A ghost of a smile touched his lips. "A while."
"That's vague."
"I'm a vague person." The answer carried the faint warmth of humor, yet gave away nothing at all, the way a closed door can be polite and still be locked.
I tried again. "What do you do?"
"Work with Lorenzo." Matteo glanced at the watch resting against his wrist, a thin slice of platinum that probably cost more than a year of my old life. "The car will be here in ten minutes. We'll stop by your place first, get what you need, then go straight to the airfield."
"A car," I repeated, blinking. "That's... excessive."
"Standard procedure."
"Standard for what?" The question escaped before I could think better of it, the way most of my questions did tonight.
He only smiled again, that same unreadable half-smile that opened no windows. "Your brother prefers things handled properly."
The careless mention of a car, the suite at a hotel where the carpet swallowed sound and men in dark suits stood near the elevators pretending not to watch, this man who looked carved out of an old film about quiet, dangerous men. None of it lined up with the brother I remembered. Lorenzo had always been ambitious, hungry in that way that frightened our father. But this kind of money, this kind of stillness? Who had he become in nine years of silence I had chosen?
"You seem surprised," Matteo observed, watching me the way a soldier watches a doorway.
"I just... didn't expect any of this. The hotel. The car." I gestured vaguely, my hand drifting without a destination. Without thinking, my thumb pressed against the bare groove on my ring finger, the place where Damiano's diamond used to sit, that phantom weight I kept reaching for even now. "Who exactly are you, Matteo?"
"Just someone your brother trusts." He straightened as his phone buzzed once against his palm, a single low pulse. Something in him sharpened, then smoothed over, the way water closes above a dropped stone. "Car's early. Ready?"
I climbed into the back seat, and my fingers found the leather first, butter-soft and cool, the kind of upholstery that doesn't squeak under you because it was never made for ordinary weight. Polished wood gleamed along the doors. Chrome caught the streetlight in thin bright lines.
"This is..." I shook my head and let myself sink into the plush seat, suddenly aware of how cheap my coat looked against it.
Matteo slid in beside me, and the space seemed to shrink to fit him, every inch of him still and certain. "Not what you expected?"
"No. I mean, Damiano has money, but this..." I gestured at the quiet luxury around us, the partition, the tinted glass, the driver who hadn't once looked back. "This is different."
"Different how?"
"More... refined? Expensive?" I traced a line of stitching along the seat, fine and even, the work of someone's careful hands. "I don't know how to explain it."
The drive to my building passed in a blur of streetlight and the questions I didn't dare ask out loud. Matteo said nothing, but more than once I felt the weight of his attention settle on me and then withdraw, patient as a man with nowhere else he needed to be.
The car eased to the curb outside my building, smooth as oil. "I'll wait here," Matteo said. "Just get what you need."
I nodded and went inside, my keys jingling in fingers I couldn't quite hold steady. The elevator climbed endlessly, the lit numbers crawling. My mind ran ahead of me, sorting through what to take and what to leave behind for good, what part of this life was even mine to keep.
The apartment door opened without a sound. And the moment I stepped inside, my world shattered.
