Chapter 4
Flora
The safe house is smack-dab in the city center. It’s in the basement of an office building in the Business Improvement District, the last place anybody would think of looking if you’re in search of a fleeing caporegime.
There’s a lounge equipped with a television, plush leather sofas, and a work station on its fringes lined up with curved desktops. Cream and pale blue marble tiles stretch across the room to a rugged area with a king-sized bed on one side and a kitchen on the opposite side.
I stand in the middle of the room and watch as the man, Enzo pulls off his shirt. It’s the same shade of black as his eyes. He flings it carelessly away and turns his attention to the Kevlar vest.
I stand rooted to the spot, a few yards away, undecided about whether to help out or not.
He groans as the vest comes off and flings it away, too.
Now his upper body is bare. It’s a finely chiseled perfection overlaid with smooth olive skin that is unbecoming of this beast of a man.
I’m almost tempted to move closer, to trace the outlines of the taut muscles rippling across his abdomen until I notice the blemish on his chest: two ugly bruises barely inches apart.
“Are those...” I take a few steps to reach him. The faint hint of his cologne teases my nose.
“Yes, they are,” he replies to my unfinished question. There’s the faintest hint of amusement on his face as I take a closer look at them. It’s as if he doesn’t even understand what those bruises mean.
“They could have been actual bullet wounds,” I say, “not just contusions. And at least one could have hit your heart. You could have died.”
He shrugs. “But I didn't.”
“If the bullets had hit just a few inches higher, they could have gotten you,” I point out.
“But they didn't,” he insists.
I shake my head, not certain he’s grabbed the implication of my words.
“If you hadn't been there, if you hadn't made me stay behind you, the bullets would have gotten me instead,” I explain.
The realization hits me as I utter those words.
“I could have died back there... like Richard Wells.” It's insane how, one moment, I was talking to the man, and the next he was falling to the ground, dead.
“Yet, here you are,” Enzo says and winks at me.
My eyes cloud up, and the tears blur out his face. I blink hard to hold them back. “Thank you,” I murmur.
“It's nothing.”
“It's something,” I insist, “I could have died tonight.” The thought is so terrifying that it makes my heart skip a beat. Suddenly, my legs feel wobbly. I hold on to Enzo and start to bawl out my eyes.
“Hey, hey, hey...” Enzo puts an arm around me. “There's no reason for that, now, is there?” His voice is mellow, a shocking contrast to the harsh vocal assault he had visited on Richard Wells and I back at the motel.
Contrary to his expectations, it wrings out more tears from my eyes. There's something about the way he speaks that coaxes me to let my guard down, to give in to the emotional turbulence that threatens to wreck me right now, to pour it all out at his feet… in his arms.
I fight it with everything I have and lose. The tears keep coming, like they have a mind of their own.
Enzo pulls me into a complete hug. His hands encircle me properly as he holds me against his body. His skin is warm, and his frame is a pillar against which I can rest. I put my head on his chest and close my eyes. My efforts at quieting down and suppressing my crying fail woefully.
“Flora, you’re safe now,” he declares. “No one's going to kill you here, not under my watch.”
It’s weird how this assurance from a man who is an associate of a known mafia enforcer makes me feel safer than I have ever felt in years.
Franklin Benetti is credited with close to half of the most insane murders that have rocked the city in the last decade.
Yet here I am, hinging my salvation on his godson.
Still, his promise to protect me floods me with relief. It's so much relief it wrings fresh tears from my eyes. I don’t even attempt to hold them back this time. It would be like using a picket fence to try to stop the water from a broken dam.
After a while, I feel his hold slackening, and I cling tightly to his body, suddenly afraid he'd let go or change his mind.
“Flora,” he says. “Look at me.”
I have a lot of misgivings about letting him see my tear-stained mess of a face, so I hesitate.
“Flora?” He pulls away, just to make enough space to reach for my chin and raise it.
It’s impossible to hide from him this time.
There's concern in the eyes that meet mine when I finally look up. The dangerous glitter in them is gone. Now all I can see is a surprising softness and my reflection in them.
However, that doesn't hold my attention for long. The nose beneath his eyes is perfectly sculpted, almost aquiline, but a good fit for the lips below it. It’s startling to finally grasp just how handsome he is.
There’s something that danger does to you.
It blinds you to everything that isn’t related to your safety.
It’s only when you're out of it that you start to notice things, as I am now.
Like how the scar above Enzo's right eyebrow is just long enough to add a certain degree of ruggedness to his handsomeness and short enough not to get ugly, how his lips are just the right shade of pink, how they’re the kind of shape you want to feel on yours.
“I'm going to protect you until this whole thing blows over,” he says. “You don't have to worry about it, okay?”
I should stop crying now, but I just can't. I only manage a quick nod and a sniff and then my body shudders with fresh sobbing.
Enzo bends and reaches for my lips.
It’s so unexpected that I don't have time to think about it. The brief moment before our lips meet, when he looks into my eyes with a question in his, is not nearly enough for me to decide. Yet my lips part of their own volition, hungry for whatever his are bringing.
He claims my lips, gently, first with a slight brush of his and then a light kiss. It’s another subtle request for access. I respond to it eagerly, desperate for the escape he holds.
His hands find my waist and circle it easily. Instinctively, I reach up and link my fingers behind his neck. Now my chest is pressed against his taut, muscle-bound body. I want to meld my own body with his, to lose my emotion in whatever comfort I can find in that broad capable chest of his.
His kisses deepen now, and in a moment, I feel his tongue sliding into my mouth, reaching for mine. I suck on it, and he lets out a small groan. It’s deep and guttural and evokes my deepest and most primitive desires.
Down below, my faucet starts to leak.
At this moment, I'm well past the point of restraint. There’s a pent-up emotion within me that needs to be released.
It started to build up the moment Enzo stormed into that motel room, eyes flashing and waving his gun carelessly, first like the danger that had come in to obliterate me and then like my knight in shining armor.
Now it's choking me on the inside, pushing hard against every inch of my mind in search of an escape.
Enzo has the magic wand that can set me free. But to reach for it now might be crossing a certain line. I struggle with my uncertainty, overcome with the urge to reach for it and yet terrified by the possibility that might follow if I awaken it.
Without any warning, Enzo bends to grab hold of my ass and lifts me off my feet into the air. A gasp escapes my lips, and I cling closely to his neck for dear life. Instinctively, my legs wrap around his waist for support as he begins to walk to the bed on the other side of the room.
It’s going to happen after all.
Now my heart begins to race.