Chapter 14
Chapter fourteen
Present Day
Threading my silver cufflinks through the cuffs of my shirt, I kept my gaze fixed on my naked ex-lover, still asleep in my bed. My head was in shambles. My heart was in a worse state. Last night was a blur of red, black, and then crystal blue. Blood, blackout, and then his eyes.
I sank into the chair that faced the window but was also angled towards the bed because I couldn’t seem to tear my eyes away from him for too long.
Every groove, contour, and freckle on his body had lived rent-free in my mind for ten years, but seeing this older, more defined, muscular version of tanned skin, with endless abs and broad shoulders, was hard to ignore.
His usually immaculately styled blonde hair was soft and tousled on the pillow, and his full lips and sharp cheekbones made him look like he was modelling for a bed advert.
He was too damn good-looking. Always had been.
Too beautiful for the darkness he was born into.
But Enzo had been marked by brutality. I still couldn’t believe he had found Ettore, captured and tortured him, and then gifted him to me on a deadly platter.
And there had been others—clients of Ettore, men who had paid for me or worked for him at some point.
All of them dead by Enzo’s hand. He had hung their pictures around Ettore’s cell, showing him what had happened to his accomplices.
But he had saved Grim for me. It was dark, twisted, and the most romantic thing anyone had ever done for me. He had given me justice.
I didn’t remember much after I killed Grim, which meant I’d had an episode.
I blacked out. It was my body’s way of coping with a traumatic or distressing encounter.
My mind simply shut down, and everything went dark.
It used to happen regularly when I was a child, but rarely as an adult.
I must have taken the jet back to Sicily, and Enzo had brought me back to life.
It had been years since I’d experienced one.
The past was the past. However, killing Ettore had triggered it, and I knew Enzo would feel guilty for that.
But he shouldn’t. I’d take a whole year of blackouts if it meant that monster never breathed the same air as me again.
I knew something had happened between Enzo and me last night.
I remembered snippets. Kissing him. Needing him more than oxygen.
He got on his knees and took my cock in his mouth.
His hands on my body in the shower, soft and tender.
Holding me as I fell asleep. I didn’t think we’d fucked, though I couldn’t be certain.
But it wasn’t just my memories that were fractured.
It was my feelings, too. I didn’t know how or what I was feeling anymore.
I’d tried so fucking hard to keep him out, but somehow he was there, beneath my skin, in my bones, in every beat of my fucked-up heart.
Enzo yawned, stretching his arms above his head before blinking himself awake. I leaned back in the chair as his gaze settled on me, and he gave me a soft smile.
“Morning. How are you feeling?”
“Like I’ve been hit by a truck,” I opted for honesty. “But I’ll be okay.”
He pulled himself up against the headboard and nodded. The sheet slipped down his torso, pooling in his lap and giving me a mouth-watering view of his body. I should have looked away, but I took too long and he noticed me staring.
“You should put some clothes on,” I said, forcing my gaze away from him. I could feel his smirk as he watched me put on my watch.
“Or you could take some off.”
I cut him with a glare that told him to behave.
“Did we fuck last night?” I held my breath, waiting for an answer. I wasn’t sure whether it was a good thing that I couldn’t remember.
“No. Unless fucking my mouth counts.”
“I vaguely remember that part. Sorry.”
“Don’t apologise. You know how much I love being choked by your dick, Rossetti.”
He threw back the covers, his naked body and semi-hard cock in full view as he climbed out of bed and stretched.
I forced my gaze to the window, though every muscle in my body had tensed and my own cock was twitching to life as he pulled on his trousers.
He came over to the opposite chair and sat down, staring at me with those piercing blue eyes that strangled my soul.
“I guess we need to talk,” I huffed, rolling my shoulders to shake off the tension.
The problem was, I didn’t know what I wanted to say.
I was so damn confused. I couldn’t keep telling myself I didn’t want this man, that I wasn’t still hopelessly in love with him.
But I had Neri to think about. As tempting as it was, I couldn’t slip back into old habits.
“We do.”
“I appreciate what you did for me. I do. You gave me something that... means everything. I can see you’re trying, you’ve grown as a person, and I’m pleased you’re finally at peace with who you are.
