I stopped when Luca blocked my path, crossing his arms. Vito beside him. 

“Matteo, let’s turn around and head back to the complex. We don’t need this to turn violent.” Luca said, softly. 

“Alessio just doesn’t know when to fucking quit.” I hissed. 

Alessio was standing talking with Andrei, still clearly heated. He was talking with his hands, quickly. 

“Matteo, don’t. That’s not smart. You know it.” Vito warned me. 

“Someone needs to humble him.” I muttered. “Besides, what a better day to say fuck it.”

I stomped towards Alessio, and Andrei tried to hand me back my things. I just smiled at him as I stepped by him. Yanking Alessio away from Lev. 

“I’ve decided, you’re right. We aren’t done here.”

As it clicked in for Alessio, Vito and Luca ran towards us. We could throw punches all day. Neither one of us wanted to back down. 

“If you would have just called off your fucking dogs, I wouldn’t have to hit you again.” I snapped. 

“Forgive me.” Alessio hissed before he so rudely stomped on my foot. The pain that blossomed was instant and a good indicator that he broke my foot. I knew it too, I felt it. Despite the pain. I still walked on it, and the last of my patience with Alessio was gone. I didn’t give a single more ounce, millimetre and second, that he was the don of our family. 

“Forgive you? Fuck you, Alessio. You don’t run my fucking life. I am not one of your fucking underbosses or doggies. I will never do another thing for you again.”

“Only thing you’ve done for me is run away from home and create problems.” He snapped back, and it struck a cord inside me. 

“Wrong. But it doesn’t matter, you will fucking find out, when everything in Italy falls apart because I was doing every little fucking thing to keep it functioning over the last three fucking years! You’re fucking welcome, by the way.”

Angrily, I walked on my sore foot towards the medical building. 

“Just where the fucking are you going, Matteo?” He snapped. 

“I’m going to find something to take the pain away in my broken fucking foot, and then I’m getting the fuck away from you. Before I do something, I will regret.” I snapped.

Creed and Caio were leaving the medical building as I approached. I only knew it was the medical building because it was being built when I moved with mom. Alessio was hot on my tail, still screaming and yelling at me. They seemed to be decent friends. Caio stopped when he saw me. 

“Matteo?”

I ignored him, fighting with the door on the medical wing, after it wasn’t letting me inside. Alessio opened the door with his phone, having caught up. Creed left, but not Caio. He was hovering behind Alessio. 

“Take off your shoes and sit over there.” Alessio hissed. 

“I don’t want your fucking help.” I hissed, but went to where he told me to. 

“Keep it up, and I’ll break your arm, too.”

“Alessio! That is your little brother.” Caio said.

“I don’t care. You clearly missed where he punched me a few times.”

“You fucking hit me first.”

“I did. You deserved it.” He snapped. 

I looked everywhere but at Caio. I didn’t even want to have an accidental meeting of eyes with him. Alessio was quick to spot it, too. 

“Caio, go wait outside. I’ll let you know when I’m done and you can take Matteo. Effective immediately, your job is to watch Matteo.”

Caio left, and I yelled at Alessio. “Absolutely fucking not. I do not need him to be my fucking babysitter.”

“Yeah, unfortunately, you don’t make that call. I do.”

“Anyone but him.” I hissed.

“Caio is the only spare underboss I have, so suck it up.”

“You don’t get it. I left because of mom and him!”

Alessio narrowed his eyes on me and waited for him to say the same thing his dad did. 

“Mom and Caio, huh?”

“Not in the way you think.”

“I’m thinking that you’re mad because you don’t want mom and Caio to be together.”

“I don’t, but not for the reasons you think.” I hissed, all too aware of how that sounded. 

“Was Mom aware of the reasoning?”

“Yes, we fought before I left. I told her I wanted to go. She was how she always was.”

Alessio said nothing more. He just moved in silence, and I knew he was thinking over some things. And after a few more minutes, he finally spoke again. 

“I’m not sorry I broke your foot.” Alessio hissed, coming back with a few things and setting them on the desk by where he had me sitting. 

“Good, because I’m not sorry I punched you. Asshole.”

