It seemed that my wetness made him snap as his pounding became frantic, driving us both insane. “I can feel you…cazzo… Don’t fight it. Just come.”
His strained voice with his perfect, long, deep, forceful thrusts broke me. I screamedhis nameat the top of my lungs.
His climax followed even though he’d just come, his hand dropping the knife and claiming my breasts as he emptied himself inside me.
After he recovered, he spun me and set me on his lap. “I knew I had to keep you alive right from the first time I saw you knocked out on the ground, but I didn’t know why…until now.”
“Why?”
“Because you know, as much as I do, I don’t need four or even three weeks to convince you. You know you belong to me now, Bianca.” He glanced at Vincenzo’s body. “You’ve always belonged to me.”
“Because I killed?”
“Because you watched Il Tagliatore do his thing and then you let him cut and lick your blood, and fucked him on the spot, screaming his name like he was being exorcised out of you.”
I hissed. “When you say it like that…”
His laugh filled the grim room. Then he tucked my hair behind my ear. “Will you cut it for me?”
Sweet memories flashed in my head, and my gaze drifted to Cosimo’s ring on my finger. “Maybe, but I will never take his ring off.”
“I won’t ask you to.” He smiled at me before he took his lips between mine. “How long have you known Alfio was my father?”
“I figured that much in Ponza. You said things when you were down.” I gazed into his beautiful eyes. “It’s not your fault, you know, what she did.”
“It still fucked us up. Cosimo got obsessed with an eight-year-old, kept her untouched, fucked her mind so she would never think about another man and held her captive all to himself. While I fucked everything that moved, swore never to fall for a woman and…found pleasure in cutting people.”
“I don’t think all the people out there with cheating mothers have turned into murderous sadists with blood fetishes. There’s something else to that.”
A terrible shadow dimmed his eyes.
There must have been something more awful that happened to him, and I was afraid to even ask. I decided to ask a more important question. “If it wasn’t Marta’s approval or love you were after when you took that Boss deal, why did you agree to do it? Why did you kill him?”
“You heard Vincenzo. Whether he was innocent or not, Cosimo was going to die either way. My brother and I didn’t have to live our whole lives with that shit Marta had dumped on us, we didn’t have to cover up her crimes and betrayal so that someone else would waltz in and rule. We earned that shit. I couldn’t let it go to waste. Even if I didn’t want it.” He took a deep breath. “I know after all you’ve seen here it’s hard to believe, but my loyalty to the family means everything to me, Bianca.”
“I should’ve understood that with Cosimo. He was no different, and I shouldn’t have tried to change that. It cost us all so much.” Suddenly, Il Tagliatore origin didn’t seem like a terrible story to hear now. I needed a distraction from the sadness blistering inside me even if it was something as gruesome of what made Enzio The Cutter. “Would you tell me what happened to you that made you what you are?” I asked softly.
“No.”
“Why not? I think you know by now I’m not squeamish and very much attracted to the dark.”
“That’s not why I’m not telling you.” He moved me off him and rose. Then he went to his clothes pile. “I’m not telling you because we both know you’re not staying long enough to care.”
The muscles around my heart squeezed. “What?”
“When Cosimo made you his, you followed him into hell, but you regretted nothing more. Now, I made you mine, but you won’t make the same mistake again, will you?”
“What are you talking about? We had a deal.”
“One you never planned to honor.” His voice took a harsh turn, and his eyes stared at me coldly.
My heart sank to my knees. Instinctively, I shifted back, my hand groping for the knife he dropped. “What do you mean?”
“One more pace to your left, dolcezza. Careful not to cut your fingers. It’s very sharp.” He put on his watch. “Is that how you were going to kill me? Or were you planning on poisoning me, too?”
Chapter39
Enzio
