Page 25 of Bribed & Bred By the BRATVA
Isabella
The car ride from the hospital feels like stepping through a dream I don’t quite trust. Mateo leans against the window, pale but smiling, a blanket tucked around him. For months I’ve been bracing myself to hear silence instead of his breathing. Today his chest rises and falls steady, strong.
When the gates open and the house rises up in front of us, he lifts his head, eyes wide. “This is where you’ve been staying?”
Heat rushes to my cheeks. “Yes.”
Aleksei doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t need to. His hand rests heavy on my knee, a silent reminder that nothing about this is temporary.
The car pulls around the courtyard, past fountains and lemon trees, to a smaller building tucked against the pool. White walls. Glass doors. It doesn’t look like a hospital room. It looks like a home.
My chest tightens.
Two men I recognize as Aleksei’s arrive before the car stops, efficient and silent. They open the door for Mateo like he’s someone important, not just a sixteen-year-old boy who spent the last year coughing blood into napkins.
“Careful,” I whisper, rushing to his side.
“I’m fine, Izzy,” he mutters, embarrassed by the attention. But when he stands, his legs wobble. One of the men steadies himwithout comment. Mateo blinks up at him, startled, then lets himself lean just slightly.
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.
Inside, the pool house is clean and bright. Sunlight spills across a bed made up in crisp, white linens. A desk waits with a computer already set up. The shelves are lined with books, titles I’d stared at in Aleksei’s library, wishing for time. My throat closes. He saw. He remembered.
Mateo stops dead in the doorway. “This is for me?”
“Yes,” Aleksei answers from behind us, voice flat but certain. “Yours. No one comes in unless you want them to. The door locks from your side.”
Mateo turns in a slow circle; his expression caught somewhere between awe and disbelief. He sinks into the desk chair, spinning it once like a little boy again. For a moment, he looks like he did before everything went wrong.
I press my hand to my mouth. Relief is a fist inside me, hard and painful.
“Holy shit,” he breathes, grinning. “This is insane. I’ve never—” He cuts off, eyes going shiny.
I kneel beside him, grabbing his hand. “You deserve this, Mateo. You deserve more than this.”
His fingers squeeze mine weakly, but the smile doesn’t fade. “This is the nicest place we’ve ever lived.”
I should argue. I should remind him it isn’t ours, that nothing here belongs to us. But the words don’t come. Because part of me already knows it isn’t true. Aleksei doesn’t give in half-measures. When he says this is Mateo’s, it’s his. Just like the ring on my finger is mine.
Mateo looks past me, to where Aleksei stands like a shadow filling the room. “Thank you,” he says.
Aleksei inclines his head once. No theatrics, no soft words. Just that steady presence that has become its own kind of gravity.
Mateo leans back in the chair, yawning. “Do I really get to stay here? For as long as I need?”
“Yes,” Aleksei says. “You stay until you’re strong enough to leave. Or longer, if you want. The choice is yours.”
Mateo looks like he might cry again, but he just nods and whispers, “Okay.”
The nurse who came with us sets out instructions, medication bottles lined neatly on the counter. Aleksei listens like every word is an order, his hand resting on my back, warm and steady. When the nurse leaves, silence fills the room again.
Mateo stands and drags the blanket tighter around his shoulders. “I’m tired.”
“Then sleep,” Aleksei says simply.
I fuss with the sheets as he slides onto the bed, smoothing them around him, tucking the corners the way I used to in our cramped apartment. His eyes flutter shut. For the first time in months, he looks peaceful.
I stand there too long, staring, afraid he’ll vanish if I blink.
