King of Stars (The Next Generation #2)

4. Matteo

Chapter 4

Matteo

T he sound of clanging swords echoed inside of my head, the reverberations coming back to me transformed into grunts. The smell of a wet penny and salt floated through my memories—blood. My hands clenched into fists, and it took all my restraint not to pace the length of the fucking plane. The sounds and smell brought me back to the mock sword fights I’d had with my brothers and cousins before we left Germany for France.

Fighting with swords transported me to a simpler place and time, a time where men fought over respect, honor, and—the most romantic reason of all—a woman.

My heart desired to kill in her name.

Stella.

My veins danced to the rhythm of her blood.

Stella.

My soul had decided she was the one I’d sacrifice my flesh and bones to protect.

She.

Stella.

My mind had decided that she was mine—I’d heard it and accepted it.

Stella Fausti.

She’d be my wife, my forever in physical form, but first, I had to fight for her. To release her from the cage the Nemours had stuck her in. And even though I hated to admit it, whatever it was that touched my mamma had touched me too, and I knew without a shadow of a fucking doubt that my star was fading.

My light in the darkness.

Even though I couldn’t claim to have had a rough life, or parents who didn’t love and care for me, I was still a Fausti, and whatever came with that name, I’d inherited from my old man. I had embraced it fully, pleased to be lost in the deep darkness with monsters who might eat me alive. But the moment my eyes had found my light, I was completely ensnared by it. My heart had roared to life, and a protective instinct I’d never known before rose from its slumber and took control.

It was like nothing I’d ever felt before. I knew it was like nothing I’d ever feel again. That was how deep the feeling had branded me. It exploded into my blood stream and irrevocably linked her lifeblood to mine. From that second forward, whatever happened to her, happened to me.

Whatever was happening to her, at that second, was tearing my heart to shreds, and I could feel my blood leaving my body. Instead of succumbing to it, though, I was rising, ready to go to battle for mine.

The woman the dark underworld had named “étoile”.

My star.

And it was going to be a bloody fucking battle over her. The war that had started years ago, that had plagued my parents, was being carried through generations. My sister, Mia, and her husband, Saverio, had been touched by it. I knew me and mine were going to be touched by it. We were being touched by it. Which was why my grandfather had us on this plane, taking a detour to Venice before we landed in Paris, where our Russian associates were waiting to fight by our sides.

I looked away from the window, my eyes catching on my parents. Mamma was curled up next to papà, his arm around her protectively as she slept. Or her eyes were closed. Sometimes she did that. “Resting my eyes” she would say. After all these years, he was still ensnared by her. She was all he ever saw, all he ever felt. All that he’d done, he did in honor of her name.

I understood like I’d never understood it before. It was something I had to experience to understand, the same way mamma had said a person only knew what a parent went through when they became a parent.

My thumb glided over the ornament my parents had given me as a Christmas present. It was two interlocking stars, one with Stella’s name and one with mine.

“I want you to be happy, my son. That is all I want. But I also know that the little boy who almost lost his mother is out for revenge. When Chloe called you, I know it stirred up memories you had buried. But you do not have to save me, or yourself. You have already been saved. I was saved. I am here today because my love for you all brought me back. I could not bear to leave you, and I hope you feel the same for me. And when you do save Stella, you both will be saved. Because if you leave her, charging in and getting yourself killed…she will feel there is no point in staying on this earth. Stella without Matteo will make no sense.”

That was the words mamma had spoken, in Slovenian, at the castle in Germany, to keep me from charging in and going after Stella. I was fully prepared to die in Stella’s name, in her honor, but mamma’s words had grounded me. I couldn’t imagine Scarlett without Brando, or vice versa, and I knew for Sella’s sake, and mine, I had to be smart about this. I couldn’t risk Stella’s life, or we both might forever be lost.

I felt the intensity of another pair of eyes and turned to meet them. My uncle and godfather, Rocco (or Padrino, as my siblings and I called him) sat on the other side of the plane, his treacherous wife next to him, but his stare was on me. I nodded, and instead of nodding back, he stood and made his way to me.

