Page 103

The highway keeps sliding past. When we pull over for gas, I want to jump right out after him, but he doesn’t even meet my eyes. He just props himself against the hood, flicks a lighter, and balances a cigarette between his fingers. With his aviators on, I can’t read his eyes. Every move he makes appears deliberate and controlled. Watching him feels like standing at the edge of a storm, wondering when it’ll break.

Soon, we’re back on the road, the city fading into coastline. Eventually, we arrive in the Hamptons, surrounded by expensive vacation homes, iron gates, hedges trimmed by people with nothing better to do, and all that silent flexing that old money loves.

Then the gates swing open, and paradise greets us. The house is all white stone and glass. Pine shadows drag across the yard, and salty air prickles my skin. No gold statues or fountains. Just a quiet kind of power that doesn’t need to prove itself.

My chest tightens at the beauty of the compound, and I glance at Enzo, sensing a shift in his stance. He looks more relaxed and so perfectly at home here.

I can’t help my question. “This is yours?”

He peers over at me with an enigmatic expression. “Mine and Dante’s. Padrino gave it to us.” For a second, his voice softens. “He loved it here. I never came back after…”

The name just hangs between us, both sacred and cursed. I don’t push. Guilt twists in my gut anyway.

Inside the splendid property, I find no real sign of life. Only dust on the piano, white sheets draped over furniture like ghosts, and a faint cedar smell. Everything’s frozen in place. A half-empty glass sits on the mantle, forgotten. Sunlight spills across the floor like it’s trying to bless him. He doesn’t notice. Doesn’t even look.

The property’s spacious, massive, and needs some TLC. No wonder we brought Arya.

He directs Marco and Gio to the guesthouse and Arya to supplies. When the last door shuts, quiet swallows the house.

For the first time in three weeks, we’re truly alone.

The air hums, and my pulse does too.

“So, this is the famous hideout?” I ask lightly while pacing the wide living room. “It needs a woman’s touch. Maybe a plant. Or ten.”

He exhales through his nose, his mouth twitching. His eyes drift to the window. “If you start redecorating again, I’m moving out.”

“Liar.” The accusation comes out softer than I intend.

The corner of his mouth lifts, just barely, and his eyes warm for a fraction of a second before the walls slam back up like shutters in a storm. God forbid Enzo Ricci show emotion for longer than a blink.

To break the suffocating tension, I suggest a walk on the beach, and he hesitates like I’ve just asked him to jump off a cliff. Then nods and grabs his coat with the kind of reluctant acceptance that says he knows it’s a good idea even if it worries him.

The air outside bites pleasantly, sharp and clean after the stuffiness of the house. I enjoy the wind tangling his hair and disrupting his perfectly controlled appearance. The scent of sea and pine mingles with his cedary, smoky, and distinctly male cologne. I’ve started to associate this smell with safety. Though that makes absolutely no sense.

We walk in silence until he stops at the edge where water laps the land. The horizon paints his face in gold and shadow, making him look like some ancient warrior god instead of a mobster with blood on his hands.

His eyes, unflinching as always, meet mine, and then he takes my hand—his rough, calloused, and warm in a way that flips my stomach—and leads me to the cliffside.

I hug my shawl closer because the harsh wind tears at our clothes like it’s trying to strip away our defenses.

He points to a light far away that flickers faintly through the haze. “Ricci lighthouse. Dante and I learned to shoot there, and I missed the first twenty times.”

There’s the smallest real, untamed grin, the kind that transforms his face from intimidating to almost boyish. Apparently, my heart didn’t get the memo about not falling for dangerous men.

I smile back, my voice barely a whisper. “You miss coming to this place?”

“Sometimes,” he admits. But his eyes grow distant, haunted by memories he can’t shake.

When we return, a table waits on the terrace, candles swaying in the ocean breeze. Arya’s touch.

Dinner unfolds like a honeymoon. The wine flows and laughter bubbles up unexpectedly. At first, as we try to adapt to this privacy and setting, our words stumble, but we soon find a rhythm.

His eyes soften, catching the candlelight in a way that turns them almost amber instead of their usual hard brown. My pulse skips when his thumb brushes the rim of his glass in a gesture that’s probably innocent but feels charged.

He asks me about teaching, about the pupils and my relationship with them. These small questions of books I read to them, which kid drove me crazy the most, and did I ever want to strangle the parents during conferences, feel monumental.

I tease him about his brooding silence, and he mutters that someone has to balance my noise. If he weren’t fighting a smile, I’d be insulted.