A Hunger for the Forbidden - By Maisey Yates Page 0,52

her to cling to the white-knight image and turn away from the truth he was about to show her.

“I don’t know how the fire started. But the warehouse was filled with counterfeiting plates, and their printing presses. That’s one way to make money, right? Print your own.”

He looked down at his hands, his heart pounding hard, his stomach so tight he could hardly breathe. “The fire spread quickly. I don’t know where Carlo was when it broke out. But I was outside arguing with my father. And he turned and … and he looked at the blaze and he started to walk toward it.”

Matteo closed his eyes, the impression of flames burning bright behind his eyelids. “I told him if he went back into that damned warehouse to rescue those plates, I would leave him to it. I told him to let it burn. To let us start over. I told him that if he went back, I would be happy to let him burn with it all, and then let him continue to burn in hell.”

“Matteo … no.” She shook her head, those dark eyes glistening with tears. She looked horrified. Utterly. Completely. The light was gone. His light.

“Yes,” he said, his voice rough. “Can you guess what he did?”

“What?” The word was scarcely a whisper.

“He laughed. And he said, ‘Just as I thought, you are my son.’ He told me that no matter how I dressed it up, no matter how I pretended I had morals, I was just as bloodthirsty as he was. Just as hungry for vengeance and to have what I thought should be mine, in the fashion I saw fit. And then he walked back into the warehouse.”

“What did you do?”

Matteo remembered the moment vividly. Remembered waiting for a minute, watching, letting his father’s words sink in. Recognizing the truth of them. And embracing them fully. He was his father’s son. And if he, or anyone else, stood a chance of ever breaking free, it had to end.

The front end of the warehouse had collapsed and Matteo had stood back, looking on, his hand curled around his phone. He could have called emergency services. He could have tried to save Benito.

But he hadn’t. Instead, he’d turned his back, the heat blistering behind him, a spark falling onto his neck, singeing his flesh. And then he’d walked away. And he hadn’t looked back, not once. And in that moment he was the full embodiment of everything his father had trained him to be.

He’d found out about Carlo’s and Benito’s deaths over the phone the next day. And there had been no more denial, no more hiding. No more believing that somewhere deep down he was good. That he had a hope of redemption.

He had let it burn in the warehouse.

“I let him die,” he said. “I watched him go in, watched as the front end of the building collapsed. I could have called someone, and I didn’t. I made the choice to be the man he always wanted me to be. The man I always was. I turned and I walked away. I did just as I promised I would do. I let him burn, with all of his damned money. And I can’t regret the choice. He made his, I made mine. And everyone is free of him now. Of both of them.”

Alessia was waxen, her skin pale, her lips tinged blue. “I don’t know what to say.”

“Do you see, Alessia? This is what I was trying to tell you. What you need to understand.” He leaned forward, extending his hand to her, and she jerked back. Her withdrawal felt like a stab to the chest, but it was no less than he deserved. “I’m not the hero of the story. I am nothing less than the villain.”

She understood now, he could see it, along with a dawning horror in her eyes that he wanted to turn away from. She was afraid. Afraid of him. He wasn’t her knight anymore.

“I think maybe I should wait a few days to have my things moved into your room,” she said after a long moment of silence.

He nodded. “That might be wise.” Pain assaulted him and he tried to ignore it, tried to grit his teeth and sit with a neutral expression.

“I’ll talk to you later?”

“Of course.” He sat back on the couch and watched her leave. Then he closed his eyes and tried to picture her smile again. Tried to recapture the way she’d looked at