Red Mask scoffed.
“More innocent than you,” I bit back.
He shrugged. “I won’t dispute that.”
“Then let us go,” I said around a sigh of exhaustion.
“Unfortunately, I’m not in the business of catch and release.”
He mimicked casting a fishing line into the air, flicking his wrist, as if sending it flying over water. Then he pretended to reel it back in. When the imaginary line returned to him, he slammed his hand down onto the scissors embedded in Jett’s hand.
The blades sank in deeper—so deep that I was certain they’d pierced the chair.
Enzo stood tall before slowly pulling the scissors out. Blood burst from the wound.
Jett tried to scream, but it came out wet and broken. His jaw trembled as blood spilled from every corner of his mouth. He attempted to clamp his jaw shut in a useless effort to stop it.
He spat blood. The only words that made it out were a garbled, “Who … my father … is.” His neck veins bulged as he struggled to speak.
Enzo turned back toward me.
I swallowed when he slid the scissors beneath my chin, lifting it, and I had no choice but to meet his scolding stare.
“I find that unethical,” he said. “Inflicting trauma and then expecting someone to return to normal.” He lifted my chin a fraction higher. “How.”Higher. “Fucking.”Higher. “Cruel.”
“How fucking boring,” Red Mask commented.
Enzo didn’t even glance at him.
“We’re all monsters here, Blair.” Enzo dragged the scissors from beneath my chin to my jawline, smearing Jett’s warm blood on my skin. “Some of us are just better at hiding it.”
“I guess that fits you, the manhidingbehind a mask,” I said with a sneer.
The words barely left my mouth when Enzo hurled the scissors across the room. They hit the wall before clattering to the floor.
I held my breath when he slowly removed his mask and pulled down his hoodie. The sight of his face hit me harder than any blow he’d delivered to Jett.
I hated how my body reacted to it.
How I clenched my thighs. And how heat rushed low in my stomach, pooling between my legs like a river, and how my clit suddenly throbbed.
Hated how, for a moment, desire replaced my fear.
The villain of my story was devastatingly beautiful.
Beautiful in the way that a shark was before it bit you.
In the way a storm smelled before it blew through a home.
He was mesmerizing yet catastrophic, all at once.
Sweat gleamed along the sharp angles of his tawny face. His skin looked flawless, smooth, as if nothing would ever dare to mark it in fear of consequences.
Dark hair swept back in careless disarray. Untamed and wild, like him. His jaw was clean-shaven, his cheekbones sharp and deep, unmistakably Italian.
All features that made Jett’s claim about his family ruling the Italian Mafia feel even more believable.
His dark and wicked eyes were the sort that promised to take your world and never give it back.
