Chapter 16 Enzo
Enzo
Waking up with Ren in my arms felt like I’d slid into a life I’d once planned and then ceremoniously buried.
Her body was warm and soft against mine, her curves pressed flush to me, her thigh slung over my leg like she’d never left.
One hand rested low on my stomach, fingers relaxed and trusting.
The intimacy of it stole my breath in a way no violence ever had.
I didn’t move. Hell, I couldn’t. Having her here like this, in a way I never thought I’d get to experience again, was better than any fucking victory over the years.
I stayed there, holding her like that for a long time while I memorized the weight of her, the slow and steady rhythm of her breathing. When she stirred, murmured something I couldn’t make out, then settled back into sleep, I tightened my arm around her and let my thoughts spiral.
I pictured her seventeen years ago, just after I made the call that had broken both of us.
I wondered how she’d pieced herself back together after us, or if she had healed.
Had she been walking around in a half-alive haze the way I had?
I wondered if she’d ever thought of me, if she ever imagined forgiving me.
Thoughts of Ren and the past inevitably brought me back to the life I’d given her up for. The DeRossi organization. The current threats. The traitor in my ranks.
Some dumb fuck who didn’t know they were already dead was feeding information to my enemies, and worse, they were close enough to know about all the DeRossi businesses.
I needed to figure out the why behind the betrayal.
Were they just fed up with my leadership style?
Was it just a plain, ruthless money grab?
Resentment? Or did someone else think they could replace me?
I had no fucking clue, and until I did, I couldn’t act.
Not effectively.
Not decisively.
The emergency phone rang on Ren’s nightstand, and I picked it up in the middle of the first ring. “Yeah?”
“This is Damien, sir,” came the calm voice on the other end. Calm and steady, exactly why Luca had chosen this team. “We’ve got a complication.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “I’m listening.”
“There was an attempted breach of the perimeter last night.”
I sat upright so fast the mattress shook, jostling Ren’s sleeping form. “Why the fuck am I just hearing about this now?” My voice remained low out of habit, but that tightness that always came when I thought about Matteo in danger reared its ugly head.
Damien didn’t answer right away, but when he did, his voice was just as steady and calm as before. “The breach happened about an hour ago. We responded quickly and had to secure the area, search for accomplices, and focus on cleanup.”
Cleanup. I knew exactly what that meant.
“I’m on my way,” I said, already on my feet.
“I’ll meet you at the kitchen door in five,” Damien instructed, the voice of a man used to ordering around powerful men. He ended the call as if his word was final.
Dammit.
Ren stirred beside me. “Is everything okay?” she asked, her voice thick with sleep but threaded with worry.
“No.” I scanned the floor and reached for my boxers and pajama pants. “Someone got onto the property last night. I need to go see what’s going on.”
She pushed herself up on one elbow, nodding carefully as her mind woke up. “Okay. Are you all right?”
I shrugged, pausing for a second because no one ever asked me that question.
Not even Sofia had asked because it was just assumed that I was fine, because I had to be.
I shrugged again and chose honesty. “Not especially. But this is my life.” I looked at her closely, studied the way she watched me with concern she hadn’t tried to hide.
If I stayed another second, I wouldn’t go at all.
I went to my room and dressed quickly, pulling on jeans and a hoodie before I hurried downstairs to meet Damien.
Damien was waiting at the back entrance, standing beside a golf cart that looked comically small beside his large frame.
He nodded once in greeting and settled into the seat, aiming the golf cart down the narrow path that led to the security house, its headlights cutting through the early morning fog.
The farther we went, the quieter it felt.
It was the kind of quiet that didn’t belong to nature.
It felt unnatural without the usual sounds of crickets, bullfrogs, and birds.
I spotted the body before we stopped.
“We wanted you to look at him first to see if you recognized him,” Damien explained, mistaking my silence for anger.
I stepped from the cart and went to the body.
He was on his back on a blue tarp with his arms at his sides.
The map of his death was clear, with one bullet hole in his forehead and two grouped close together on his chest. His eyes were open and full of death.
That stillness never failed to affect me—the complete absence of life, the stillness of death. The tension of life, long gone.
I’d seen death more times than I could count over the years, had been the instrument of death more times than I cared to even fucking count, and the stillness never left me.