But it kills me that it took us breaking up for you to get there. I just can’t do this with you again.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Do what exactly?”
“This,” I said, waving my hand between us. “Us. Walking away from you was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I don’t let many people get close to me, Enzo. But I let you. And you fucked me over. You chose duty over me.”
“No.” He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “I chose survival, and I lost the only thing worth surviving for. I made a mistake.”
I scoffed and stood up, needing some distance.
“You’ve always had a way with pretty words and empty promises.
” I ran my hand through my hair and turned back towards him, years of repressed anger at the situation flooding to the surface.
“Your words mean little to me when you broke the trust I had in you with your actions. I can’t put myself in a position where you can hurt me again. I can’t let you back in.”
“Finn.” He stood up, his eyes pleading as he stepped towards me, but I raised my hand.
“I screwed everything up. I did. What we had was special, and I destroyed it. I took it for granted. I treated you badly, keeping you in the dark and betraying your trust. I’m not trying to make excuses for it because it was wrong.
But you also know what I was up against. I was young, messed up, and scared, and I thought that by agreeing to marry Elenora, I could keep you in my life.
I didn’t want to lose you. But I lost you anyway. ”
I closed my eyes and shook my head. “We don’t need to go over this again. The past is exactly that. I’ve moved on, Enzo. You need to as well.”
His eyes narrowed and dropped to the open collar of my shirt. “Is that why you still wear my chain? Because you’ve moved on?”
Rage surged beneath my skin, but I crossed my arms to keep it contained.
I knew I shouldn’t have put it back on two days ago.
So why had I? Why had I taken it out of the safe, where it had been for ten years, and put it back around my neck after that night in my kitchen?
I still didn’t know. But damn if I was going to let him draw his own conclusions.
“It’s a nice chain. Why wouldn’t I wear it? But if it’s giving you the wrong idea…”
I reached behind my neck to unfasten it, but his body slammed into mine, and he grabbed my wrists, pinning them above my head against the glass window. I stared into an inferno of possessive rage as he loomed over me, trapping me between the glass and his bare torso.
“Don’t you fucking dare. You’re a liar, Finn Rossetti. You know what wearing it means. You’ve always known. You just don’t want to admit it.”
“And what’s that?” I gritted through clenched teeth, trying my best to ignore the heat and hardness of his body pressed against mine, the flare of need thickening my cock and the swarm of stupid butterflies in my stomach.
“That we belong to each other. That we are both miserable without one another.” He let go of one of my wrists and pressed his hand against my chest, hard, until he felt my pounding heart.
I drew in a sharp breath. “That this ache never leaves as long as we are apart. That every night, we lie in separate beds, wrap our hands around our cocks, and come with each other’s names on our lips because no one else, nothing else, will ever compare. ”
“You’re delusional,” I whispered breathlessly, unable to conceal the truth. He was so fucking right. About everything. His full lips curled into a knowing smirk.
“You’re stubborn, but I won’t give up, Finn. I won’t let you go again. Give me one more chance—twenty-four hours, even. Let me show you, prove to you, how different it will be. I won’t make the same mistakes again.”
The door slammed open so suddenly it nearly came off its hinges. Enzo released me from his grip and turned towards the intrusion. Alessio’s fierce eyes flicked from his face to mine, then softened slightly with concern.
“Fabi told me. Are you okay?”
I nodded, straightening my shirt and pushing away from the window. “I’ll be with you in a minute.”
Alessio lifted his chin, his sharp gaze cutting back to Enzo with quiet disdain. He needed no words, only that look. The kind that could make a man imagine his own funeral. Enzo visibly gulped but didn’t look away, knowing that in Alessio’s eyes, to do so would be a sign of weakness.
“I’ll meet you in my office. Alone,” he said, directing the demand to me, and then he was gone.
“I guess you’re not the only one I should be trying to win over,” Enzo muttered as I walked past him towards the door.
“We leave for New York in two hours. Get yourself ready.”
“We’re going today?”
“Si. So, focus. Or you’ll get us both killed.”
I shut the door behind me and exhaled, leaning my head back against it. It felt like I was fighting the inevitable at this point. Enzo wasn’t going to give up, but that wasn’t the problem. The problem was that I wasn’t sure I wanted him to.