Chapter 6 Chapter 6 (Matteo POV)

The house didn’t feel like mine anymore.

Not with the weight of everything that had happened. Not with the silence stretching between the walls—thick, suffocating, angry. Not with the reality that Silas was dead and the woman I’d spent years trying to forget was asleep upstairs with a kid who might be mine.

No—who was mine.

I didn’t need a paternity test. I didn’t need her to say the words. One look at Callum had been enough. The shape of his eyes. The tone of his skin. The way he looked up at me like he already knew me somehow.

It was a punch to the gut I wasn’t prepared for.

My fists clenched as I stared through the window, watching the street below. My men were out there—two stationed in the car, one patrolling the sidewalk, another posted at the entrance. No one was getting close without a bullet through their skull.

I pressed my palms flat against the cold glass and closed my eyes.

The Russians had made their move. Loud. Brutal. Sloppy.

They’d killed Alessio. They’d killed Silas.

And by doing that, they’d made one thing very, very clear.

This wasn’t a war anymore.

This was personal.

A floorboard creaked behind me, soft but distinct. I didn’t turn at first—not until I heard the uneven pattern of her breathing.

Lilianna.

When I finally looked, she stood in the doorway to the living room, arms crossed tightly over her chest, her hair a wild, unkempt halo from sleep. The hallway light behind her cast shadows across her face that made her look fragile, breakable in a way she never let herself be.

“You should be resting,” I said quietly.

She hesitated, then walked further into the room. “I couldn’t sleep.”

I nodded. Of course she couldn’t.

“You need something?” I asked, keeping my voice neutral.

“No.” She paused, swallowing. “Well… yes. I—” She folded her arms tighter, as if to hold herself together. “I just wanted to see if you were okay.”

A humorless sound escaped my throat—half laugh, half something darker.

“Me? I’m fine.”

“No,” she said softly. “You’re not.”

Her voice tugged at something buried under years of hardened instinct.

I ran a hand across my jaw and looked away. “We don’t need to do this tonight.”

“Matteo.”

Her voice cracked. That got me. I turned.

Her eyes glimmered—pain, exhaustion, fear, all battling for dominance.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“For what?” My voice was flat.

“For everything.”

Silence fell between us, stretching and twisting until the room felt too small to hold it.

“For running,” she said, voice trembling. “For keeping him from you. For not telling you the truth.”

I exhaled sharply and turned away again, pacing toward the window. My chest felt tight, too tight.

“That’s not a conversation we have at one in the morning,” I muttered.

“I know,” she said. “But I needed to say it.”

I didn’t answer.

I couldn’t.

My throat felt like it was lined with glass.

In the reflection of the window, I saw her take another slow step closer.

“He’s a good kid…” she whispered.

I closed my eyes.

“I know,” I said. “He seems… smart.”

“He is.”

Silence again.

“He deserves better,” she murmured.

Her words lit something sharp and furious inside me. My head snapped toward her.

“You think I don’t know that?” I growled. “You think I don’t understand what this world does to kids? What it did to us?”

She flinched but didn’t look away.

“I left because of that,” she said. “Because I wanted him safe.”

“So you decided for both of us,” I said bitterly. “You ran. You vanished. You never called. You never asked for help. You never gave me a chance.”

“I didn’t know how,” she whispered. “I didn’t know if you even wanted—”

I stepped closer, anger surging hot and fast.

“How could I not want him?!”

She stared at me, stunned, breath caught in her throat.

My hands shook as I dragged them through my hair, pacing away from her.

“Jesus, Lilianna…” My voice cracked. “You should’ve told me.”

“I know,” she said, tears slipping free despite her trying to hide them. “I know. But I was scared.”

“Of me?”

“No,” she whispered. “Of losing him.”

I froze.

Her voice softened, breaking at the edges.

“You know the world you live in, Matteo. The violence. The enemies. The danger.” She shook her head. “I thought if you knew, you’d want him close. You’d want him here. And that life… it destroys everything it touches.”

I stared at her.

She wasn’t wrong.

But she wasn’t right either.

“You should’ve trusted me,” I said quietly.

Her lips trembled. “I wanted to. You were the only person I ever wanted to trust.”

