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CHAPTER ELEVEN
Tanggal publikasi:
2025-04-28 22:17:19
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The Shadows We Keep CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
MATTEO'S POV"She's not what I expected," Vinnie said from the doorway.“What exactly did you expect?”“I’m sure you know.” He replied, a hint of tease in his voice. “I don’t.” "No?" He came into the room anyway, because he always did. "She's sharper than you let on. Funnier too." A pause. "You've been underselling her.""I haven't been selling her at all.""That's the problem." He stopped in front of my desk, and I could feel him looking at me the way he had been looking at me since we were teenagers, like he could see straight through whatever face I put on and found the real version underneath mildly exhausting. "I told her about Luca."My pen stopped moving. “You did what?”"Not everything," he said quickly. "Just enough. That he existed. That you loved him. That losing him made you who you are." A beat. "She deserved to know that much."I set the pen down carefully. "That wasn't yours to tell. Vinnie, what the fuck is wrong with you?”“Matteo–”“No, what exactly are you playin
The Shadows We Keep CHAPTER TWENTY
Gabriella's pov I heard him before Romero introduced him.He moved through the house like someone who had been here before. No hesitation at the doorways, no pause to get his bearings, footsteps that knew exactly where they were going. I was in the sitting room when he arrived, and I had already set down my audiobook and straightened up before Romero's voice came from the doorway."Gabriella, Matteo's guest is here. He'd like to say hello.""Vinnie," I said, before he could add anything else.A beat of surprised silence, and then a voice — lower than Matteo's, with a warmth in it that felt entirely unguarded. "She knows my name. Matteo mentioned me.""Matteo mentioned you once." I turned my head toward the sound of him. "You walk like you own the place."He laughed. It was a good laugh, the kind that didn't perform itself. "I practically furnished it. Can I sit?""It's not my house.""No," he said, settling into the chair across from me, "but it's your sitting room. There's a differe
The Shadows We Keep CHAPTER NINETEEN
I knew before Romero said anything.There was a particular quality to the house when Matteo was deliberately absent from it, different from when he was simply busy, or travelling, or shut inside his study with the door locked and his mind three cities away. This was different. This was a withdrawal, careful and deliberate, like a tide pulling back from shore with full knowledge of what it was leaving exposed. I had grown too familiar with the rhythm of him to miss it. I felt it the morning after he'd brought me the water and the tablets and stood too long at my door, and I felt it again every morning after that when training simply did not happen and no one offered me a reason."He's unavailable this morning," Romero told me on the first day, in the careful tone of a man delivering a message he hadn't written."All right," I said.I went to the garden alone. I sat in the spot where we had trained and counted my breathing the way Matteo had taught me and told myself this was fine. He w
The Shadows We Keep CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The call came at seven in the morning, which meant Vinnie was either in a different time zone or had something to say that couldn't wait. With Vinnie, it was usually both."You sound like you haven't slept," he said, by way of greeting."I slept fine." I leaned back in my chair and pressed two fingers to the bridge of my nose. Outside the study window, the Los Angeles morning was already bright and offensively cheerful. "What do you want, Vinnie?""I'm calling to check in on my oldest friend." A pause that lasted exactly long enough to be deliberate. "And to ask how the girl is doing."I set my pen down. "She's fine.""Fine," he repeated. "That's all I get. Fine.""That's all there is.""Mm." Another pause. I could hear him moving, the familiar sound of a chair scraping back, footsteps crossing a hard floor. He'd always thought better on his feet. "So you cancelled the Geneva meeting for no reason.""I rescheduled it.""You rescheduled it," he said slowly, like he was tasting the word
The Shadows We Keep CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
I woke up with my arms aching.Not the dull, familiar ache of a bad night, though I'd had one of those too. The kind where I clawed my way out of a dream right before the fire got to me, but something more immediate. A burn in my shoulders, a tenderness at my wrists where Matteo had gripped them and said, step in, not away. It was strange to wake up in pain that had nothing to do with grief. Strange, and almost a relief.I lay there for a while, listening to the house breathe. It had its own rhythm now that I knew it. The distant clatter of Gretta setting up breakfast somewhere below, the low mechanical hum of the air conditioning cycling on, the faint birdsong that came every morning from the side garden where the hedges were thick. I used to hate the mornings here. They felt like the same darkness with better sound design. Lately, I had been waking up before Gretta knocked. I wasn't sure what to make of that.I got up slowly, stretching my arms overhead and wincing at the pull in
The Shadows We Keep CHAPTER SIXTEEN
I stood because he told me to. That was the thing about Matteo—he didn’t ask, not really. He spoke like gravity itself bent to his words, like I’d follow before I even realized I was moving. And the most irritating part? I did.The bench felt suddenly cold without him beside me, and the sunlight was too sharp on my face. His hand hovered close, waiting, and though I hated the idea of needing him, I hated more how natural it felt when my fingers slipped into his. His hand was warm, steady, alive in a way I hadn’t let myself touch in weeks.“Count your steps,” he said. Low. Certain. Unyielding.So I did.“One. Two. Three…”At first, it felt childish. Like I’d been reduced to a little girl learning to cross a street again. But his voice followed me, not with corrections, just presence—close enough to catch me, far enough to let me try. Somewhere between twenty and thirty, I caught the rhythm of it. Breathing on the even numbers, like he told me, grounding myself with each inhale.The path
The Shadows We Keep CHAPTER SEVEN
Matteo's povWhat the fuck was I doing? Saving the daughter of Gabriel Russo, faking her death, and then taking her with me to my home in Los Angeles. All of these are like ingredients to a disaster that was going to blow up in my face in the future. I looked over at her, and saw she was already
The Shadows We Keep CHAPTER SIX
"What the fuck are you doing, Carlos?!" Matteo's voice boomed. He let go of my hair, causing me to fall to the ground. "She attacked me, and then tried to run!"I wrapped my arms around myself, shivering, panicking, trying to push away the horrors."I told you not to hurt her!" Matteo yelled, his
The Shadows We Keep CHAPTER FIVE
He came again. More times than I could count, and everytime he did, he always brought some kind of token. Flowers, junk food the hospital would never allow. It was almost like he was baiting me, trying to get me to lower my guard, trying to get me to trust him. But I couldn't, not him, not anyone,
The Shadows We Keep CHAPTER FOUR
I was burning. My entire body felt like it was on fire. I couldn't stop the screams. They were my screams, but I couldn't stop them. "Your entire legacy is gone!" The masked man screamed before pulling the trigger, killing both my parents. "No!" I jolted awake, my body screaming in so much pain.
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