I stood there beside the bed where I’d just given this man my fucking soul, and he thought he could just make decisions about my life and then walk away?
Oh, hell no.
Flinging the door open, I marched into the walk-in closet you had to go through before you got to the bathroom and started searching for a safe or anywhere he could be hiding my money. The closet was empty except for our two suitcases, so it didn’t take me long to see there was nothing of the sort in there.
Laying Enzo’s suitcase on the floor, I opened it and started tossing his clothes around haphazardly, looking for my tote bag. It wasn’t in there, either. Sitting back on my heels, I tried to think. Maybe he left it back at the hotel. We didn’t check out when we left, but then again, he could’ve done it online or something.
“What are you doing?”
Enzo stood in the doorway of the closet wearing nothing but a low-hanging towel and a carefully blank expression.
“I’m looking for my money, what the hell do you think I’m doing?”
“It’s not here, Sera.”
I closed my eyes and tried to breathe. Slowly, I got to my feet. “Then where the hell is it?”
Crossing his arms over his chest, he leveled a steady stare at me that was strangely devoid of feeling. “I told you, you’ll get it back when it’s time.”
“And when will that time be, Enzo? Huh? When you hand it over to my fucking father? It’s not his money.”
“No. I wouldn’t do that.”
As we stood there staring each other down, all of the fight suddenly drained out of me, and I crumpled to the floor as a cold numbness crept through my bones and reality slapped me in the face. There was nothing I could do. I was going back to my father. Even if I found the money, this place was so well guarded that there was no way I’d be able to sneak away without someone seeing me.
My life was over before I’d even had the chance to live.
“Why don’t you take a shower and change before dinner.”
It wasn’t a suggestion. The temperature in the room felt like it’d dropped twenty degrees. I dragged my eyes up to Enzo’s expressionless face. The man who stood before me was nothing like the man who’d just fucked me like it was the last time he was ever going to see me.
And that was when I understood. He’d acted that way because it was true. He wasn’t going to fight for me. He was letting me go. That, or he knew, deep down, that he wouldn’t be able to stop it. “So, that’s it?” I asked him.
He cocked his head slightly in question.
“You’re finished with me already?”
I searched his face for some sign of regret, anger…something. But there was nothing. And that made me angrier than anything he could’ve said.
“What about the things you promised me? The money? The ID? All the shit I’d need to start a new life. We made a deal, and I think I’ve more than lived up to it.”
“I haven’t forgotten,” he said. “I just need time to figure out—for Luca and I to figure out—a way to get you those things without starting a war between the families. A war that we can’t afford right now for numerous reasons.”
I scoffed at his excuse. Even if that were true and he meant every word, he knew damn well there was no way they’d be able to buy time for me. Not now. Not when both Luigi and my father knew that I was here.
He was saying goodbye. That’s what that sex fest had been about. He was saying goodbye.
His words meant nothing to me.
With a sigh, he squatted in front of me. Close enough to touch if I wanted him to. I didn’t. “Sera,” he said quietly. “I meant what I said when I promised to help you get away. But you have to understand, I’m stuck in a hard place right now, and all I’m asking is that you give me these few days to figure out a way to get you out of here without inciting your father. Will you do that for me?”
He was asking me to trust him with the impossible. But how did I trust a man I barely knew? A man who lied to me with his words when his eyes told me the truth?
But sitting here arguing with him was getting me nowhere, so I’d play along. For now. “Fine,” I told him.
“Thank you,” he said, and I could hear the relief in his voice. Tentatively, he brushed my hair back from my face, and I nearly burst into tears at the familiar gesture. “I promise we’ll figure this out.”
I nodded, not trusting myself to speak. Because no, we wouldn’t. I knew my father. What Enzo was asking for would be impossible. There was no way I was going to escape. I never should have let him bring me here. I don’t know what I was thinking, except that I hadn’t wanted to stay in the hotel room by myself, or ask him to pay for it so that I could. And I had nowhere else to go without putting other people in danger.
