Enzo’s words cut through that thought.
“But soon, you’ll be mine,” he stated with absolute certainty.
My panting stalled when the blade lowered to the zip ties around my wrist. The plastic snapped when he sliced them. Blood rushed back into my hands, and my arms ached.
Enzo peeled off his glove the same way he had in the woods. He lifted his bare hand toward me, palm up, presenting it like a prize. I flinched, readying myself for the sting of his palm hitting my cheek.
It never came.
He had no intention to do that.
Instead, he dragged the blade across his own palm, carving a deepXinto his skin. Blood welled around the open flesh.
I didn’t fight when his bloodied hand caught mine. He turned it over, exposing my palm. I hissed between my teeth when he carved the same mark across my palm. The pain seared through my hand.
The rest of the room ceased to exist at that moment.
Warm blood seeped from my cut. I watched, transfixed, as he pressed our palms together. He lowered the knife and covered our joined hands with his other palm.
An oath sealed with blood.
A holy vow.
A vow I never agreed to, but somehow couldn’t refuse.
Yet, as sinister as this moment was, intimacy bled through.
Enzo was a poison I knew would slowly kill me.
His softness was brief, as if Enzo’s sanity had a daily cap, and his cold voice broke through my trance.
His grip on my hand became painfully tight. “Breathe a word of this to anyone, and I’ll kill your entire family.” He pulled me to my feet, still gripping my hand, and grabbed my chin.
He inched so close that we were nose to nose. Breath to breath. Mouth to mouth.
“I’ll gut your stepfather first, right in his New York office,” he explained. “Your mother will be next. The mother who hides more secrets than just the hideous tramp stamp she got when she was nineteen.”
I shuddered, chills tormenting me.
“I’ll make you watch me torture and kill them.” He snaked out his tongue, running it along the seam of my lips. “And onceI’ve finished slaughtering them, I’ll force you to bathe in their blood before I drown you in it.”
I tried to bite his tongue, but he stopped me, shoving his hand into my mouth. He pressed his bloody palm against my jaw so hard that I waited for it to break. He released his grip just before it did.
He skimmed his nose against mine before his mouth grazed my ear.
His voice was only a whisper, yet it inflicted the fear of a thousand screams. “By the time I’m done with you, my little Fawn, you won’t remember who you were before me. I’ll own you, every inch of you, until the day you take your last breath.”
Eight
Enzo
“That was fun,”Cassian said with a crooked smile. “Jett will die as he lived—annoying as fuck.” He bounced on the balls of his feet as adrenaline vibrated through him.
All of us had our rituals after violence. Our own little quirks.
Cassian’s resembled someone who’d just done an irresponsible amount of cocaine and needed to burn the power in his veins before it electrocuted him.
Cassian carried both Marchetti and Lombardi blood in his veins. Two of the most powerful Mafia families in the world. His ruthlessness was inherited.
