I scoffed and stood up, needing some distance. “You’ve always had a way with pretty words and empty promises.” I ran my hand through my hair and turned back towards him, years of repressed anger at the situation flooding to the surface. “Your words mean little to me when you broke the trust I had in you with your actions. I can’t put myself in a position where you can hurt me again. I can’t let you back in.”
“Finn.” He stood up, his eyes pleading as he stepped towards me, but I raised my hand. “I screwed everything up. I did. What we had was special, and I destroyed it. I took it for granted. I treated you badly, keeping you in the dark and betraying your trust. I’m not trying to make excuses for it because it was wrong. But you also know what I was up against. I was young, messed up, and scared, and I thought that by agreeing to marry Elenora, I could keep you in my life. I didn’t want to lose you. But I lost you anyway.”
I closed my eyes and shook my head. “We don’t need to go over this again. The past is exactly that. I’ve moved on, Enzo. You need to as well.”
His eyes narrowed and dropped to the open collar of my shirt. “Is that why you still wear my chain? Because you’ve moved on?”
Rage surged beneath my skin, but I crossed my arms to keep it contained. I knew I shouldn’t have put it back on two days ago. So why had I? Why had I taken it out of the safe, where it had been for ten years, and put it back around my neck after that night in my kitchen? I still didn’t know. But damn if I was going to let him draw his own conclusions.
“It’s a nice chain. Why wouldn’t I wear it? But if it’s giving you the wrong idea…”
I reached behind my neck to unfasten it, but his body slammed into mine, and he grabbed my wrists, pinning them above my head against the glass window. I stared into an inferno of possessive rage as he loomed over me, trapping me between the glass and his bare torso.
“Don’t you fucking dare. You’re a liar, Finn Rossetti. You know what wearing it means. You’ve always known. You just don’t want to admit it.”
“And what’s that?” I gritted through clenched teeth, trying my best to ignore the heat and hardness of his body pressed against mine, the flare of need thickening my cock and the swarm of stupid butterflies in my stomach.
“That we belong to each other. That we are both miserable without one another.” He let go of one of my wrists and pressed his hand against my chest, hard, until he felt my pounding heart. I drew in a sharp breath. “That this ache never leaves as long as we are apart. That every night, we lie in separate beds, wrap our hands around our cocks, and come with each other’s names on our lips because no one else, nothing else, will ever compare.”
“You’re delusional,” I whispered breathlessly, unable to conceal the truth. He was so fucking right. About everything. His full lips curled into a knowing smirk.
“You’re stubborn, but I won’t give up, Finn. I won’t let you go again. Give me one more chance—twenty-four hours, even. Let me show you, prove to you, how different it will be. I won’t make the same mistakes again.”
The door slammed open so suddenly it nearly came off its hinges. Enzo released me from his grip and turned towards the intrusion. Alessio’s fierce eyes flicked from his face to mine, then softened slightly with concern.
“Fabi told me. Are you okay?”
I nodded, straightening my shirt and pushing away from the window. “I’ll be with you in a minute.”
Alessio lifted his chin, his sharp gaze cutting back to Enzo with quiet disdain. He needed no words, only that look. The kind that could make a man imagine his own funeral. Enzo visibly gulped but didn’t look away, knowing that in Alessio’s eyes, to do so would be a sign of weakness.
“I’ll meet you in my office. Alone,” he said, directing the demand to me, and then he was gone.
“I guess you’re not the only one I should be trying to win over,” Enzo muttered as I walked past him towards the door.
“We leave for New York in two hours. Get yourself ready.”
“We’re going today?”
“Si.So, focus. Or you’ll get us both killed.”
I shut the door behind me and exhaled, leaning my head back against it. It felt like I was fighting the inevitable at this point. Enzo wasn’t going to give up, but that wasn’t the problem. The problem was that I wasn’t sure I wanted him to.
“What happened?” Alessio asked, pulling a chair closer to mine as I sat in front of his desk with my head in my hands. “You haven’t had an episode for years, Finn.”
“Grimaldi. Enzo found him, captured him, and I killed him last night.” I didn’t look up. I didn’t need to. I knew the expression that would be on Alessio’s face. Surprise and concern. He exhaled a long curse and leaned back in his chair.
“Grimaldi? He was alive? We searched for him for a whole year. We were sure he was dead. How the hell did Enzo find him?”
I shrugged before physically pulling myself together and sitting up. “Not just him either. He went after every man who’d ever wronged me as a kid. It seems he found one and tortured them until they gave up the name of someone else, and so on. He’s been on a bloody killing spree for years, like some Batman taking out the twisted fucks of Gotham.”
“Good for him.” Alessio rubbed his jaw. “Finally, doing something I can respect him for. So, what does this mean? Does hunting and killing anyone who hurt you in the past give him redemption for hurting you too?”
I dropped my head back against the chair, sliding down the seat in exasperation. I was exhausted. Not from last night, but from fighting my own feelings.
“I don’t know, Alessio.”
“I’ll answer it. No. It doesn’t,” he said, leaning forward and bracing his elbows on his knees. “Do I need to remind you that man treated you like a piece of shit he was ashamed of? He strung you along for a year and a half, hiding your relationship from the rest of the world. He hid you away, love-bombed you, gave you false hope, and then betrayed you. He made you think you weren’t good enough for him, which was far from the truth. And then he didn’t reach out to you. Not once in ten years. I supported you through that break-up, and you promised me youwould never let another man treat you like that again. You said if you were ever thinking of going back to him, I should punch you in the face.”
