Rivals To Lovers | ✔️

- 𝐶ℎ𝑎𝑝𝑡𝑒𝑟 28 -

- Roxanne's POV -

We walk into what seems to be his office. He eventually puts me down on the ground, I fix my hair that was in my face, and look up at Mattheo. We stare into each other's eyes for a while without saying anything.

My heart beats in my chest and I can feel my palms start to get sweaty, I still don't understand why this man makes me so nervous when I'm around him. And looking into his beautiful grey-blue eyes wasn't really helping. A small mark starts to form on his lips. Until I remember what a true asshole he really is.

"Done staring?" He says lifting an eyebrow in a flattering way with his stupid smirk, showing off his white pearly teeth. I inhale sharply taking in the spell of his colon, I tilt my head slightly and faking a smile.

"You know if you weren't such an ass all the time maybe I would have considered staying a little longer," I say talking about a few months ago like it was yesterday.

I say crossing my arms over my chest. His smirk quickly fades off and he turns around walking towards his desk giving me his back. He walks up to his desk and pulls out a chair.

He looks back at me as if he was telling me to sit down. I exhale and do as he wants without him saying anything. He walks back to his chair and sits.

"You wanted to talk, this is your opportunity." He says leaning back in his chair, his elbows on the armrest. He lays out his hand indicating me to start talking. I roll my eyes and scoff softly. For starters, I wouldn't be needing to ask him anything if I wasn't even here in the first place, so he has no right to act like he has nothing to do with this.

"Well, for starters where the hell is my family being held captive against their will?!" I say leaning up in my chair.

"Somewhere safe, the fewer people know where they are, the better," He says. Is he serious right now, he can't be fucking serious. It's my fucking family and he's hiding them from me.

"You must be fucking joking. It's my family Mattheo, you have no right to just keep them away from me and then not tell me where they are like I'm so sort of danger towards them." I say getting frustrated at him.

"Roxanne, do you really think I did all of this to make you and your family miserable." He says narrowing his eyebrows together and looking at me as if I was stupid. I lift a brow at him, you know Mattheo, anything is possible when it comes to you. I mean how am I supposed to trust someone like him.

Yeah, there are moments when I do feel safe around him but his actions don't really do such a good job at proving it. He scoffs, his eyes wander around the room before standing up.

"Who do you think I am?" He says looking at me as if he was searching for something missing in my eyes emotionlessly. More like hurt if you ask me, I know this because I know how it feels it's crazy how we are so alike sometimes. I can see his chest heavy and his body tense.

"Why did you really bring me and my family back to Newyork?" I ask trying to change the topic a little bit but also getting to the point at the same time. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath before opening them again.

"Your brother was right your dad's death wasn't accidental," Mattheo says leaning on his chair. I let that sink in for a little. But I wasn't going to show any sign of weakness especially in front of Mattheo. I sit up straight and look at him in the eyes.

"Do you have proof?" I ask curiously. My brother has been on our father's death case endlessly and could never find anything good enough to prove if it was planned.

"It's not really hard to figure out. It all started when the Russians went after yall and then Taylor joining them in their action just for more power and dominance. Then when we found out it was him we comforted the Russians and we made them a better offer than Taylor could ever make to them. Then we told your family, we split and that made your mafia vulnerable again, without our help." He says.

He was right, everything he said was making more sense. It was like a puzzle, The Russians started all of this, and just when we thought things were settled they took advantage and killed my father. Now that he's died it's the perfect moment to strike and take over.

And that when it hit me, Mattheo did all of this to keep us safe from them. But he's still working with them so how do I know this isn't a trap to keep me away from my mafia.

"How do I know this isn't another of their traps? That you're not working together with them?" I state.

"Come on Roxanne I thought you were smarter than that. Nobody likes the Russians, you and I both know that" He says with a small smirk, he crosses his strong arms over his chest making his biceps want to break through his white dress shirt. A few buttons were undone showing off his tattooed chest.

"You're doing it again, the staring," He says, his smirk growing wider. I tear my eyes off of his body and look up at him.

"Fine, but what exactly do you have in mind. I'm assuming you have it all planned out since before you abducted me and my family" I smirk. I know he's not dumb, he may not play by the rules but he knows what he's doing, and probably even before things happen he knows. His wicked smirk sends chills through my body.

"You know me too well, love," He says. He's right I do, I can read him like an open book. I've known him since when we were basically kids, we could read each other's minds before we could even make a move when we were assigned on missions to "kill each other". We always had something that attracted us to one another and it wasn't in a romantic way it was more of a dominant way. It seemed like it was all falling right into place for us to reach and take over.

And that's exactly what we were going to do, together.