Chapter 119 The Monster You Kept
Valentina
“What do you mean he’s alive?”
The words came out flat. Empty. Like my body hadn’t caught up to my brain yet.
Matteo didn’t answer immediately. We were still standing near the open grave, dirt piled high, two caskets exposed like secrets dragged into daylight. The air smelled like wet earth and rusted metal.
“I never killed him,” he said finally.
The world tilted.
“You—” My throat closed. I swallowed hard. “You burned the house. You told everyone—”
“I made it look like I did,” he cut in, calm and unflinching. “I put a body in his place when I burned the mansion. Someone already dead. Unidentifiable after the fire. The police found three bodies. Your father. Your mother. Your brother.”
I shook my head slowly. “All this time… I thought he was dead.”
“So did everyone else.”
My chest felt too tight. Too full. “Then where is he?”
Matteo looked at me, eyes dark. Measured.
“I’ve got him hidden away.”
The words settled like lead in my stomach.
“For what purpose?” I demanded. “Why would you keep him alive?”
His jaw clenched, something dangerous flashing across his face.
“Because death was too easy,” he said. “For what he did to those girls. For what he built. For the lives he destroyed.”
My breath stuttered.
“So instead,” he continued, voice lowering, “I gave him a different ending. One where every day hurts. Where he wakes up knowing exactly why he’s there. Where he pays for his choices one breath at a time until his body finally gives out.”
Silence roared in my ears.
“I guess that makes me a monster too,” he added, almost thoughtfully.
I turned to him slowly.
Looked him dead in the eye.
“We’re all monsters in our own way,” I said. “Some of us just choose who deserves it.”
He didn’t argue.
“Take me to him.”
Matteo stiffened. “That’s not—”
“I want to see him.”
His gaze hardened. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
I laughed—sharp, cracked, unhinged. “I don’t fucking care what you think is a good idea.”
That got his attention.
“You will take me to see him,” I said, stepping closer. “I need to look at him. I need to ask him why.”
His voice dropped, lethal. “Who the fuck do you think you’re talking to in that tone?”
I didn’t hesitate.
“My husband,” I shot back. “And I’ll talk to you however the fuck I want.”
The air between us snapped.
Matteo took a step forward, towering, dominance rolling off him like heat. “You seem to have forgotten who owns who here.”
I didn’t back down.
“I haven’t forgotten shit,” I said. “I know exactly who you are. And exactly who I am. Now take me to him.”
His eyes burned into mine, searching. Testing.
“After,” I added quietly, “you can do whatever you want with me. Punish me. Fuck me. Lock me in my room. I don’t care.”
I swallowed, voice breaking just enough to make it real.
“But I need this.”
For a long moment, neither of us moved. The cemetery was silent except for the wind stirring loose dirt around our feet.
Finally, Matteo exhaled through his nose.
“You won’t like what you see,” he warned.
“I already don’t like what I know.”
He held my gaze another second, then turned away.
“Get in the car.”
Relief and dread crashed into me at once.
As we walked back toward the waiting vehicle, my legs felt numb. My thoughts spiraled—images of a man I’d loved, hated, mourned, erased. A man who’d buried me alive before I ever learned how to breathe.
And then Matteo spoke again, quieter now.
“You think your father was a son of a bitch,” he said. “Your brother…”
I looked up.
“He was already worse,” Matteo finished. “Cruel without restraint. Hungry for power. He enjoyed what your father treated like business.”
My stomach churned.
“I didn’t save your family,” Matteo added. “I ended something that was only going to get uglier.”
We reached the car. He opened the door for me—not gently, not roughly. Just… final.
As I slid inside, one thought rang louder than all the others.
My father hadn’t been buried.
He’d been kept.
And I was finally going to meet the real Stefano Maranzano. Not the man that played house with his secret daughter and his wife once a month. The man who reduced my life to a price tag.
The drive was quiet.
Too quiet.
Not the comforting kind, not the peaceful kind. This was the kind of silence that sat between two people when everything they thought they knew had just changed. Again.
I kept my eyes on the window, watching the city blur past, but it wasn’t sinking in. All I could see was that grave. My name on the headstone. My sister’s name I’d never heard before. Two caskets. Two lies. And now a third—
My father. Alive.
And not just alive—kept.
The road changed. The buildings thinned. Fewer cars. Fewer people. Trees started to appear along the edges like we were being swallowed whole.
Then I saw it.
The gates.
Tall. Ornate. Familiar.
I sat forward slowly. “Why are we here?”
Matteo didn’t look at me. His eyes locked on the world outside the car, his jaw hard.
“I thought you were taking me to see Stefano.”
“I am,” he said, voice calm. Too calm.
My heart kicked up.
“Then why the fuck are we at your mansion?”
Rosco pulled up to the keypad, typed in a code, and the gates creaked open like the mouth of a monster about to swallow me whole.
“Because,” he said, as Rosco drove through, “that’s where he is.”
I blinked. “What?”
“He’s here.”
I twisted to face him. “Here here?”
Matteo nodded once. “In the basement.”
I stared at him, disbelief flooding in like a rising tide. “You’ve been keeping him in your house?”
“Not in the house,” he said. “Under it. He’s never seen daylight. Never touched fresh air. He doesn’t get to be in the house. He’s not human anymore. He’s a relic. A disease in a box.”
A cold chill slid down my spine.
All this time…
I’d lived here. Slept here. Fought here. Fucked here.
And the man who ruined everything had been rotting below my feet.
Matteo parked, killed the engine, and finally looked at me.
“You still want to see him?”
I didn’t hesitate.
“Yes.”