I asked softly. She shook her head, and the thoughts left her head.

“Yes. I’m sorry.”, she said apologetically. “You wanted to talk to me about Mario?”, she asked.

“Yes. He is still in our cells. We captured him alive.”, I told her, not sure if anyone had given her a rundown of the night. Lily nodded.

“Why didn’t you kill him?”, she asked me curiously.

“We had some things we wanted to know from him. And then I figured that if you want to have any answers about your mom, Mario would be your best chance. Besides, given what they did to you, it is only fair if you decide on his fate.”, I told her.

“Is that some kind of mafia code?”, she asked with a sly grin on her face. It felt great to see her smile again, and it made me want to make her smile again.

“Sort of.”, I grinned back at her. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

“Do you think Mario would answer my questions?”, Lily asked seriously. I chuckled at her naivety. I saw her cheeks flush when she realized that we would do to get the answers that she wanted.

“Right. Torture.”, she mumbled, and shook her head at her own innocence.

“It wouldn’t be you torturing him, you know. You don’t even have to be in the room if you don’t want to.”, I told her, giving her options. I wanted her to feel comfortable, even though that was hard to achieve. I just didn’t want her to not get her answers because she felt uncomfortable about the torturing part.

“It’s fine, Matteo. I understand.”, she said, smiling. “When can we start?”, she asked.

“When you want. I just want to get Ennio and Luciano to help me out, and they are a bit busy today.”, I told her. I couldn’t read her as well as I could before. It was like there was a veil that covered her and made it more difficult for me to see her.

“Just let me know when you all are available. There is no rush, Matteo.”, Lily said in a way as if she wanted to comfort me.

“I will.”, I told her. Lily got up out of the chair and got ready to walk out of my office. She hesitated to walk out and turned around again to face me.

“It was nice talking to you, Matteo.”, she said with a soft smile on her lips. I smiled widely.