“Who is he?” I finally remembered who I was and what was happening, and the words came out quieter than I meant. I kept my gaze on the dead man’s face, something vaguely familiar about him that I couldn’t pinpoint. Yet.
“Unknown,” Damien answered. “No prints in any domestic database. Possibly foreign, but based on his movement and gear, I’d guess former special ops.”
I stared down at the man’s face, and recognition hit. “The lost hikers,” I grumbled. “He was one of them.”
Damien’s brows lifted. “You sure?”
“Yes.” My jaw tightened. “They weren’t lost.” They were doing recon, and Ren’s instincts had been right. Again. “Find anything you can on him,” I demanded. “And look for a female associate because he wasn’t alone the last time he was spotted on the property.”
“There was a woman?”
I nodded. “They posed as a lost couple of hikers. I’ll get you a photo,” I promised, already pulling out my phone to text Ren about it.
Seconds later, the screen lit with the image of the couple and I showed it to Damien. “We’ll run it through all the databases we have access to.”
“Good.” I glanced at the body once more before I turned my back to it. Somebody had just crossed a line that there would be no walking away from—not for them, anyway.
On the way back to the house, I called Luca and filled him in. He swore under his breath and promised to move resources. The rest of the day unraveled in pieces.
I spent the rest of the day in my office, bouncing between conference calls with government bureaucracies who needed information about the bombing, with executives and fixers, with my lawyers at my side every step of the way. It was a shitshow of a day, but it was productive.
The phone rang again and I sighed, knowing that my hellish day wasn’t over yet.
“Boss,” my front-of-house manager at the Beverly Hills DeRossi’s Place said. “Some Russian guy came by with two cases of vodka. Said you approved it.”
“I didn’t approve shit,” I grumbled, my fingers gripping the phone until my knuckles ached.
“I figured,” he said with a dark chuckle. “Told him as much and got a black eye for my efforts.”
“They want a piece of the business,” I replied. “No matter how fucking good the deal sounds, I didn’t approve it.”
“Got it,” he answered easily. “Just wanted you to know.”
I nodded. “You did good, Steve. Thank you.”
“Of course.”
After that call, I sat at my desk and stewed in my anger until I thought I might fucking explode with it.
This shit was happening in my absence, when I wasn’t there to protect my people.
If I’d been there, the Russians never would’ve attempted this bullshit, but I wasn’t, and they were taking advantage. Fully and completely.
This distance made everything harder. I was forced to delegate when I am a hands-on leader.
Still, another fire was put out, and that shit should’ve felt good. Instead, I held my breath and waited for the next one.
When it didn’t come, I held my phone in my hand and stared at Ren’s name on the screen. I wanted to call her, badly. So fucking badly I could already hear her melodic voice, the smile she couldn’t help when she said my name.
Luckily, the phone lit up with my Aunt Valentina’s name before I could let myself be distracted. I hesitated on the first ring. I inhaled a deep breath and let it out slowly on the second. On the third ring, I answered.
“I heard about the fish plant,” she said without preamble, her deep smoker’s voice clear and loud in my ear.
I braced myself and waited.
“I’m not calling to tell you how to do your job, Lorenzo,” she continued.
“You have enough on your plate. I just wanted to remind you that Grapevine Enterprises owns the boxing gym, the pop-up restaurant space, and the art lofts surrounding that facility.” She paused for effect and then spoke again. “They all have cameras.”
“Cameras,” I repeated the word as if it was new to me.
“Yes, cameras,” she said, her voice slightly amused. “For insurance purposes,” she explained.
I smiled despite myself. “You know, you should have headed this family, Valentina.”
She laughed. “I have contributed in many ways, and I am proud of everything I’ve done for this family.”
“You have,” I agreed.
“And for what it’s worth, you’re doing a damn fine job, Lorenzo. I always knew you would.” She ended the call after a quick farewell, and I sat back in my chair, mentally and physically exhausted.
With my mind tired and distracted, my thoughts drifted back to Ren. I wanted to talk to her, to hear her voice. Hell, I wanted to see her beautiful face and hold her body against mine. Anything to blot out the day.
That wasn’t my life, distracting myself from the harsh realities of my life. No. This was my life. Strategy. War. Bloodshed.
I stood, shoving my phone in my pocket before I made my way to see my son.