A few minutes go by as we work, and then a thought hits me.
“You’ve been investigating him since before I showed up.”
Enzo’s eyes fly to me. “Yes.”
“Since before Marco died?”
He stops typing and turns to face me fully. “After. An insider at the county jail told me about your brother’s death and his ties to Viktor. I heard the rumor that I ordered it—which, as I told you, wasn’t true,” he pauses, something flickering in his expression. Regret, maybe. Or anger. “But your brother wasn’t the only one. Viktor had quite a line of victims who happened to die or disappear mysteriously. Supposedly by my orders. The more I looked into it, the more I found. He’s been using my name to cover his tracks for years.”
“So why didn’t you confront him earlier?”
“I was planning to. But I needed a few things tied up first. Then you happened.” His eyes sweep over me. “You walked into Eclipse with forged credentials and murder in your eyes.”
I shift under the intensity of his gaze. “Then why didn’t you say anything? You watched me play the fool.”
“I was intrigued,” he says, as if that answers everything. “And I told you, I get it. You wanted your pound of flesh. I respect that. But it wasn’t Viktor you were after. You came straight for me.”
“You can’t exactly blame me for that.”
“No.” His mouth twists. “But it’s probably a good thing my head wasn’t blown off before you had all the details.”
He’s right. It would have been senseless. I would have killed an innocent man—or at least, an innocent man in this particular crime.
We hold each other’s gaze. Then he gets up and rounds my chair, coming to a crouch in front of me.
His hand finds my face, sending sparks cascading down my spine.
“I told myself I was just amused by your audacity,” he says quietly. “Or rather, by your stupidity in coming for me. That letting you walk in and out of Eclipse was fine because I understood your circumstances.” His thumb traces the line of my jaw. “But that wasn’t the real reason.”
I swallow hard.
“From the moment you walked into my office, I wanted you.”
No.
No, he has to be lying. This is just the post-heat attachment talking. A fluke of pheromones and proximity. Or worse, some lingering alpha obsession after days of fucking me senseless.
But his gaze pins me like a hand around my throat, unrelenting and certain.
And I see it—feelit—in the way he looks at me.
My breath stutters.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
But there’s a truth in his eyes that mirrors something I’ve been trying to smother since the heat broke. Or maybe, if I’m being honest, since that first day I walked into his office, when he looked at me like he could see straight through my mask.
And if I let that truth live—
If I let it bloom—
Then everything I’ve done, everything I’ve sacrificed, becomes meaningless.
Because I can’t want him.
Can’t feel anything real for the man I swore I’d destroy.
These are feelings I can’t afford if I’m going to avenge Marco. Feelings I can’t afford,period.
