Page 47 of Capture Me
Exiting the vehicle, he walks around to my side, offering a supportive hand as I step out of the SUV on trembling legs.
When we enter through the front doors, Matteo is already in the den with a glass of whiskey gripped in his fist. “Take her to her room. We’ve had enough chaos for one day.” He doesn’t bother looking at me as he addresses Akio.
The wordsI’m sorrylinger on the tip of my tongue, but the vitriol in his voice has me swallowing them down.
“Dude…” Akio starts to protest, but Matteo silences him with a glare.
With a shake of his head, Akio leads me up the stairs and to my room. When he gets me water and, for the fifth time, asks if there is anything he can do, I tell him I just need to sleep.
As soon as that door shuts, my legs give out, and I sink onto the bed. I scoot back to rest against the headboard, curling up with my knees to my chest and burying my face against them. My whole body feels like it’s vibrating with anxiety, and tears track down my face. I really fucked up tonight. Of course Matteo is pissed at me. I’m pissed at myself. I probably ruined a perfectly good lead and now they have nothing to show for it.
When the tremors finally subside, I check the clock, realizing it’s been over an hour. Although Akio mentioned bringing dinner, I simply curl up under the covers, letting exhaustion pull me under.
My dreams are fitful. Full of guns and monsters. Of claws digging into my skin, pinning my arms down. I break free only to fall, tumbling through an endless darkness. I’d scream, but there’s no use. My throat tightens, the words dissolving before they can even form on my useless tongue. I’m trapped.
“Fallon,” a deep voice whispers, reaching out a hand and pulling me from that dark abyss. I grasp on to it, yanking myself free. I take in the scent of earth and mint, and breathe it deep, wrap it around myself like a blanket. Let it settle in my lungs and banish the shadows.
The smell is familiar… Matteo.
Now I know I’m dreaming. He’s leaning over me on the bed, hair damp from a shower, his chest bare.
He’s so beautiful. I’ve always thought so. Even with the scar across his brow and the almost permanent scowl he wears, he’s still so incredibly beautiful. And because I’m dreaming, I don’t resist the urge to reach upand run a finger across that white scar. To let my hand linger and trace the rough stubble on his jaw.
Dream Matteo goes utterly still at my touch, allowing me to explore. Letting my fingers dip down the strong column of his throat and splay across the muscles on his chest, right over his pounding heart.
And because I’m dreaming, I tell him what I was too cowardly to say earlier. “I’m sorry.”
I drop my hand, curling into myself.
There’s a soft caress on my cheek before he whispers, “It’s okay, Fallon. Sleep.”
Nightmares do not plague my dreams after that.
Chapter 18
Matteo
Ifight back a growl of impatience as I stalk through Lunar Headquarters. If one more fucking person asks to talk to me, I won’t be held responsible for what I do to them. It's one thing to come in to deal with a crisis on a Sunday morning, but another to have been pulled away after what went down last night.
What a shit show, but at least we’d gotten an answer to who’s been helping to cover Helix’s tracks. And what a fucking surprise that was seeing the same shitbag cop we’d reported Luna’s disappearance to at the meeting. Everything is beginning to tie together, and not in our favor. Both Clay and the cop drove off before we could catch them, and then we’d had a body to deal with after the muscle Clay hired attempted to take Fallon. Thankfully, Dec is a hell of a shot, even bruised as he was from fighting. Nothing about last night had unfolded how I’d imagined. Especially my reaction after Fallon had gotten hurt.
Concern is not an emotion that sits well with me. I like to believe I’ve become a thing of nightmares, terrorizing the sick fucks that rule over Axton Harbor. I’ve seen evidence of rape, murder, corruption, and it’s only fueled my demons, stoked the flames of vengeance. I’ve carved into flesh until there was nothing but scraps of muscle and bone left andthen slept like a fucking baby afterward. There isn’t much that makes me flinch these days.
So then why did the sight of Fallon Helix, unconscious and bleeding outside the warehouse last night, scare me to my core?
Thoughts of her haunted me all day, distracting me in my meetings, making me forget important shit that I normally would know off the top of my head. But mostly, I couldn’t stop thinking about how instinctive it was to wrap her up in my arms and soothe away her monsters.
I had no right, because I am one of her monsters.
Now, after six hours of addressing an unhappy client’s concerns and devising a new security game plan for their home and travel, I’m more than ready to get back home.To check on Fallon.I shake the thought from my mind and head for the exit.
“Mr. Moretti!” My assistant’s voice carries across the lobby.
I stop three strides away from the front door.So close.
Stretching my neck, I turn stiffly to see my assistant, Marshall, scurrying over to me, his tablet clutched to his chest.
“So sorry to hold you up before you head out, Mr. Moretti.” He pushes his glasses up his nose. “But you forgot to sign the updated contract.” He flips his tablet around and hands me the pen. I scrawl my name. “I also wanted to inform you of some talk I overheard among the recruits yesterday.”