The plane shimmied a little with turbulence, but it didn’t seem to shake him at all. He fixed his suit, and Mariano, my brother, nodded and vacated his seat for Padrino. He was quiet for a minute or two before he looked at me.

Mia and Mariano had the same color eyes as his: green as the Mediterranean when the sun beat down on it. There was some darkness that lurked around the edges in my sister’s eyes, her limbal ring, but the darkness that lurked in Padrino’s and my brother’s eyes went even deeper. My eyes, in contrast, were as dark as Brando Fausti’s.

We stared at each other until the plane hit a deep pocket of turbulence. I looked away first. It was out of respect. The Fausti famiglia had rules, and no one knew, or navigated, them better than me. Becoming the King of the Fausti famiglia had always been my ending destination, and to get there, I had to know how to steer the course better than anyone else. Being the head of the Fausti famiglia was a highly valued position, and both getting it and holding it could be dangerous. I’d always thrived in that world, and Padrino knew it, which was why he’d always been supportive of the title going to me instead of his son, my first cousin, Massimo.

Before Chloe showed up in his life, Massimo was on a path to challenging me, at the urging of his mamma, Rosaria. Rosaria felt the title and position was rightfully his, since Padrino would be leading the famiglia after Nonno retired. Usually leaders died in that position, handing over power to whoever they willed it to with their last breath. It was unusual for Nonno to retire, but he’d chosen love over power, and he wanted to spend the rest of his years loving my grandmother.

Rosaria, though, was after the crown, and since my father had given over his right to rule to Padrino, she felt it was only right that Massimo ruled after Padrino’s death. I’d put a stop to it by announcing my desire to rule. Padrino ultimately sided with me, since my father had been next in line, and if he wouldn’t have forfeited his right, by Fausti law I was next in line to rule. Massimo would have challenged me for the position, and I had a feeling the famiglia would have been on his side of the campaign, since Massimo had decided to marry an Italian movie star, whose roots run deep in Italy, and Padrino had always been respected.

At the time, I hadn’t made a choice—I didn’t care who I married and was on the verge of letting my grandfather decide. And how ironic was this: it probably would have been an opera singer like Rosaria. My father was considered a rebel to the famiglia because of his love for my mamma. My campaign wasn’t as strong as Massimo’s, but fate had intervened and brought Chloe into our lives. When she’d called me and told me some man had hurt her in France, I’d raced to her door and discovered that the Nemours family, again, was behind it. While I was out with my brothers, trying to find out who the man was, Massimo had arrived in Paris with Padrino and took one look at Chloe and fell hard.

Chloe and Massimo were getting married, and he decided not to challenge me, since he felt I’d brought Chloe into his world, and he was fulfilled like never before.

Desire and hunger are two of the most driving forces in a man’s life, and the intensity of the combo is infinity-times worse when applied to a man who has Fausti blood pumping through his veins. The desire and hunger to lead had switched veins when Chloe appeared, and Massimo knew she was the one who had awoken the sleeping lion in his chest. Especially when he took one look at the sketches in her apartment, sketches some people had thought were me. But he knew she’d been drawing him all along.

Mamma said those two had true love.

Exactly the kind of love Padrino had always craved but never truly had with Rosaria. Padrino and Rosaria had an arranged marriage, and over the years, it had built up to something more. Then, as hard times had rolled in, it had eroded back to an arrangement. I hadn’t always been around to see it, but sometimes I saw my life from my uncle’s eyes.

My life would have been an echo of his.

An all-consuming desire to be head of the famiglia had gripped me since I understood what it meant to be a Fausti, and part of that was romance and being able to balance it with the bloodthirsty animal that lived inside all of us. And to be respected, to be taken seriously, a man had to be married. I was so lost in the honor of what it meant to carry my last name that I didn’t give a fuck who I married. An arrangement was suitable to me.

Then fate stepped in and changed the course of my steps in Paris. Here we were, all on this plane because of it. We were heading in a direction that didn’t sit right with my “aunt,” so her teeth were bared in Chloe’s direction.

Chloe made a noise of distress when the plane hit enough turbulence to make the lights flicker. Chloe was special in that way. She was a sensitive woman who worked through whatever she was feeling through her art. Her safe place.

