He rolls his eyes slightly. "You keep asking that. You’d better believe I’m the kind of man who always collects his debts. One day I’ll come, and when that happens, you’ll return the favor without hesitation. Are we clear?"
"Will it be killing someone?"
Ennio gives me a look like my words are mildly amusing.
"What else could I possibly want from you?"
"I don’t know. Money? Sex? Transporting drugs in my stomach?"
Ennio seems almost entertained, even though his face doesn’t show it, it looks like a perfectly still mask for the most part.
"None of those things, and definitely not fucking, I don’t do alphas. Or minors."
I freeze for a moment and then stare at him again, eyes wide. His profile doesn’t move at all, this guy kidnapped an alpha and now he’s just calmly driving, one hand on the wheel, the other elbow hanging out the window, completely relaxed.
We drive through a dark forest, and even though our conversation is not overly shocking, I still feel this constant awareness of where we’re heading and what is about to happen, like a background hum that burrows into my mind.
"Fucking… that’s not something I can even think about right now," I mutter. "After what happened, I don’t want it now or in the future."
Ennio glances at me sideways, his flawless profile with that classical Roman nose looking like it was carved by some perfectionist sculptor.
"Don’t shut yourself off from something like that, Bay. Don’t let them take more from you than they already did."
His words hit me in a certain way, because he’s right, I don’t want to give them power over me, not those bastards, not after everything the first ones already took.
"Treat everything like a winner, not a loser. Take every fall as a lesson, turn it into strength and come back twice as strong."
"I read about that… that this kind of thing, trauma, can cast a shadow over… you know. Those matters."
Ennio makes a sound that’s something between a snort and a grunt.
"There’s a way out of everything. If not the soft way, then the hard way. Focus on physicality, on sensations, cut out everything else, every doubt, fear, uncertainty. Push through it and take what’s yours."
"I don’t even… you know. Do it. Myself."
Ennio is silent for a moment. He clearly didn’t sign up for this kind of counseling halfway through a drive to a planned murder. His lips twist barely noticeably, like the topic disgusts him a little.
"Why not?"
"I’m still angry. Miserable. I feel broken, I don’t have the mental… you know, strength to even fantasize. I’m stuck in this kind of darkness all the time."
There’s a moment of silence as we turn onto some narrower local road.
"That Alex? He’s your boyfriend, or what?" Ennio asks suddenly.
"He’s kind of a boyfriend but not completely, kind of a best friend too, honestly I don’t really know, the lines are blurry, but we, you know, we don’t do anything like that."
Ennio is silent again for a moment, but I want to know more.
"You managed to get over it, how?"
He snorts with impatience, as though he is angry that he has to explain everything quite so literally.
"At some point I just made the decision that I wouldn’t let anyone take away that basic gift our bodies give us, the ability to feel pleasure. I suggest you do the same, start with an internal decision. Put on a porn video or create your own vision. Don’t sit in the corner of your own psyche, frightened. Consciously direct your paths, your choices. Fight. Never give up, got it?"
I stay quiet for a moment while the forest stretches around us, the road cutting through empty land.
"It sounds so easy when you say it."
