4. Enzo
There was evil.
There was diabolical.
And then there was his mother.
Enzo took another slug of the expensive scotch in his etched crystal glass, then shook his head.
He was sat slumped in his seat at the back of Lost Eden, and he could feel the eyes around him, watching.
He wasn’t one to just sit around drinking; whenever he came, he came to play.
But not tonight. He’d already waved off no fewer than three boys who’d offered to spend some time with him.
But he wasn’t in the mood. He was too busy seething.
He grabbed the bottle of Glenfiddich, popping the top and pouring another healthy shot into his glass. What the fuck was she thinking? What had he ever done to her?
“What did I ever do to her?” he asked out loud as his brother dropped into the seat opposite him.
Vincenzo Conti—Vince to those who knew him—raised a brow, flipping his own rocks glass upright before tugging the bottle from Enzo’s hand and pulling it towards himself.
Enzo watched, expression sullen, as his brother poured a fingerful for himself, then gently slid the bottle to the center of the table.
“So, it’s true?” Vince asked. “Mom got Blackwood to hire him? Is that why you’re muttering to yourself like some lunatic conspiracy theorist?”
Enzo ignored his brother’s snarky assessment, taking in his usual all black outfit. “I refuse to be talked down to by someone dressed like some mafioso in a bad romance novel.”
“Right. I’m the one who looks like a criminal here,” Vince said, giving him a hard once-over.
Enzo glanced down at his maroon button-down with the sleeves rolled to his elbows, then to his black work pants. “I just came from work.”
“With all that ink, you look like you’re planning a prison break, Michael Scofield.”
Enzo snorted, snatching the bottle back and filling his glass, ignoring the amber liquid still sitting untouched.
“Come on,” Vince said, “tell me what happened. I keep getting conflicting stories.”
“Mom was mad at me, so she got even by getting my one-night stand a paid internship at my company,” Enzo answered.
“Since when does Mom care about your bed buddies?” Vince asked.
Enzo huffed out a breath, scrubbing a hand over his face. “Since he was one of Navarro’s kids.”
“Jericho Navarro-Mulvaney?” Vince pressed, shaking his head. “You can’t be serious. Why the fuck would you go after one of them?”
“He came after me,” Enzo shot back. “He texted me. He propositioned me. It was only supposed to be a one-night stand, and now, I get to look at him every day giggling at Owen Grayson.”
“Who?”
“He’s the hotshot fucking attorney whose office is across from mine. Rich, talented, hot and older, just how Seven likes them.” When Vince didn’t say anything, Enzo glanced up to find him studying him, a smirk on his handsome but annoying face. “What?”
“You sound…jealous,” Vince noted, amused.
“What? No,” Enzo retorted, maybe a little too quickly. “Fuck you.”
Jealous. Yeah, right. He was irritated. Annoyed. Exasperated. But jealous? Enzo didn’t get jealous. What was there to be jealous of, anyway? It wasn’t like Seven meant anything to him. They’d had one night together. One very hot night together. Fuck.
“If you’re not jealous then why do you care who he interns for?” Vince asked. The smug look on his face made Enzo want to punch him.
“Because I don’t need to watch their love affair play out across the hall from me like my own soap opera.”
“Love affair?” Vince chuckled as he brought his glass to his lips. After a small sip, he said, “Why do you care who he falls in love with? You said you already fucked him once, right?”
“Yeah,” Enzo said defensively. “So what?”
Vince nodded, like Enzo was making his point for him. “Exactly. So what? What do you care who he fucks? What exactly is Mom mad about? That you had a one-night stand? That can’t be it.”
Enzo closed his eyes with a sigh and let his head fall back on the booth. “It wasn’t the one-night stand. It was what came after.”
“Did you, like, blow him off or ghost him?”
Enzo rocketed forward, slamming his fist on the table, making everything on the surface jump. “No, that’s the thing. He ghosted me. He let me fuck him and then just went completely radio silent for two weeks.”
“Then when did Mom get involved?” Vince asked. “Carli said the kid was crying in her office. How did he get there?”
Crying? That had to be an exaggeration, right? Carli was known to embellish like any other teenager. But then, Seven had cried for him that night, too. Could one of Navarro’s avenging angels be that sensitive? He wanted to say no, but…maybe?
“I don’t think he was…crying. Not exactly.”
Enzo knew he wasn’t explaining himself well, but he didn’t want to tell Vince the whole truth. Though, he’d hear it eventually. Gossip flew fast and far in the Conti family. He was honestly surprised more of his family hadn’t tried to weigh in on this, not that it was any of their business.
