Chapter 102 Ashes of the Past
Valentina
The ride to Tabitha’s safehouse was quiet at first. Matteo’s hand rested on my thigh, heavy and grounding. But my pulse wasn’t interested in calm today.
I needed to see her. After everything she’d survived, after the blood and fire and chains… I had to know she was safe. That her eyes weren’t still haunted. That she wasn’t broken the way I feared I might be.
But it was Matteo who broke the silence.
“I don’t know what the hell Calder Grant thinks he’s going to find,” he muttered, eyes fixed on the road ahead. “These cases are fossils. Buried for a reason.”
“What does he want now?”
Matteo let out a breath. “He’s digging into missing girls. Girls from over a decade ago. Names that shouldn’t be on any list anymore.”
My stomach tightened. “Why would he come to you?”
He paused for a beat. “Because my father used to be in business with Stefano Maranzano.”
The world tilted.
“With… Stefano?” I asked, trying to keep my voice level.
He nodded again. “Yeah. They did a lot together—import-export fronts, offshore accounts, laundering. But toward the end, my father started getting suspicious. Said something about… shadows in the books. Missing money. Too many locked doors.”
“And he confronted him?”
“No. First he hired a private investigator.” Matteo’s jaw flexed. “And that guy came back with a report my father wouldn’t even let me read. I only got to read it after my father’s death… Stefano was trafficking girls. Young ones. Really young.”
My vision blurred for a second. I forced myself to breathe. Even though I had already figured this out from the photos I went through yesterday, it still hit me hard to hear it confirmed out loud that what I saw was real.
“What did your father do?”
“He confronted Stefano.” Matteo’s voice was flat. Cold. “Didn’t even try to hide it. Just went to him and said he knew. Said he wanted out. Two days later, he was dead.”
My mouth went dry.
“My mother never recovered,” he continued, quieter now. “She spiraled. She held it together for a year or two for me, but after that… she just faded. Pills. Alcohol. Depression so thick it choked out the sun. She finally ended it five years later.”
He shook his head, hand tightening slightly on my leg.
“Sometimes I think she died the same day he did. It just took her longer to stop breathing.”
I didn’t speak. Couldn’t. There was too much inside me—rage, grief, guilt… and something deeper. A whisper of the truth trying to crawl out of its grave.
“These girls Calder’s trying to find,” he said. “Some are dead. Some survived. Some started over with new names, new lives, and no desire to be dragged back into the horror show Stefano built. And if that cop keeps sniffing around, he’s going to find things we don’t want him to. Not for the sake of protecting criminals—but to protect the girls. The ones who survived.”
I looked out the window. The city blurred past, but I didn’t see it.
I saw surveillance photos. Ownership transfers. S.M. stamped like a brand on every single page.
I saw the way Matteo’s voice still trembled—just barely—when he spoke about his mother. The way his fingers curled like he was holding the neck of a ghost.
I saw the truth. Not the clean kind. The kind that bled when you touched it.
I had fallen in love with a man who’d killed my family.
But I was starting to understand why.
And worse?
A part of me was beginning to wonder if I would’ve done the same.
The car crunched over gravel as we pulled into the long, tree-lined drive. Estella and Sheryl’s house looked the same yet different in the daytime—modest from the front, sprawling toward the back, with wraparound porches and wind chimes dancing in the breeze. It smelled like fresh-cut grass and wild sage.
Matteo parked but didn’t move right away. He looked at the house like it was a memory trying to hurt him.
“You okay?” I asked softly.
He didn’t answer at first. Just exhaled through his nose. “I hate that she has to be here.”
I reached for the door handle. “But she’s safe.”
He nodded slowly. “Yeah. She’s safe.”
We got out and walked to the porch. Estella opened the door before we could knock, apron dusted with flour, glasses perched low on her nose.
“Well, look what the cats dragged in,” she said warmly. “Come on in, babies. She’s out back with the girls. Been waiting all day for you.”
She pulled me into a hug that smelled like cinnamon rolls and lavender soap.
Sheryl passed through behind her, nodding at Matteo. “You’ll stay for dinner.”
It wasn’t a question.
Matteo gave a small smirk. “Yes, ma’am.”
We followed the soft murmur of teenage voices to the back porch, where Tabitha sat curled up in a papasan chair, cradling a mug of tea. She spotted me and her face lit up like a sunrise.
“Val!”
She scrambled to her feet and launched into my arms, nearly spilling her tea. I held her tight, pressing my nose into her hair. She smelled like peppermint shampoo and freedom.
“Hey, bunny,” I whispered. “You good?”
She nodded, but I could feel the way her body still tensed when someone laughed too loud, or when a door creaked open. Healing was happening—but the scars were still fresh.
“I’m okay,” she said. “Better now.”
We sat down on the steps, and she launched into a story about one of the other girls—Cynthia, who was trying to train a one-eyed rooster to walk on a leash. I laughed, genuinely, but my eyes flicked to Matteo standing a few feet away. He was watching us like he didn’t quite believe it. Like he wasn’t sure this wasn’t a dream he’d eventually wake from.
He caught me looking. Raised one eyebrow.
You good?
I gave a subtle nod.
Later, after Tabitha had gone in to help Estella knead bread dough, I stepped beside Matteo and leaned into his shoulder. He didn’t flinch. Just let me rest there.
“She’s gonna be okay,” I said.
“Because of you,” he replied.
“No.” I shook my head. “Because of you. You saved her. You gave her a place to land.”
He didn’t speak right away. Then, “She reminds me of someone.”
I looked up. “Who?”
He was quiet, eyes on the horizon. “My mom. Back when she still smiled.”
“I bet she is so proud of what you’ve done to help these girls.”
“This is what it’s all about for me.” He said, “All the drugs and imports and clubs. My grandfather may have built our family empire for money and power… but for me it is to fund all of this.”