LXXII. Tough act

LXXII. Tough act
Matteo just stares at me, his bare chest rising and falling with heavy breaths, hair a mess from his own hands—and somehow, more dangerous than he was when he was on top of me.
Not driven by desire, but because now he’s certain, speaking the kind of truth that doesn’t bruise skin… It goes straight to the soul.
Suddenly, the apartment feels too small, with every wall closing in, making each breath more difficult to take.
“So what am I supposed to do?” It’s not really a question, or maybe it is. I don’t know anymore… I can feel my mouth growing more bitter by the second. “I’m not going to sit around for the rest of the month waiting for you to ink loyalty onto me.”
Even if I say so, I realize deep down that Matteo is right. There is no clear-cut answer here, no black and white... only countless shades of gray, and we are caught up in them.
I know I am taking a risk by putting myself right in the middle where the two worlds collide, in a space too fragile to hold peace, but even so, it’s the only way I can do something about my miserable destiny.
It’s the only thing I can do to try to save my skin and choose my future.
“Is that really so bad?” he retorts, watching me silently for a moment with a stern look, hands now free but tense at his sides. “Do you really hate us that much? The family that took you in when you had no one else?”
I swallow hard, and my dry throat makes that simple, instinctive movement hurt more than it should. It feels like there’s a knot there preventing me from breathing properly. I try to swallow again, this time on purpose, to get rid of it, but it only tightens more.
…Do you really hate the family that took you in so much?
Matteo’s question rings and opens an old, decayed part of me. All I can do is accept it, feel it settle in my chest along with the burning that rises again—deeper now, hot and cold at once, if that’s even possible.
“Took me in?” My voice comes out low and hoarse, which only makes it sharper. “Is that what you call taking everything from someone until there’s so little left that any crumb looks like salvation?”
Matteo goes completely still. Not calm stillness... but the dangerous kind.
His face stiffens first, instinctively, as if he's about to defend the Romanos out of habit. But then something shifts beneath it, a quick and subtle flicker I only notice because I know him too well.
“I wouldn’t be here in the first place, having to choose between safety and freedom, if it weren’t for you.”
He doesn’t dare move or try to speak... He just stands there, fingers opening and closing at his sides, clutching onto the last threads of his temper with both hands.
“...You want gratitude? My mother wouldn’t be dead if it weren’t for your family. So don’t come here acting like I had any choice, like Romanos did me some favor—like your family doesn’t destroy everything it touches.”
I look straight at him without looking away, even though my heart is pounding so loudly it almost deafens me… because if I lower my eyes now or hesitate even for a second, I feel like I will sink…
And I have already sunk too much because of them to let Matteo see it too.
He doesn’t answer immediately.
For the first time since everything fell apart between us, he seems unable to find a weapon quick enough to strike back at me. Instead, he simply takes a deep breath, his tongue slipping out slightly to wet his lower lip, as if my words are a clean punch that splits him open.
Matteo runs a hand over the back of his neck, fingers pressing into his own skin. Then he nods twice, not quite in agreement or defeat... but as if he's swallowing a harsh truth and bleeding silently.
When he turns his face back to me, the hardness remains, but his brown eyes are dark and cracked around the edges with hurt, too raw for my taste.
Matteo is watching me, but it feels like he doesn't see me. His gaze passes straight through me, not lost and not searching for anything, but confronting an old truth… or maybe a memory that has been locked away and hidden for too long.
“You’re not the only one who lost someone.” His voice hardens, and his eyes flicker briefly before they finally meet mine again. But it does not last long. Soon, he’s moving, bending to pick up his shirt from the floor, turning his back to me again, and making something hot scrape its way up my throat.
“Is that supposed to make me feel sorry for you?” I hate the way my voice breaks, how petty and defensive it sounds. I detest how ugly, monstrous, and unsteady it feels, especially since Matteo is always the only one who can throw me off balance.
He yanks the shirt over his head in an annoyed jerk, and the dark fabric settles over his still-warm skin, hiding his body but not the contained violence thrumming inside him.
“No,” he says, low, rough, unhurried. “It shouldn’t.”
Matteo finally takes a step toward me, and then another, until the distance between us is short again, too heavy again.
His eyes fall heavily to my lips, and for a moment, I wonder if he can still taste them on his tongue…
“I don’t want your fucking pity, Marina,” he calls my name slowly, almost too velvet-soft for a man so violent, making me take a short breath.
“Yeah?” I lift my face, forcing him to break that obsessive stare from my mouth, which keeps him from blinking for longer than a human should. “Then what do you want, Matteo?”
His chest rises slowly and heavily, and the warm air of his breath hits my mouth. Being this close, almost forehead to forehead, he seems even bigger—not just because of his body but because of everything he carries without saying it.
“I want you to leave this damn city.” Matteo’s voice drops low and rough, each word stretched by a pain that borders on defeated pride. “I want you gone from Milan before you become the exact same thing you hate most.”
I part my lips to say something, not even sure what exactly. But before any sound beyond a strangled groan can escape, Matteo is already stepping away, creating distance that should make me feel relieved.
Except I cannot fill my lungs completely by the time he is pulling himself back together, fully dressed, as if the smell of sweat, sex, and the mistake that almost happened isn’t still lingering in Luigi’s apartment.
“But you know what? Do whatever you want, bitch,” he says, tired, with no bite, without looking at me… just walking casually toward the door, as if none of this has affected him.
Yet I can see in the way the shirt pulls across his tense shoulders.
It’s all just a tough act.
“…Isn’t that what you always do, anyway?”