Alessio caught me off guard when he hugged me. He didn’t let me go for a few minutes either. When he did, he was speaking again. 

“You don’t know how much I worried about you, Matteo.”

“I was fine.”

“I know. You’re a smart kid, way too smart for your own good.”

He went and got gloves and slipped them on before he gave me a shot of pain medication. He spoke to me the whole time he was yanking on my foot and moving it around. He helped me to an X-ray room. 

When it was all said and done, I had a stupid removable cast on my foot. Thanks to him. 

“Why did you suddenly switch up, huh?” I hissed. 

“Oh, you mean why didn’t I beat your ass further?”

“Sure, if that’s what you’re calling it.”

“I’m already going to be in shit with Maddox for the drama on the front lawn. No need to make it worse.”

“You look good, Sio. Minus the split lip and shit.” I said. 

“Thank you. It’s hard to believe you’re this grown up now, a fucking adult.”

“Yeah. Get used to it.”

“What did you do in Italy for three years by yourself?”

“Besides running shit over there, I worked and went to school.”

“You finished high school then?”

“College too. I got chef papers now.”

Alessio nodded. 

“I kept up with training, too. I busted my ass to make shit work, Alessio.”

“Why didn’t you use your inheritance?”

“I didn’t want you to find me.”

“You’re still staying with Caio.”

“Alessio, I would rather stay with anyone else but him.”

“Give me one good reason.”

“I don’t need a babysitter.”

“Yeah, that’s not—-”

“I left because I heard mom tell Caio she loved him, after he confessed.”

“Mom told him she loved him only as a friend.” Alessio sighed.

“It doesn’t matter. Because of that, I had to go.”

“It’s not like you’re in love with Caio and—--Oh my god, Matteo, tell me you’re not!” Alessio yelled, his temper again flaring up. I looked down at the floor, and Alessio was mad again. 

“God damn it, Matteo, he is old enough to be your fucking father, almost. Are you fucking kidding me?”

“I wish I was.” I muttered.

“You will get over this stupid crush on—--”

“I’ve loved him since I was thirteen and first met him.”

“You’re just confused.”

“Don’t tell me what I am, Alessio. You don’t know how I feel.” I bitched. 

“You still have to stay with Caio. But lord help me, you best forget about your little fucking crush.”

“How is mom?” I said, switching the whole conversation, not wanting to talk about my ‘crush’ on Caio any longer. 

“She is better. She knows you’re here. I informed her, but I told her to give you a few days to relax before she came to visit you.”

“Right.”

“Caio is waiting outside for you. Your things should already be at his place now.”

Alessio walked me to the front doors of the medical building and Caio was waiting inside on some chairs for me. He had my phone, wallet and family ring. He stuck them out to me, but not before he looked at my foot and back at Alessio. I took them and shoved them into my pocket.

“Can it, Caio. I don’t want to hear it.” Alessio said rather flatly. 

“Alright, but hey, you’re the one who is going to have to explain your actions to your mother, not me.” Caio shrugged. 

Before walking away with Caio, against my better judgement. I looked at Alessio. “I don’t intend to stay here as your prisoner, Alessio. It was my choice to come back, and if I want to go back to Italy, I will.”

“We’ll see about that.”

Walking away with Caio, he was quiet and walked at the same pace as I hobbled on my foot. Caio had been there. He had witnessed the fight with my mother that resulted in my leaving, but he wasn’t bringing it up, and clearly didn’t tell Alessio about it. I wasn’t going to rat about Caio, knowing that I said I couldn’t handle being here. I believe back then, my words were ‘I can’t stand to be around either of you, I need to go.’ If he didn’t tell Alessio all he knew, then there was a good reason for it. 

Inside Alessio’s new complex, it was clean and modern. Lev was speaking with Luca, papers in his hand as they discussed something. 

“Matteo. Your brother will regret his choice of hurting you, give him a few days to process his feelings.” Lev said, touching my shoulder, to stop me as we passed. Luca waited for Lev to move his hand before he hugged me. 

“I’m happy to see you well, Matteo. We were worried about you.” Luca said, looking me up and down. “You grew up well. Your grandfather would be proud of how you’ve grown.”

“I doubt that, but thank you.”