Chapter 3 - The Cold Coal Dust on Her AnklesBefore I could draw breath to object, Matteo rose from the floor.
His large, warm hands slid beneath my shoulders and under my knees, scooping me up from the frozen concrete with effortless, unyielding power.
“Mr. Rossi, please!” I cried out, clutching his lapels in panic, terrified that the anthracite grime on my uniform would ruin his thousands-of-dollars wool coat. “I’m filthy! The coal dust—”
“Be quiet, Leah,” Matteo commanded softly.
His voice wasn't harsh, but it held the unbending weight of an iron anchor.
The heat radiating from his broad chest penetrated my paper-thin uniform, instantly shocking the deep, bone-aching frostbite that had settled into my ribs for three months. Beneath his shirt, I could feel the heavy, rhythmic thud of a heart that did not race, did not hesitate, and feared nothing on this earth.
He turned toward the doorway, carrying me toward the corridor.
Francesco watched from his iron chair, his hazel eyes glowing with grim, ancient satisfaction.
“Take her to the master suite on the second floor, boy,” the old man commanded, his voice growing clearer with every sentence. “Not the guest rooms. The master suite. Where your mother slept.”
Victoria stood pinned against the wall, her face twisted in a mask of pure, poisonous venom.
“Matteo! You are carrying a pregnant gutter rat into our private quarters! She is carrying another man’s bastard! Her ex-boyfriend was a two-bit thief who owed sixty thousand dollars to the Gary loan sharks!”
Matteo stopped on the threshold.
He didn't turn around.
“Where did Leah sleep last night, Victoria?”
Victoria swallowed hard, her tongue darting across her painted red lips.
“She had a cot in the domestic wing—”
“She slept in the coal bunker,” Francesco’s voice cut through the shadows like a blade. “On two damp grain sacks beside the iron furnace. Because Victoria told her that pregnant maids lower the resale value of the estate.”
Matteo’s jaw tightened until a muscle flared along his temple.
He looked down at my face, noticing for the first time the purple shadows beneath my hollow cheekbones, the scabbed scrapes on my knuckles, and the way my swollen ankles hung limp over his forearm, dusted in black coal powder.
“Is this true, Leah?” Matteo asked, his baritone vibrating against my cheek.
“I... I had no money for rent, sir,” I whispered, tears blurring the sight of his scarred brow. “Miss Vance said that if I complained, she would call the collection crew in Gary and have them take my baby the day she was born.”
A silence so terrifying descended on the corridor that the four armed guards instinctively averted their eyes.
Matteo looked at Dante.
“Put Victoria in cell 3C.”
Victoria shrieked, clutching her white chinchilla wrap against her collarbone. “What? You can't put me in a cell! I am an aristocrat! I am a Vance!”
“Take the fur,” Matteo said, his voice completely flat. “Take the diamonds. Take her shoes. Give her the horse blanket from the stables. The one with the mildew. Let her sit in that iron chair until she learns what it means to beg for polenta.”
“No! Matteo! Dante, don't you touch me!” Victoria screamed as Dante stepped forward, his scarred hand clamping around her wrist with the crushing force of a hydraulic press.
With one fluid, violent rip, Dante tore the chinchilla coat from her shoulders, casting the multi-thousand-dollar fur into the wet coal soot on the floor. Her diamond tennis bracelets snapped, scattering hundreds of precious stones into the filth.
Two guards hauled her backward into cell 3C, kicking the rusted iron door shut behind her.
The heavy slide bolt slammed home with a deafening CLANG.
Matteo didn't look back once.
He carried me down the long subterranean corridor, up the service lift, and straight through the gilded double doors of the master penthouse on the second floor.
The room was enormous.
A massive limestone fireplace crackled with seasoned cedar logs, sending waves of fragrant, golden warmth across hand-knotted Persian rugs and velvet furnishings.
Matteo walked directly to the oversized king bed draped in white Egyptian cotton and goose-down duvets.
He laid me down with breathtaking gentleness, pulling a heavy fur-lined cashmere throw over my shivering legs.
Then, without saying a word, he dropped onto one knee beside the mattress.
He reached out with his large, calloused hand, took off my split leather work boots, and began brushing the black coal dust from my swollen ankles with his bare, tailored cuffs.
“Mr. Rossi, don't,” I choked out, a sob tearing from my throat. “You’re the Don. You shouldn't touch my feet.”
Matteo looked up.
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His gray eyes were dark as midnight, burning with an emotion so raw, so fierce, that my breath caught in my throat.
“You hauled firewood for an old man who couldn't speak to thank you, Leah,” he whispered, his thumb gently smoothing over the tender bruises on my heel. “In this house, you will never be dirty again.”
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