Page 102 of The Chameleon

What troubled Matteo more was the fact that this complete stranger seemed to know who he was.

“Why do I get the feeling that you know who I am?” Matteo released the man’s hand and glanced between the two.

“Can we see him?” Ares asked, ignoring Matteo’s question.

The man nodded. He grabbed a set of keys off his desk, then walked past them and out the door.

A feeling of regret danced in Matteo’s gut. Something wasn’t right. He wasn’t sure he wanted to find out what.

They walked down a long corridor, past room after room of screaming patients. Some yelled at their nurses, some yelled at themselves, and some yelled at the invisible people talking to them inside their rooms.

They stopped when they came to a large window looking out onto a tiny courtyard.

Outside, a man sat at a snow-covered table, drawing a picture in the snow with his finger. The man was huddled over in nothing more than a thin dark jacket.

He looked distressed. Like he was lost in a world he didn’t recognize and had no idea how to escape.

“I’ll leave you two alone,” the doctor announced before turning and heading back the way he came.

Matteo turned to look at Ares, who was staring at the man with knowing eyes. There was so much sadness in his eyes. Regret and heartache.

“That there is my brother, Abel.”

Matteo’s heart stopped, shocked by the news that Ares had a brother.

Never in all the years that they had known each other did Ares ever mention having a sibling.

Actually, if he was being honest, Ares never talked about any of his family members. Matteo had just assumed that his family was all dead. But now, he wondered just how wrong that assumption might have been. Perhaps there were more angry Egyptians hiding in the dark, waiting for Ares to come and release them from whatever prison they were currently locked away in.

How could Ares hide this from him for all these years?

Like you can really talk. Don’t you have a certain someone currently locked away in that dungeon deep beneath your… castle? Can you really pass judgment?

Matteo’s thoughts drifted to Isaac’s brother—the man currently keeping the chains warm in his dungeon.

He turned to look at the man, sitting alone in the cold. What on earth could have caused Ares’s brother to end up in a place like this?

“Your brother? I never knew you had a brother?”

“When we first started dating, there was a lot I was afraid to share with you. Not because I didn’t trust you, but because I was afraid of what might happen if people found out about you.” Ares turned to face Matteo. “When we first met, I was young and ambitious and trying to take over a world filled with dangerous men who wouldn’t hesitate to kill a man or the guy he loved. So, in order to protect you, I needed to keep you a secret.”

“That, and also because you were in the closet and afraid of losing street cred amongst your homies,” Matteo added, rolling his eyes.

Ares lowered his head. “Yes, I’m ashamed of that too. I feared that if someone ever found out about us, they would realize that you were my one true weakness and use my love for you against me. I worried that my enemies wouldn’t hesitate to hurt you to get to me. I could never let anything like that happen to you. Iloved you too much for that. So, I did what I thought was best and kept our relationship a secret.”

Ares turned his attention back to his brother.

“When my father was killed, I became my brother’s whole world. I took care of him, fed him, protected him, and always kept him close by my side. But as my brother grew older, he developed a drug addiction. I didn’t realize how bad it was until he committed the ultimate betrayal.”

“What did he do?”

“He’s the reason your parents are dead.”

“Wh–what?” Matteo gasped, confused by the statement.

“Massimo offered my brother all my territory and free drugs if he helped Massimo kill me and your parents. My brother lied to me. I thought Massimo and his crew were on their way to kill your parents, so I arranged a flight out of Italy for them. I was supposed to be on that flight, but at the last minute, I decided to stay behind and try and talk Massimo out of the hit he had put on your parents. I didn’t know the hit was already in play. An hour outside of Italy, a bomb on the plane exploded and caused your parents’ crash.”

Matteo staggered and placed his hands against the glass wall, steadying himself.

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