“What are you doing in my bedroom?” I asked, stopping just inside the doorway.
With all the books crammed into my backpack, my arm was already starting to ache from holding it up, but I didn’t dare move.
I had no idea what to do.
Maybe I should just leave the room immediately.
“Is that really how a woman is supposed to behave when she sees her man?” Matteo slowly exhaled a stream of smoke, his dark, measured gaze sliding over me.
It traveled over my loose-fitting jeans, ripped at the knees, and my blue hoodie.
“Why don’t you get on your knees and greet me properly?” I dropped my backpack.
I did it so abruptly that my arm jerked, sending a brief stab of pain through my wrist.
But it was nothing compared to the burning sensation spreading through my chest.
Damn it.
I’d really hoped yesterday had been a one-time prank.
“Can you please stop?” I looked toward the hallway.
It was still dark and silent.
By now, I was certain no one else was home.
So why was he here?
Who had let him into the house?
My mind was flooded with questions, but I preferred not to ask a single one.
I just wanted him to leave as quickly as possible.
“Stop what, exactly?” Matteo finally rose from the armchair.
That alone was enough to make me recoil and take a step backward.
But he didn’t come toward me.
Instead, he sauntered lazily toward the open window, utterly indifferent, like a predator with nothing better to do and bored because of it.
He flicked his cigarette butt outside.
“All this talk about us being in a relationship and everything else.” I bent down and set my backpack on the floor.
Normally, when I came home, I’d put my books away in the cabinet, stack my notebooks on my desk, and leave my backpack on the shelf.
Right now, though, I was making sure to stay as close to the open door as possible.
I felt icy chills crawling over my skin whenever I looked at him.
I didn’t understand why I was so afraid of him.
It seemed logical enough after he’d nearly strangled me with my own hoodie yesterday, but somehow, simply having him in the room felt several times worse.
I couldn’t deny that his sheer size intimidated me too.
I was tall myself, but he…
I didn’t think I’d ever encountered a man built like him before.
And it wasn’t merely unfamiliar.
It was frightening.
Still, I doubted my fear was solely because of how utterly defenseless I felt beside him.
Even surrounded by a whole crowd of my brother’s friends, when I’d already felt like I was reaching my breaking point, I don’t think I’d ever felt quite so suffocated as I did around this man.
“Seems like we already discussed everything yesterday.” Leaning his lower back against the windowsill, he began unfastening his belt with one hand.
“But we can pick up where we left off.” “What are you doing?” I wanted to straighten up, but I froze in an awkward position, feeling my heart stop before starting again in uneven, broken beats.
“I want to wrap this belt around your neck.” Matteo slowly pulled it free, then raised his hand and made the slightest gesture for me to come closer.
“Come here.” “No…” I immediately shook my head frantically.
He wouldn’t actually do it.
Would he?
He was just trying to scare me.
“I can come to you myself,” he said.
“But you’ll like that even less.” Silence filled the room once more, heavy and tense.
We stared at each other while I stood completely still, barely even breathing.
But when he took a step toward me, I pressed my back hard against the wall and blurted out, “Wait.
Don’t come near me, please,” I held both hands out in front of me like a shield.
“I just… I wanted to say I don’t understand why you’re doing all this, but I’m sure you can find better entertainment than hanging around with my brother…” Matteo started toward me, and the moment I saw the distance between us shrinking, I flinched.
The defensive reflex kicked in hard.
I lunged toward the hallway.
Fast.
Frantic.
But I didn’t even make it across the threshold before a massive hand clamped onto the collar of my hoodie and yanked me back.
I lost my balance and would have hit the floor if the fabric hadn’t bitten into my neck.
But that, goddamn it, was even worse.
I started choking again.
“Let… let go!” I thrashed.
Hard.
Trying to tear free, but Matteo caught me around the waist, lifted me off the floor, and threw me onto the bed.
“What else am I supposed to do?” He locked a hand around my ankle and jerked me toward him the second I tried to scramble back onto the floor.
“Do you still honestly think I have anything to do with your brother?” “If not, then why are you doing this?
I don’t understand anything—” The last words broke into a shout the moment I tried to kick him, but Matteo caught that leg too and pinned it to the mattress.
“Then ask.
Maybe I’ll answer.” It took me a while to steady my breathing enough to have even the slightest chance of speaking.
“Why… why are you doing all this?” The second I threw a feverish glance toward the edge of the bed, trying to figure out if I could roll far enough to reach it, he caught the hands I was using to fight him off and started binding them with a belt.
“Because my father decided you’d make a suitable match for me.” That answer cut through my mind like a dull, broken blade.
I could have expected anything—but not this.
For a second I even thought I must have misheard him through the roaring of my own heartbeat in my ears.
“Why are you tying me up?” I asked in a panic, realizing I couldn’t free my hands at all.
He’d pulled the belt far too tight.
Dead tight.
“Because I like you better when you’re tied up,” he said, resting a palm on the back of my head, lifting it slightly and speaking right into my ear.
My heart went wild from being that close to him.
From the crushing weight of that enormous, steel-hard body.
The smell of cigarettes and cologne.
Maybe this is how victims feel in the hands of maniacs.
Nerves stretched so tight I was afraid to even move.
Matteo must have sensed I’d stopped fighting, because he let me go.
“Good girl.
Don’t forget that this belt can end up around your neck at any moment.” “You…” I tried to sit up.
“Stay down,” he said in a heavy voice.
It sounded completely emotionless, and yet the word itself carried such cruelty that I froze first, then slowly exhaled and sank back onto the bed.
For a while I lay motionless.
Staring at the ceiling.
Feeling the world tear apart under the insane pounding of my heart, as if it was about to explode any second.
“You weren’t serious about your father, were you?” I finally asked, breaking the silence.
“Why wouldn’t I be?
I’ll introduce you to him later.” I blinked a few times slowly, watching a crack in the ceiling.
I’d never noticed it before, but now it seemed to be splitting open—just like I was.