Massimo pulled Chloe closer and tried to put up a wall between his soon-to-be wife and his mamma. Not a comfortable place to be. Sweat rolled from his temples even though we were in the middle of winter.

Zio Romeo stood from his seat, fixed his hair, and announced, “I am going to speak to the pilots about this. Nazzareno and Augusto Aurelius should know better.”

Nazzareno was the son of my grandfather’s brother, Lothario, and Augusto Aurelius was Nazzareno’s son, who had followed in his father’s footsteps and became a pilot too. The family mostly called him by his two first names, Augusto Aurelius, but the younger generation, like me, called him Auggie in less formal settings.

Zio Romeo just wanted an excuse to rib them in the cockpit and maybe direct Rosaria’s attention in a different direction.

“It does my heart good,” I said in Italian to Padrino. “To see my cousin this way.” I nodded toward Massimo and Chloe, even if Padrino hadn’t looked away from his son and his future daughter of the heart.

Padrino stared at Massimo and Chloe more than normal, a yearning in his eyes that made me even hungrier for the same thing. The same connection. The same bond. The same love. Except where my same thing was in the close future, Padrino’s hunger might eventually starve him to death.

I loved my uncle, all my uncles, but I understood Rocco Piero Fausti in ways even my father couldn’t. Of late, Padrino and I were locked in a silent battle of wills. He would be king next, but I didn’t appreciate or respect the decision he’d made for me in Paris, when I needed to go back for Stella and he’d silently sided with my mamma. Then he’d allowed Massimo to steal Ivan’s heart because of Chloe. It was my right to do that in honor of Stella. But I knew our time was coming, and if she came out of this safe, I’d owe Padrino for the decision he’d made.

Padrino met my eyes and squeezed my shoulder. When he reached out and made the gesture, I heard mamma sigh. She’d felt it too. All was forgiven between us.

“It does my heart good,” he responded in Italian, “to know my nephew is not marrying for loyalty to the family, but love. As it should be. Love does not weaken the soul but emboldens it.”

Even though the words were spoken quietly, brokenly, Rosaria’s head whipped back, and she shot glares at the both of us. I hadn’t said anything, agreeing or not, but she was still pissed that I’d turned down her sexual advances in Germany. In the Fausti famiglia , all is fair in love and war , and if I would have slept with Rosaria, it would have given me a surge to the top of the food chain. I would have done the same thing as my grandfather had done years ago, taken pictures, and then used them to make Padrino seem weak to the rest of the famiglia . But I didn’t want to claim the famiglia in such an underhanded way. And since I wanted time with Stella without such a huge responsibility on my shoulders, I’d accept the crown when it was my time.

My uncle and I embraced, and even though Rosaria never made a sound, I could feel the anger rolling off her in waves. It was enough to melt ice on mountains and cause avalanches.

We pulled back, looked each other in the eye, and Padrino nodded before he said, “Saverio will have news for us when we land.”

“If he can’t find any information on Stella’s life before Paris, no one can.” I reached for my water. “Do you know this man we’re going to see?”

Nonno had filled me in before we left Germany. His name was Bertrand Moro. He had a French mother and Italian father, and he had been connected to royalty at one time. He still had the money and status to prove it. Nonno wanted to speak to him before we set our boots on the ground in Paris. He didn’t say much more than that, which made me suspicious.

Padrino signaled the stewardess for a drink. “You are suspicious of the lack of information,” he said, reading my mind. “Bertrand Moro thinks he is a modern-day pirate, and he acts like one. For years, no one has heard from him. It was rumored that he was lost at sea. Recently, the tide has changed, and Moro has washed up. It does not matter where he has been, if he was not on our radar, but he is in good with the Nemours.”

“How good?”

Papà kissed mamma on the head and stood. When he came to our section of the plane, Marciano stood, squeezed papà on the shoulder, and took papà’s seat, falling asleep a second later as mamma scratched his head.

Big fucking baby.

It was like he’d heard me. His eyes opened and he narrowed them at me before he fell back asleep. Mamma laughed softly and closed her eyes.

