Chapter Six
849 Words
The Man at the Gate
"It is Ethan Blackwood."
The words hit the air like a sudden, freezing draft. Nobody moved. Nobody breathed. Ava stared at the security guard, his face a grim mask of professionalism.
"Ethan is here?"
"At the front gate," the guard confirmed.
A jolt of pure, electric terror raced through Ava’s veins. It had been hours. How had he tracked her? Panic tightened her chest, a familiar, crushing weight.
"What does he want?"
A dry, hollow laugh escaped Ava. Demanding. As if she were a piece of property he had misplaced. The sheer audacity of it, even now, turned her stomach.
Matteo rose from his chair, his movements unhurried and fluid. He did not look angry; he looked like a man who had just been handed a small, manageable problem.
"What is he doing?"
"Demanding to see Miss Hart."
Matteo turned his gaze toward her, his expression unreadable. "What do you want to do?"
Ava blinked, thrown by the question. "You mean..."
"I mean exactly that," he said. He folded his arms, his presence filling the vast room. "If you want to see him, I will allow it."
It was a choice, the first real choice she had been given in three years. She thought of Ethan’s lies, his curated affection, and the way he had dismantled her reputation with a few clicks of a keyboard. She thought of the man who had promised to protect her while sharpening the knife he planned to use on her back.
"No," she said. The word was solid, a rock in the middle of a flooding river.
Matteo watched her for a beat, his eyes searching hers, before he nodded once. The decision was final. He turned to the guard, his voice dropping into a register that made the room feel suddenly smaller.
"Remove him."
"Boss?" the guard hesitated.
"Did I stutter?"
The guard lowered his head, his posture turning rigid. "No, Boss." He pivoted and hurried from the room.
Ava let out a ragged breath, her eyes returning to Matteo. "That is it? You just send him away?"
"If Ethan wishes to argue, he can do so somewhere else."
Before she could speak, a second guard entered, looking visibly more rattled than the first.
"Boss," he started, his voice strained.
"What now?"
"He refuses to leave. He claims you are holding Miss Hart against her will. He is telling our men that you have kidn*pped her."
Ava felt a genuine smile, a sharp, mirthless thing, pull at her lips. She let out a short, incredulous laugh. It was so perfectly Ethan. To frame her for fraud, ruin her name, and then play the white knight at the gates of a mafia estate.
Matteo’s gaze shifted to her. "Something amusing?"
"He is unbelievable," Ava said, her voice shaking. "He spent years controlling me, and now he is pretending to save me."
A flicker of something dark and ancient crossed Matteo’s face, an intensity that made the hair on her arms stand up. It was gone as quickly as it had appeared, but it left a mark. The mention of control had struck a nerve.
"There is something else," the guard added, looking increasingly uncomfortable. "He is not alone. Victoria Hart is with him."
Ava gripped the edge of the table, her knuckles turning white. The mention of the name felt like a physical blow. Victoria. The woman who had sat across from her at breakfast every morning, the woman who had helped her choose her flowers, the woman who had been waiting for the trust fund to clear so she could move on to her next conquest.
Ava turned away, her throat closing up. "I do not want to see her."
Matteo’s jaw tightened. He did not offer empty platitudes or forced reassurances. He simply looked at her, his gaze steadying her in a way she could not explain.
"Then you will not."
The guard’s earpiece crackled. His face went pale. "Boss. He is becoming aggressive. He attempted to force his way through the gate. Our men had to physically restrain him."
Matteo’s expression became terrifyingly calm. It was the silence of a predator who had finally found his prey trespassing in his den.
"Should we call the police?" the guard asked.
Matteo looked genuinely offended. "No."
He straightened his cuffs, his movements precise, and turned toward the door.
"Ava," he said, catching her eye one last time. "Finish your dinner."
"What?" she sputtered.
"You barely touched it. You will need the energy."
He walked out, leaving the dining room doors swinging in his wake. Ava stood alone in the center of the room, listening to the muffled sounds of the estate's defenses stirring outside. He was walking out to face the man who had destroyed her life, and he was worried about her appetite.
As thunder rumbled above the mansion, Ava realized that when Matteo De Luca stepped through those gates to meet Ethan Blackwood, the world she knew was going to end. And for the first time in three years, she was not the one running.
- Writer
