54. Matteo

54

"She's not from our world, Matteo," Dominic says. "How—" He throws his hands up in the air.

"Isn't she?"

"No—" Dominic breaks off. "Whatever her world was in the past, this is a very different future for her."

"I'm not so sure."

"Why the fuck did you go and marry her? Honestly. I get the feeling the Don wants both her and her dad wiped."

The Don can go fuck himself. I won't be killing Peter Armstrong for him. That third loose end which the Don will only reveal once the other two are completed has been like a skin tag. Irritating, but easily dealt with and gone soon enough.

I ignore Dominic's question about why I married Tasha. I don't expect any of my brothers to understand, so why bother telling them that I'm a lost cause when it comes to her. "How's Dad doing?" I ask instead. Ever since the Don announced to me that he is dying, I've been slowly suffocating the idea of him in my head. I barely think of him beyond these last things he asked me to do.

"Fuck if I care," Dominic says with a shrug. "He's dead to me already."

And has been for some time. Maybe this has been the Don's agenda all along. Make us hate him so much that our brother bond will just be stronger, securing his legacy.

"I need her things." This meeting is wrapped up. There's been no crisis at work while I was gone and for the rest, it went about as expected. Nobody is going to be thrilled with having Tasha Armstrong as a sister-in-law. They don't know her as I do. Not yet. She'll have them on their toes soon enough.

Dominic unlocks the safe hidden in the wall behind him. "I've kept her busy and out of town." He hands me Tasha's electronics. Her phone lights up with probably a thousand notifications.

"Good."

"When are you seeing the Don?" Dominic asks.

"Tomorrow." I need to get this shit behind me and move on with my life. After Sicily I have so many questions, but whether I'll get answers I don't know. All I know is that I'm done. I have a new life to look forward to, with my wife.

As I walk out of Dominic's office, my phone vibrates. Burley. Hell knows why he's phoning me. The guy needs to have some downtime.

"Boss," Burley says without preamble. "Your wife just walked out of here. Thought you should know."

I freeze in my steps. "What?" And then, as visions of Burley's call in Sicily when Tasha jumped off the cliff flood back, I turn back to Dominic. "How?" I hiss.

"Boss." Burley sighs. "She had breakfast, then went for a shower, got dressed from the stash of clothes left in the spare room, from what I gather. Rosalia came to check in on me and Tasha took the gap. Looks like she found your car keys and picked the Maserati."

"She's driving herself? And nobody thought to stop her?" I snap, my eyes locked with Dominic's. "Check my place's footage. Tasha's left."

"Matteo," Burley groans. "She's your wife. You left zero instructions. She dangled the keys, telling whoever is on guard that you gave her permission. They were still trying to phone you to check when she burned rubber getting the hell out of there."

Fuck. I'm going to go on a killing spree. If anything happens to her…

"I told you it's bad practice to have your sports cars in that garage. The exit is way too easy." Dominic is quick to open my house's security footage on his computer and rewinds the latest footage so that we can follow.

Well, fuck me. When I had the set-up installed, I didn't have a wife who has a creative mind when it comes to escaping. Now I watch in fascinated horror how Tasha strolls out of the apartment, takes the elevator to my private garage, almost flirts her way to the car, past the guards in place. As if she owns it. Which she does. We haven't spoken about much, but when I left this morning, I didn't get the feeling that she was that impatient to get out of there. Something must have triggered this move on her side.

"Is she running?" Dominic asks. "Because if you want a team out?—"

"No, she isn't running. There's only one place where she'll be going."

"Home?"

"Yes." To Peter Fucking Armstrong so he can poison her head. "You have a team at Armstrong's house. Let them know they can let her in. Don't let anything happen to her."

"Done," Dominic says as he unlocks his phone. "You want me to come with you?"

"No, this is going to be some housekeeping that I prefer to keep private."

Dominic sucks through his teeth. "Oof, I hope she's up to your discipline."

"We're well matched." But fuck, if she does this again, shit's going to get real.

I walk out of there, her electronics in my hand, sensing in my gut that Tasha has figured us all out.

She'll never trust me again.