“What did you do that made him ‘not cry exactly’?” Vince pressed.
“I made him an offer,” Enzo muttered, finishing his glass in one large, painful swallow.
“I thought you said he ghosted you? Did he think you had ulterior motives when you reached out to him again?” It sounded more like a rhetorical question.
“He reached out to me,” Enzo explained. “Literally sent me a ‘what you doing’ text in the middle of the night to see if I was up.”
Vince raised a brow. “And how did you respond?”
“I told him to try again,” Enzo answered. “Then I ignored him for the night.”
Vince tilted his head, studying Enzo’s face. “So, you implied you wanted something more than a hook-up from him.”
“Well, yeah,” Enzo said. “And I did. I wanted a contractual relationship with a clear end date. I even offered to train him.”
“Train him?” Vince echoed. “To do what, exactly?”
Enzo looked at his brother like he was an idiot. “To be my submissive, obviously.”
“He’s in the community?” Vince asked.
“Well, more like an…interested party?” Enzo hedged.
“Wait,” Vince said, frowning like he was trying to solve a complex math equation or disarm a nuclear bomb. “He’s not even one of us and you asked him to be your sub? To train him?”
“So what?” Enzo mumbled. “Everyone starts somewhere.”
This time, it was Vince who looked exasperated. He rubbed the back of his neck. “Let me get this straight. You used this kid’s request for another booty call to try to convince him to be your trained submissive, but only for a set amount of time and only on your terms at your convenience?”
Enzo rolled his eyes. “When you put it like that…”
He spent the next fifteen minutes attempting to outline what he’d offered Seven.
“You basically told this kid that you wanted a contractually-obligated booty call who wouldn’t be mad when you had to cancel plans and that you wanted him specifically because it would be convenient not to have to lie about the less than legal shit we do.”
“I-I wasn’t trying to hurt his feelings,” Enzo muttered, reaching for the bottle.
“Trying or not, you did,” Vince retorted. “And he’s one of Navarro’s kids? You know his best friend literally works for Mama at the restaurant. Why would you even play around with that? She takes those alliances very seriously.”
“I know,” Enzo grumbled, this time slugging back his whole glass.
“Like I said, I didn’t think it would like…
offend him or break his heart or something.
” Enzo wasn’t sure who he felt more sorry for then—himself or Seven.
“He didn’t act like he wanted a relationship when we were together that first night. He’s the one who dragged me into bed.”
That was sort of true. If one squinted a bit.
“What was he supposed to get out of this arrangement other than your dick?” Vince asked.
Enzo rolled his eyes. “He said he wanted a Daddy. I offered to be that for him.”
“He said he wanted a Daddy?”
Enzo huffed out a breath. “Well, he called me Daddy. What else was I supposed to think? That’s how this started. He started it.”
“That’s very mature,” Vince chided, shaking his head. “But there’s a difference between just casually calling your fuck buddy Daddy and actually looking for a dominant. You know that. Did he express any interest in BDSM at all?”
Enzo shrugged. “It didn’t exactly come up. But that night we were together, he asked me to take charge. He asked me to instruct him. He asked me to be rough with him. Once I sanded down some of his rough edges, he was…perfect.”
“Then what the fuck do you need to train him for? It seems like you both enjoyed your night and that he would have been down for round two. Why did you feel the need to bring contracts into this, especially knowing he wasn’t part of…this.” He gestured to the den of iniquity around them.
“I just thought it would prevent him from…getting attached. Setting expectations is important.”
“You didn’t tell him to set his expectations; you told him not to have any. You told him that you wanted to fuck him whenever you want, that you expected to be obeyed, and in return, you planned to disappoint him regularly.”
Enzo once more thunked his head against the booth. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Maybe not, but that’s what you offered him.” Vince frowned. “If you had just broached the subject when you were in bed together, this probably would have gone much differently. Instead, you got his hopes up and then cut his strings. And you did it in our mother’s restaurant. What the fuck, bro?”
Enzo slammed his glass down with just enough force to make himself feel a little better. “You’re supposed to be on my side.”
“Me?” Vince said. “Why? Because I own this club? Because I’m a dominant? Have you ever seen me take on a sub who hadn’t come here seeking a dom? No, because I don’t play with people who don’t understand what they’re getting into.”
Enzo’s guts felt like they were twisted in knots. “I just wanted to…”
“Wanted to what?” Vince prodded.
“Nothing,” Enzo muttered.