33. Matteo

33

MATTEO

Three Weeks Later

S tanding outside the crumbling building, Matteo couldn't believe that a place like this was still operational. How the hell did it pass safety inspections? Did they even have safety inspections out here?

The Don Kiev Asylum was so far off the beaten path that Matteo was pretty sure this facility was where doctors came to run illegal experiments and create Frankenstein's monsters.

"You sure it's safe to go inside?" Matteo asked, unable to tear his eyes away from the large hole on the right side of the building. "Was it hit by a bomb?" he asked, still not convinced that he wanted to go anywhere near the crumbling structure.

"I'm sure, at some point, it probably was. This region has lots of fighting. Many wars, many disagreements. I would guess some angry man threw a bomb at the building," Ares stated, staring at the building with his hands on his hips. "This is not a nice place. This is where the damned come to be punished, and the monsters are left to rot and die."

"And which are we here to see? The damned or the monster?" Matteo looked over at Ares, still trying to understand why they were standing at hell's gate.

"A monster whose been damned."

Okay… that wasn't chilling or anything.

"Come. Stay out here too long, and you'll freeze your balls off," Ares muttered before beginning the long walk up the snowy hill to the place where Matteo was pretty sure that children's nightmares were made.

The inside of the building was even scarier. At least outside, you felt like you could escape if you needed to. Inside, there was no escape. The walls were crumbling, threatening to bury you alive. While the air was so rank, you felt like you were being choked to death.

How could anyone live here? Better yet, how could someone voluntarily work here?

"Can I help you?" an angry woman asked in what Matteo assumed was Belarusian.

They were in Belarus, and Matteo knew that the majority of people spoke either Belarusian or Russian. He had heard Russian spoken numerous times, and this was not Russian.

Matteo's head snapped in Ares's direction when the man proceeded to respond in Belarusian.

"Since when do you speak Belarusian?" Matteo whispered as the woman got up and walked around the desk. She nodded for them to follow.

"I speak many languages. It's why I get along with so many people. I respect them and their cultures, and in return, they don't shoot me in the back."

"Wish we got the same respect," Matteo mumbled.

"Perhaps if Parisians stopped acting like they were superior to everyone else, people would stop calling them French snobs."

"But I'm Italian," Matteo clarified.

"But you live in a French castle. Snob ." Ares gave a smirk.

Sometimes he really hated the man.

The woman stopped in front of an office door that was slightly ajar. Not because someone had forgotten to close the door but because the frame was so warped that the bottom rested on the floor, thereby preventing it from shutting.

She pushed open the door and signaled for them both to step inside.

Ares thanked the woman as she left.

"Ares!" a large, burly man cried in English, standing and walking around his desk to greet him. "Been a long time, my friend. Glad to see you're still alive."

They both hugged.

"Glad to see you haven't been arrested," Ares responded.

"Hey, they can't arrest me for what they don't know about."

This conversation was becoming very cryptic. Should he be looking for an escape route, just in case? There are way too many movies where the charismatic, rich man gets betrayed and locked in an asylum, never to be heard from again.

Perhaps this was Ares's master plan. Convince him to walk willingly into an insane asylum, have him locked up, and then move into his French castle.

The man was brilliant.

Okay, perhaps he needed to lay off the movies.

"And who is this?" the man asked, extending his hand toward Matteo.

"This is Matteo… Sabarino," Ares introduced, hesitating on Matteo's last name.

The man's eyes went wide.

"Oh. It's a pleasure to meet you, young man. I am… Dr. Smith," the man replied, taking Matteo's hand and giving it a firm shake. His eyes glanced over at Ares.

Matteo highly doubted that the man's last name was Smith, considering he looked Eastern European.

But if the man wanted to keep his secrets, fine.

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. I loved 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.

