I couldn’t move. I couldn’t speak as I watched Enzo cross the room, open the safe in his wardrobe, and pull out the contract. He slammed it onto the table in front of Frankie with a pen. My throat closed and my lungs caved in.
Everything slowed to a crawl as I watched Frankie reach for the pen. No. How could Enzo agree to this? Why would he agree to fucking die?
“No!” I shouted, leaping from the chair and lunging at Frankie to rip the pen from his hand. His son’s guns were on me before I even touched it, but Enzo barrelled into me, wrestling me back until I hit the wall.
“Finn, stop! Let this happen,” Enzo demanded, grappling to keep me from saving his fucking life.
I lost my mind. Fury unleashed as I smashed my fist into his stomach and shoved him away, but he was on me again in seconds, throwing me against the wall and pinning me to it with his arm across my throat.
Frankie sat back calmly in his chair, watching us with an amused smirk. He picked up the pen and quickly signed it while I roared into Enzo’s face. The American soldiers outside charged into the room at the sound of the commotion, but they didn’t break us apart.
“Why?” I shouted again and again. “No, you’re not doing this!”
“Finn, listen to me,” Enzo growled, still wrestling with my flailing limbs, tears in his eyes. As soon as I saw them, all the fight drained from me, and I crumbled, shaking my head. “Think of Neri. Think of your daughter. She needs you.”
“I need you!”
“You’ve never needed me, Finn,” he said with a sad smile. “But you’ve always chosen me. Now it’s my turn to choose you.”
“No,” I shouted, my spit flying into his face as his lips quivered. “No! I’m not letting you do this!”
He slammed his lips against mine in a hard, bruising kiss.
And then he let me go.
I grabbed at his clothes, his limbs, anything I could hold on to as he walked away. Three American soldiers tackled me off him. I became a crazed animal, fighting all three to reach him as he walked casually towards the door with Frankie’s sons. I’d knocked one of them out but then felt the barrel of a gun pressed to my temple and froze. My daughter’s face flashed in my mind, and I whimpered.
Enzo turned, and those blue eyes locked with mine for what I knew would be the last time. He smiled sadly, his eyes brimming with unshed tears.
“In another time. In another life,” he whispered, his words breaking me.
I love you so fucking much that I promise you, right here and right now, that I will love you with every beat of my undeserving heart until it gives out and my bones turn to dust. And even then, I’ll love youin another time, in another life. It will never end. Do you hear me? No matter where we both are, or what the fuck we both do, my love for you is endless
And then he was gone. The door shut behind him.
The scream that ripped from me as I sank to my knees didn’t even touch the pain in my heart. I dropped to my hands, heavingbile from my throat and trying to draw breath. Frankie’s shoes came into view, walking around me and dumping the contract on the floor. I stared at it through blurry vision, gritting my jaw.
“That was for taking my lover from me,” he said with spite. “I had to put a bullet in his head for betraying me and feeding you information. He was my favourite fuck. Tell Alessio I’ll be in touch to start our lucrative partnership. The girl is fine, by the way. I’m not my brother. I’ll make sure she’s returned untouched.”
My head snapped up. All that was left of my heart was somewhere outside my body, with the girl he had just mentioned.
“What girl?” I shouted, clawing to my feet after him, but he was already at the door.
Pure panic took hold as I scrambled for my gun, which had fallen to the floor in the chaos. Something hard hit the back of my head, and I lost my balance, falling as my vision blurred from the blow of a gun handle to my skull.
Frankie turned around in the doorway, surprise on his face. Then he smiled. “I wondered how you were so calm. It seemed he was saving more than just you.”
A brutal right hook from one of his soldiers caught me on the jaw, and then the blows came thick and fast. I fought back as much as I could, refusing to go down without causing serious harm. The realisation that Enzo must have known they had Nerina and was willing to do anything to save her the moment we stepped into this room left me numb to the excruciating pain of every blow. No punch, kick or broken bone could touch that despair. They weren’t going to kill me, just make it impossible for me to go after them. To go after Enzo.
The man who just saved my daughter’s life by sacrificing his own.
Chapter twenty-two
The Past: Two days ago
As soon as I walked into Alessio’s office, the force of his fist in my stomach left me doubled over at the waist, the air knocked out of me. With his other hand on my shoulder, he forced me back up and glared into my eyes.
“That’s for sending Finn to deal with Grim alone.” He reached for my hand, then shook it, holding my gaze as the ice in his turquoise eyes thawed. “And that’s for giving him closure.”