Her honesty hit me harder than any bullet ever could.

Before I could speak, she wiped her cheek and straightened. The fragile moment hardened into something else—fear laced with determination.

“What happens now?” she asked.

“Now?” I repeated.

She nodded. “The Russians… they won’t stop.”

“No,” I said. “They won’t.”

“And us?” she whispered.

A question heavy with too much meaning. Too much history.

“We worry about surviving the next twenty-four hours,” I said. “Anything more than that is a luxury.”

She nodded, defeated but understanding.

After a moment, she wrapped her arms around herself. “I should go back to bed.”

I watched her turn toward the stairs.

“Lilianna.”

She stopped.

Wordlessly, she faced me again.

“You’re safe here,” I said, softer than I meant to. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”

Her chin wobbled—but she nodded, just once.

Then she disappeared around the corner.

I didn’t follow her.

Couldn’t.

Instead, I headed downstairs—toward the basement, toward the rows of locked cabinets and weapons and files Silas and I had built together. Toward the place where emotion had no place, where purpose drowned out pain.

The war room.

Screens lit up the space in a cold blue glow. Surveillance feeds. Maps. Communication channels. Intel reports scattered across a long metal table.

I stared at Silas’s chair.

Empty.

The reality hit me all over again.

I gripped the backrest until my knuckles went white.

“You were supposed to be here,” I whispered. “You weren’t supposed to leave me with all this shit.”

But he wasn’t here. He never would be again.

Footsteps approached behind me—soft, hesitant. Not Lilianna’s.

“Boss?” It was Marco, my right hand. “We’ve got intel.”

I cleared my throat, straightening. “Tell me.”

“Russians are regrouping. They didn’t expect the hit to go sideways.”

“It wasn’t sideways,” I muttered. “It was suicide.”

Marco nodded grimly. “And there’s more.”

I turned to him.

“They know she’s alive,” he said.

My blood turned to ice.

“They’re looking for her. And the kid.”

Every instinct in me snapped into place.

A predator’s instinct.

The kind born from years of violence, loyalty, brotherhood, betrayal.

“They won’t find her,” I said coldly. “I’ll kill anyone who tries.”

Marco nodded once, solidly. “What’s the plan?”

I looked at the surveillance feeds again. At the empty chair beside me that used to hold my brother.

Then at the stairs where Lilianna had disappeared.

Where my son slept behind reinforced steel.

“We go on the offensive,” I said. “We hit first.”

Marco’s eyes gleamed. “All right. Who’s the target?”

“The Russian leadership,” I growled. “Every last one.”

He nodded. “And the girl?”

I turned toward the hall, toward the fragile peace waiting upstairs.

“We protect her,” I said. “At any cost.”

By the time dawn crept through the windows, I still hadn’t slept.

I was standing in the kitchen, coffee in hand, staring into nothing—strategizing, raging, grieving—when small footsteps padded across the floor.

I turned.

Callum stood there, rubbing his eyes, curls wild and face soft with sleep.

He blinked up at me.

“Hi…” he said innocently.

Something inside me cracked open.

“Hey, kid,” I said, voice rougher than I meant.

He walked closer, tiny feet quiet on the tile.

“Are you my daddy?”

The mug slipped from my hand and shattered on the floor.

I didn’t move.

I couldn’t breathe.

His big brown eyes—my eyes—looked up at me with complete trust.

“I—I don’t know,” I said honestly.

He nodded like my answer made perfect sense.

“Momma says you’re a good man,” he whispered.

My chest constricted.

“She’s wrong,” I rasped.

He tilted his head, then stepped closer—little hand reaching out, gripping my pant leg like it was the most normal thing in the world.

“You saved us.”

I swallowed hard.

“You’re safe now,” I told him quietly.

He nodded, yawning.

“Can I stay with you?” he asked sleepily.

My heart stopped.

Before I could answer, a soft voice echoed from the doorway.

“Callum…”

Lilianna.

Her eyes widened when she saw him clinging to me.

Then her gaze rose—slowly—to mine.

Her breath caught.

Everything in the room shifted.

Everything.

Because we both knew—

Everything was different now.

Everything had changed.

And nothing would ever be the same again.