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you back then. But he's my brother. Even though he tried to have me murdered, I couldn't bear the thought of having him killed. I knew if I told you the truth, you would have gone after him yourself. So I decided to protect my brother. I placed him here in the custody of Dr.… Smith. It was the best solution to a horrible situation. Yes, my brother would still have his life, but he would also be punished for his crimes each and every day. Trust me when I say this place is hell on earth. He's paying for his crimes."

Matteo couldn't believe what he was hearing. Ares's brother had killed his parents. He had betrayed Ares and ended his family. He wasn't sure how he should react. Part of him wanted to walk out into the courtyard and beat the man's face in until it resembled a crushed orange. Another more reasonable side realized that the man was living his own worst nightmare. Living in a place like this for over twelve years was unimaginable.

Turning, Matteo stared at the man behind the glass. He watched as the man used his finger to write something in the snow that covered the picnic table.

The man looked so lost, so lonely. Like all the joy had been sucked out of his world. It was just him and the white snow around him.

Movement caught the man's attention, and he looked up toward them. A huge smile cut across the man's face when he spotted his brother.

Abel jumped up from where he sat, sending snow flying around him.

"Ares! You came! You came back!" the man cheered, excitement spilling from his voice.

He stopped when he reached the glass window that divided them and placed his hand against the surface.

"Brother. I've missed you."

Brightness shown in the man's eyes, as hope seemed to return to his world once again.

Next to Matteo, Ares lowered his gaze.

Matteo watched as all the hope and joy slowly slipped from the man's face. Sadness returned, weighing down the edges of the man's lips.

"You're not here to take me home," Abel whispered.

Ares shook his head before slowly lifting his gaze to meet his brother's.

"Abel, this is Matteo. His parents were the ones you led Massimo to."

Horror filled Abel's eyes when he realized he was staring at the man whose parents he had helped to kill.

"Oh my god. I-I'm so sorry." Abel's eyes lowered, unable to meet Matteo's gaze. The fear and guilt were evident.

From behind the glass, Abel began fidgeting with his fingers. It was clear that the man didn't know where to begin. To be honest, neither did Matteo.

After a few seconds, the frail young man raised his head and locked eyes with Matteo.

"I know there's nothin' I can say that will ever make up for the pain that I've caused you. And I know I deserve to be in here, paying for the sins of my past and the betrayal of my brother." The man's eyes began to water. "If there were one thing I could change, I would have gone to that rehab facility that my big brother had tried to get me to go to. Choosing drugs over my brother was the biggest mistake of my life, and because of that choice, I have destroyed your life. I've taken away your family, and I've completely ruined my relationship with my brother."

Abel glanced over at Ares, who was still staring at the floor, refusing to look up at his brother. Matteo got the sense that Ares was fighting back tears.

"Brother, I want you to know how sorry I am and that I don't blame you for throwing me into this place. I know what I did was unforgivable, and I know that I deserve this and a whole lot worse. I'm just sorry that I had to break your heart. Please try and remember me the way I was when we were young. Before I went and fucked everything up. I love you, brother."

With that bone-chilling confession, the man behind the glass turned and walked back to his table, where he sat down and began playing with the snow once more. All color had been drained from his world, and sadness had returned to fill the empty gray space in which Abel lived.

Matteo stole a glance at Ares, who was discreetly wiping a tear from his eye.

"You okay?" Matteo asked, hating that he felt sorry for someone who had taken so much from him.

"I will be. Come, let's go," Ares muttered, turning and heading back the way they came.

Matteo watched Ares's brother as he stared absently into the snow before him.

It broke Matteo's heart seeing that spark, that glimpse of hope and joy so quickly fade from Abel's eyes the moment he realized that his big brother had not come to rescue him.

He couldn't imagine the pain and guilt that Ares must feel, leaving his brother in this godforsaken nightmare.

This was all too much for Matteo to take in. He needed time to process what he had just learned. Perhaps one day, he could learn to forgive Ares's brother for the part he played in his parents' death. And perhaps one day, Ares would be able to forgive his brother for the betrayal he suffered.

Life was too short and precious to hold on to grudges.