Chapter 5 - The Boss's Shield
The struggle on the floor was short, violent, and absolute.
Mateo didn't use a weapon. He used his bare hands, his knuckles turning white as he choked the life out of his father's oldest friend. Silvio thrashed, his hands scratching frantically at Mateo’s arms, his eyes bulging as the air was cut off from his lungs.
"Mateo... stop!" I cried out, holding Lily’s head pressed flat against my shoulder so she couldn't see the violence. "Mateo, if you kill him now, we'll never prove who else was involved!"
Mateo froze. His chest heaved up and down, his dark hair falling across his blood-stained forehead. He stared down at Silvio, whose face was turning a deep shade of purple, his consciousness slipping away.
Slowly, with visible restraint that cost him every ounce of his willpower, Mateo released his grip.
Silvio collapsed back against the floor, gasping frantically for air, clutching his bruised throat.
Within seconds, the heavy footsteps of Mateo’s loyal loyalist guards—the ones who hadn't been bought by Silvio—flooded the room. Gabriel, the head of Mateo's personal vanguard, dropped to his knees, securing Silvio’s hands behind his back with heavy steel cuffs.
"Boss!" Gabriel called out, his eyes wide as he assessed the destruction. "The house is secured. We took down six of Silvio's men in the courtyard. The rest surrendered."
"Put him in the lower vaults," Mateo ordered, his voice cold, flat, and dripping with authority as he stood up. "Nobody speaks to him. Nobody feeds him. If he opens his mouth, tear out his tongue."
"Yes, Don Moretti," Gabriel grunted, hauling the semi-conscious Silvio up by his lapels and dragging him out of the room.
The bedroom fell silent again, except for the cold wind whistling through the shattered glass windows and the distant wail of police sirens in the city below.
Mateo stood in the middle of the room, his white shirt torn, his hands stained with blood. He turned slowly toward me and Lily.
I backed up half a step, overwhelmed by the sheer violence of what I had just witnessed.
Mateo saw my reaction. He stopped in his tracks, his eyes softening instantly, the lethal predator vanishing back behind a wall of deep, quiet remorse.
"You're afraid of me," he said softly, looking down at his own bloody hands.
"I'm afraid of what this place is doing to my daughter," I whispered, my voice trembling. "Mateo... this is a war."
"It was a war," Mateo corrected gently, stepping closer, though he kept his hands carefully at his sides. "Now it's a cleanup. You and Lily are safe."
"Are we?" I asked, fresh tears slipping down my cheeks. "Silvio was your consigliere. Bianca’s father controls half the city. If they couldn't stop this, how can we ever be safe here?"
Mateo closed the distance between us, stepping so close I could feel the heat radiating off his chest. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a clean silk handkerchief, and gently wiped a speck of blood off Lily’s small blue sock.
"Because as long as I am breathing, no one enters this house without my permission," Mateo said, looking straight into my eyes with an intensity that burned right through my defenses. "I didn't bring you here to be a maid, Clara. I brought you here because the day I saw you holding your child in that hallway, I knew you had more courage than every boss in Milan combined."
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"Mateo..."
"Stay," he murmured, his fingers gently brushing against my shoulder. "Not in the servants' quarters. Not in hiding. Stay here... with me."
