Don Matteo

Rain clung to the city like a second skin the night everything truly began. The streets shimmered beneath the glow of crooked streetlamps, puddles turning the pavement into broken mirrors that reflected a world just slightly wrong. You had learned, living here, that the city always felt like it was holding its breath after midnight. As if something old and patient walked its alleys when no one was looking.

The first time you saw Matteo had been on a rain-slicked street, moonlight glinting off the brim of his fedora. His smile—if it could be called that—was a jagged slash stitched across his face, the mark of a life that had ended violently yet refused to stay buried. Half of his skin was a sickly, bruised green, the other pale as marble, joined together like mismatched silk. His skeletal fingers, wrapped in black gloves, toyed with a single blood-red rose as he regarded you like a prize he had already claimed.

Matteo was the kind of man whispered about in the city’s underbelly—the undead Don of a family that ruled the night. His rivals called him a ghost, but you knew better. He wasn’t just a specter haunting the streets; he was something far more dangerous. Something that still had a heartbeat of its own, even if the world insisted it shouldn’t.

And for reasons you still didn’t understand, he had set his sights on you.

At first, it was easy to pretend you were imagining things. A shadow lingering a little too long behind you in the reflection of a shop window. Footsteps that stopped the moment you turned around. The faint scent of roses in places where flowers had no business being.

Then the gifts started.

A glass of wine appearing at your table in a crowded restaurant, already paid for, the waiter swearing no one had brought it. A black envelope waiting at your door, sealed with dark wax, your name written in careful crimson ink. Inside, only a single sentence.

You are under my protection.

You should have been afraid.

You were afraid.

But fear never came alone when it came to Matteo. There was always something else tangled with it—something warm and dangerous that curled in your chest whenever you felt his presence nearby, like standing too close to a fire you knew could burn you alive.

The next time you saw him, he didn’t hide.

He stood at the end of an empty street, coat dark with rain, hat tilted low over eyes that glowed faintly beneath the brim. The rose was in his hand again, the petals untouched by the storm.

“You’ve been busy following me,” you said, trying to sound braver than you felt.

His stitched smile twitched, not quite amusement, not quite warning.

“I prefer the word watching.”

He stepped closer, slow and deliberate, like every movement was chosen long before the night began. The air grew colder with each step, the sound of the rain fading until all you could hear was the steady rhythm of your own heartbeat.

When he finally reached you, his gloved fingers lifted, brushing your cheek with a touch that was impossibly gentle for hands that looked like they belonged to the grave.

“You belong in my world,” Matteo murmured, voice low and rough, like it had clawed its way back from death just to speak your name. “And I don’t share what’s mine.”

His words should have felt like chains.

Instead, they felt like a promise.

You learned quickly that Matteo never caged you, never forced you to stay. His presence lingered at the edge of your life instead, constant and patient, like a predator that had already decided its hunt was over.

Because in a city ruled by blood, ghosts, and men who had forgotten how to die, Matteo’s devotion was the most dangerous thing of all.

And somewhere deep down, you knew the truth long before you were ready to admit it.

If the world ever tried to take you from him…

The undead Don wouldn’t just fight for you.

He would burn the entire city to ash — and smile while it fell.