The Mafia’s Dangerous Love

Into the Abby’s

Elena’s POV

The man looked straight at me and I could not move from the spot.

Cold. Calculating. He stood with his arms folded and leaning against the wall as if he had nothing better to do. The gun at his hip wasn’t discreet—it was blatant, it was loud, it was a clear message that could not be misunderstood.

My father stood beside me, as rigid as a mannequin. His hand clamped down on my arm and I could feel the bones grinding against each other, but I didn’t budge. I couldn’t. I had been frozen with that kind of fear that made my heartbeat pound in my ears. Who was this man? How had he found me?

“Dad,” I breathed out softly.

My father didn’t look at me. His jaw muscles were tightened, and the man stared at the intruder. “Elena,” he said softly, dangerous. “Go upstairs.”

“No,” the man interrupted me, he stepped closer with an evil smile on his face. “She stays.”

My heart raced. I wanted to flee, but I couldn’t move; the tension of the situation paralyzed me and the fear that had settled in my bones. The man looked at me, eyeing me up and down in the same way a predator looks at its prey.

“So,” he said, and he sounded almost sneering. ‘You are the girl that has been dating Matteo.’ You know, he usually does not mix business with… the people like us.”

There was silence between us for a while and I tried to calm my nerves by swallowing hard. Matteo. How did everything come back to him? I did not even know how fast things had turned around for the worse in my life. Yesterday, or maybe even less than that, I was an ordinary girl who had an ordinary life. And now?

Now I was standing in my living room, face to face with a man who looked every bit like he would not think twice before shooting me.

He looked at me and laughed, “I don’t know what you are talking about?” I replied my voice almost shaking. “I barely know Matteo.”

The man scowled and shook his head in disbelief. “That’s not what I heard.”

My father moved further and firmed his tone, he was angry now. “What do you want? You have no business here.”

The man’s smile vanished and was replaced with a grim look on his face. He stepped forward more than I thought he would and he headed towards my father, the mood in the room changed all of a sudden. I almost choked on my saliva as I looked at them realizing how close they were —too close.

“I’m not here to cause any problems,” the man said and his incipient threat was as clear as the cutlery on the table. But Matteo’s choices affect all of us.” And your daughter? Well, she’s made herself a liability.”

Liability. The word was spoken just like a death sentence that had been passed on to the fellow.

I noticed that the muscles in my father’s form were tightening visibly. He was Such a fighter, unyielding, rigorous, a defender and to a greater extent a provider but at the moment he was confronting someone who was from an altogether different stratum to which we had no access. A world of criminals and killers. And then it struck me how dangerous was what Matteo had dragged me into.

“Please,” I begged, “I really do not know anything.” Regardless of the things you may have thought I have done, I have not done it. I’m not involved.”

The man looked at me with intensity and turned back to me. ‘Well, that’s where you’re wrong, sweetheart.’ Since the time you entered into a relationship with Matteo De Luca, you are in something greater than you can comprehend.”

My hands were tightly balled into fists and I was shaking. I didn’t ask for any of this. I didn’t want any of this. All I wanted was to get back that life I had before; before getting involved with Matteo, before all the danger, before everything went wrong.

But it was too late for that now.

“Let me explain how it’s going to be,” the man said quietly, ominously. “You stay away from Matteo. You don’t talk to him, you don’t visit him and you definitely don’t attempt to be a hero. Because if you do...”

He stopped motioning, making the threat sit on the table like a noose.

“I can’t say more about it but there is nothing wrong with being a liability, is there?”

My father’s fingers dug into my arm once more, and I could hear him begging me, in his mind, to listen, to obey. But there was something inside me that refused—to fight, to be furious, to be afraid, and to feel something else I could not name. A dangerous curiosity. What had I stumbled into? Who was this Matteo really and why did he feel that I was the right person to get involved with his craziness?

The man sat quietly and stared at me with suspicion in his eyes. “Do you understand?”

I swallowed hard, then finally, I gave a slow nod. I understood one thing: I was in way over my head.

“Good,” he uttered as he moved to the door. “Remember, we’re watching. And we don’t like those who do not respect the rules.”

He looked at my father one last time before getting up and leaving the room just as nonchalantly as he came in. When the door closed behind him, the tension in the room lifted and I found that I had been holding my breath.

I fell to the couch, my legs were like jelly. My father did not speak any word; he was looking pale.

“What the hell just happened?” I asked that question in a whisper.

My father scratched his head and started to walk up and down the living room like a bear, locked in a cage. “I told you, Elena. Matteo’s dangerous. This is why you should avoid him.”

I put my head down and tried to figure out what was going on. I didn’t ask for any of this. But now that I was here, it seemed that I couldn’t go back. In one way or another I was involved no matter what I did. I was being watched.

And the worst part? A small, disloyal core of myself still wished to know more about Matteo. Who he was. Why he did what he did. But most of all—why he had chosen me.

---

That night, I couldn’t sleep.

Each small detail was dangerous in my own room, each noise that I heard was that the person is coming closer to me. My father had not been with me the entire time the man came to our house, but even his company did not seem sufficient to relieve the pressure from the situation. I was in danger. We were in danger. And that was all due to a certain Matteo De Luca.

I lay awake in bed, unable to sleep because of my thoughts. What did they want from me? Why was I suddenly a target? I was not a remarkable person: I was just a girl who served coffee at a café, had no remarkable life, and ended up in a place that was beyond her.

Finally, it was past midnight and my phone rang. I woke up with a groan, horror sinking in my gut.

It was another unknown number and I didn’t pick the call.

For a second I froze, my finger was on the touch screen of my smartphone. I wanted to turn away and not pay attention to it but there was a part of me that wanted to respond.

I turned the screen and put the phone up to my ear.

“Elena.” Matteo’s voice was quite composed, however, the tone was menacing enough to make my hairs stand on end. “I know that you have been visited.”

My breath hitched. How did he know? Was he watching me too?

“I... What is happening?” I asked myself, my breath hitching. “But they came to my house. They threatened me and my dad.’

Matteo not speaking bothered her. Then, after a moment’s silence, he began again; but his tone was stern. “I’ll handle it.”

“Handle what?” I said, irritation climbing up my chest. “Matteo, what is happening? Who are you?”

“I told you, Elena,” he said, his voice was gentle, almost apologetic, as if he had something he would like to take back. “You should stay away from me.”

But before I could say anything the line went dead. I looked at my phone with my heart beating faster. This was not only about Matteo, there was so much more to it. This was about survival.

All of a sudden, there was a knock on the front door, which had evidently been heard during the night.

I stood still as a post, my heart stopped for a moment.

The last visitor didn’t come with a message of warning. What would this one bring?

I moved slowly to the door, my heart raced and I looked through the window cautiously. I never thought I’d see Matteo again but standing on my porch was Matteo. He stared at me and then from the corner of my eye I saw a shadow of a man I didn’t know was there but for some reason his presence made me tremble.