Matteo's Rapture

Quatorze

Emma Chassériaux

Moltrasio, Lake Como, Italy
The third of July, 7:03 a.m.

I'm scared of Matteo Lucchese.

As I sink into my seat, clutching onto the handle of the door for dear life while he maneuvers the car around curves—I realize I'm really fucking scared.

He finally hates me like I hate hate him and he's going to kill me, I could see it in his eyes this morning. The coldness, the irritation, that distinctive look I've only seen once before when he killed...

"Where are you taking me?" I ask shakily, my voice just above a whisper.

"Tuscany." He answers, cool and calmly. His hand that rests on the transmission shifter flexes.

"W-What's in Tuscany?"

Of course, he doesn't pay me any mind. Since our conversation this morning, the dynamic between us has entirely shifted. He still holds all the power, he always will, but I'm starting to feel...disposable. I'm starting to feel like any leverage I had over him with his transparent obsession with me is starting dwindle. I'm feeling like one more wrong move will be the last straw and he won't hesitate to put a bullet between my eyes.

"Matteo, please," I hate how pathetic I sound, hopeless. "you've taken everything from me." My dignity, my worth. "If you're going to kill me, don't tease me with my demise."

I wonder if he can see the tears spilling from my eyes out of the corner of his own. I wonder how it makes him feel to finally see me break.

He's won.

I scrubbed myself raw in the shower earlier, hyper-fixated on the urge to wash away his touch and the disgust I felt equally for the both of us. I let him touch me, I let him do that to me when I should've fought harder instead.

You reap what you sow.

Reap I shall.

~

Greve in Chianti, Tuscany, Italy
11:22 a.m.

I'm effectively jolted awake when my head bangs slightly against the cold window and I hiss slightly, sluggishly rubbing my temple while I observe my surroundings. The sun casts unrelentingly through the window—singeing the exposed skin below my shorts. Squinting, I realized we're parked in a nearly empty parking lot. The cement is cracked, weeds in between and gravel everywhere. There's a black gate thirty or so feet away from us, and it doesn't take a genius to guess where we are. Not with the headstones.

"Wha—" My question dies on the end of my tongue when he reaches over me and opens the glove compartment, leisurely grabbing a hand gun and silencer.

His charcoal irises remain impassive as they pierce through my soul, his fingers working deftly to attach the silencer to the gun. "Get out." Is all he says while he reclines back in his seat slightly, reaching behind my seat only to pull forward with a bouquet of yellow and orange flowers. He exits the car in silence, leaving me to wither away in momentary shock while I watch his lithe frame round the front of the car.

A breeze of the summer heat smacks me right in the face the second he opens car door and I lean away, watching him carefully as he tucks the gun into the waistband of his black slacks. The metal glints when it catches a ray of sun, taunting me.