“She’s a problem I can’t ignore any longer.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be in your meeting?”
“I’m about to walk in now.” He changes the subject. “You protected me and The Underground.”
“You doubted that I would?”
“You pulled a gun on me,” he reminds me yet again.
“Because of the blood, and the necklace, and the moment.”
“I can explain the photo.”
“Good. I want you to.” I glance toward the porch again, and report, “Gallo just gave Matteo his back and took a phone call.”
“Then it’s about to be over,” he says. “I have to go now, but if you need me, really need me, call me. I’ll find a way to answer. But be sure it’s an emergency—and take Giada’s damn phone from her.”
“Happily,” I say, and the idea of hanging up and maybe never seeing him again has me grinding out, “Don’t get killed. I’m the only one who can kill you. Understand?”
“Today is not the day I die, or the day Gallo wins.”
“Promise—” The line goes dead and my stomach knots. He’s about to negotiate with a kingpin, and considering Gallo is charging toward me, I can’t even fully digest that reality. I stuff my phone back in my pocket and step forward once again, meeting him halfway.
“We need to talk,” he announces.
“Talk about what?”
“You,” he replies, “and believe me when I say that you’re going to want to hear what I have to say.” His cell phone starts to ring in his hand. He glances at the number. “I have to take this call.” He steps around me.
Turning, I am stunned to discover he’s heading toward the gate, obviously intending to leave. “Jerk,” I whisper, certain he’s just playing a game with me, taunting me, and no doubt hoping I worry and squirm.
“Ella!”
At the sound of Matteo’s voice, I turn again to find him waving me forward. Jogging toward him, I am certain of three things. One, Gallo’s not going to stop coming at Kayden until he destroys him. Two, if he keeps digging around, he’s going to get me attention from Niccolo that could get us all killed. And three, Giada, in her immature, self-centered way, helped Gallo get dangerously close to all of us.
Suddenly furious over her careless actions, my pace quickens and I climb the porch steps two at a time, Matteo backing into the foyer to allow my reentry into the castle. “What the hell were you thinking, running out there like that?” he demands, shutting us inside and locking the door.
“Someone had to distract him, and we both know that couldn’t be you without creating more trouble. And it’s a good thing I did go out there, because now we know that Giada is the one who let Gallo onto the property.”
“That little bitch.”
I wish I could disagree with him, but right now, I can’t. “Kayden wants us to take her phone.”
“And lock her in her room,” he growls, already stalking toward her tower, while I quickly follow, shocked when he keys in the entry code by the arched wooden door.
“You have the entry code?”
“Not to Kayden’s tower.”
Which is mine, and I’m not sure why I’m relieved. “You could hack it.”
“I can,” he says. “But no one else can. I set it and I’m that good.” The door begins to lift.
I duck under the barely open door, and into the foyer of the section of the castle I’ve never visited.
Straightening, I find this tower to be identical to the one Kayden and I share, with a library directly in front of me and a huge, winding stairwell to my right that I know will lead to a top level. Matteo joins me and we start up the steps, the anger I’d felt at Giada a few minutes ago a stone in my chest that’s quickly becoming a boulder.
“What did Giada say to Gallo? And since Kayden told you to take her phone, I assume he knows?”