“Moro buys from them and sells to them,” papà said. He must have overhead my question to Padrino.

Padrino nodded in a solemn way. “Moro’s family goes back generations with the Nemours.”

“Who has a stronger relationship with the Moro family?” I asked. “Us or the Nemours?”

The stewardess set down Padrino’s drink with a shy smile. His eyes were hungry when he took in the gesture, but it was like his drive to hunt had been diminished. My grandfather had been hinting that Padrino might not automatically ascend to the crown once he retired, which was shocking news to all of us except mamma and Mia, being as touched as they were. But it was the first time I really noticed that my uncle looked…lost wasn’t the right word. Neither was despondent. Maybe somewhere between the two. I wondered if that look was something Nonno had caught long before any of the men had. My grandfather was always ten steps ahead, and he was always preparing to keep the crown in our line while protecting the famiglia at the same time.

Padrino’s eyes went to his drink before he picked it up and downed it. He set the glass down without a noise. “Us, of course.”

“Of course,” I repeated.

“Men’s loyalties reside wherever power and money are,” my father said. “The Fausti famiglia today, the Nemours tomorrow, depending.”

I signaled to the stewardess by holding up three fingers. She got to work right away, pouring a drink for me, my father, and my uncle this time. Even though Nonno had discussed the meeting with Moro, again, he didn’t go into much detail. I hadn’t asked because I was ready to ride. Each step that I took was a second closer to Stella. My focus on her was the only reason I was late on the jump, and once I asked this question, I knew I wasn’t going to like the fucking answer.

“What does Moro buy and sell?”

“Depends.” Padrino shrugged, his shoulders stretching the expensive fabric.

“Does he buy and sell things ?” I probed.

My father looked me in the eye. “Add people to that list.”

“Women,” I said, feeling the blood turn hot in my veins, swelling them.

Papà nodded. “This meeting might help us get Stella back without putting her in as much danger.”

“The Nemours,” I said, picking up my drink and downing it. The fire in the drink burned my throat, but it only made me feel like a fire-breathing monster. “They looking to sell someone?”

Padrino breathed out, and I smelled the fire on his breath. “That is why we are meeting with Moro. If anyone would know, it would be him.”

I pulled in my lips and rolled them, before I reached for my father’s glass and downed it. He wasn’t touching it. “Is that the word on the street? The Nemours are looking to sell a dancer?”

“Could be a trap,” my father said. “They know we’re willing to fight for her.”

His answer was simple, which told me a lot. We knew enough, but not nearly a fucking enough. The Nemours family was not to be slept on. My parents had fought them for years, with the backing of some of the Faustis, and the Nemours still ruled the streets of Paris. Even though their fall guy was Olivier Nemours. But where the Faustis worked in the light, no one powerful enough to stop them, the Nemours worked in the darkness. They might have been powerful, but they got there by hiding out in sewers and living like rats.

“When we want something, or something as important as someone , the world knows what our famiglia will do to claim what or who belongs to us. Stella is one of us—she is yours. We will fight the devil in hell to get her back.”

My father wanted to guffaw at his brother’s words, but he held his tongue. Some of the Fausti famiglia had supported the war between our family and the Nemours when Olivier was after my mamma, but not all of them. The man copiloting this plane, Nazzareno, his father had underhandedly tried to get my parents killed because he wanted to rule. That was how things rolled in our family, and it was an acceptable way of conducting things. All but the underhandedly. The men in this family were not cowards. It was the reason we didn’t lie. To lie meant being afraid of the truth.

Who did we have to fear?

No one on this earth.

My father had enough respect for my uncle not to point out the truth, though. We knew Padrino wasn’t speaking on our family as a whole, but our close circle. Our close circle had traveled to hell and back with my parents to make sure my mamma stayed safe, and my father kept his heart in his chest.

The heart was a man’s prized possession in our family, and mine felt like it was near beating out of my chest.

My Stella.

My Light.

The Nemours were going to try to sell her or use her to lure us closer.

Auggie’s voice came over the speakers and announced that we were about to land. The plane trembled, and the lights flickered. From the weather outside, or the power of the storm inside of my heart, I had no fucking clue.