Chapter 45
Piper
The Harrington estate breathes wealth like other houses breathe air. I step through the front door, crossing the threshold that I haven’t seen in exactly a year, and feel my spine straighten of its own accord—muscle memory from years of my mom’s hand pressed between my shoulder blades.
As always, the foyer gleams with precision. Marble that never shows footprints, crystal that never dulls, flowers that look as if they’ve never been alive enough to die. Enzo’s arm is wrapped around my middle, his touch providing heat against the cold that clings to the walls.
“We can leave our coats in here,” I murmur, gesturing toward a door on the left.
He steps in behind me, and we shrug out of our coats without a word, hanging them side by side on the polished rack that’s never once held anything real. Before I can take another step, Enzo pulls me back—his hand warm on my waist, steady, unrelenting.
“Toy,” he murmurs, tipping my chin so he can look at me. His eyes sweep over every inch—dress, puzzle piece, the ring on my finger. His claim carved in gold and metal. “You sure about this?”
I nod once, sharp and certain. “Let’s just get it over with.”
He leans in, his mouth brushing mine—not a kiss, not yet. A warning. A promise. When it finally deepens, it’s slow and consuming, one hand curled around my jaw like he’s reminding me who I belong to.
“They’ll see who you belong to the second you walk in,” he says against my lips.
“That’s the plan,” I breathe.
His mouth ghosts over mine again. “Then kiss me like you mean it.”
I d o. And he takes it like it costs me something. Like it seals us.
When he finally pulls away, I almost chase him for more—but the air in this house makes my lungs feel too tight to breathe.
“I hate this place,” I whisper, smoothing down the red silk clinging to my hips. My fingers drift to the puzzle piece resting just above my heart.
“I know,” he murmurs, brushing my temple with his lips. “But I’ve got you.”
He threads his fingers through mine, and together we move deeper into the house I used to call home—though I don’t remember it ever feeling like one.
“Which room was yours?” he asks, voice low against my ear.
The question catches me off guard, but I answer anyway. “Second floor. Corner window.”
“Want to show me?”
I laugh coldly. “I can’t. The second I was kicked out, mommy and daddy dearest changed it into something else. Probably some kind of hobby room.”
Taking a deep breath, I steel myself, and lead us into the main room of depressing festivities.
Waitstaff move like white-gloved ghosts between clusters of guests, their trays of champagne flutes catching light from chandeliers.
I watch them navigate conversations in progress, appearing at elbows exactly when glasses are empty, vanishing before they can be thanked.
It’s a choreography I used to know by heart.
“Darling.”
My mother’s voice cuts through the room before I see her.
Her heels strike a rhythm against the marble like a metronome counting down to something inevitable.
She appears through a parting crowd, dressed in cream and diamonds, her smile fixed and brittle as she kisses the air beside each of my cheeks.
“You made it.”
Not once does she look me in the eye. Her gaze skims over my shoulder, my earrings, the hemline of my dress—assessing, calculating, finding fault—before landing on Enzo with a smile that brightens to something theatrical.
“And you must be the…” The pause is so precisely placed it might as well be underlined in red.
Enzo’s smile doesn’t reach his eyes. “Lorenzo Russo,” he says, voice calm as a loaded gun. He doesn’t offer his hand or fake a smile, and I don’t think I’ve ever loved him more.
My father materializes at her side like he’s been summoned, a drink already in hand, ice cubes clinking against crystal with dissatisfaction.
His gaze flicks over Enzo’s tailored coat, the perfect cut of his suit, the subtle details that speak of money older than anything the Harringtons have touched.
“ I didn’t realize Piper was dating someone in security,” he says, voice dry as gin, as if Enzo is the help who’s wandered into the wrong room.
I want to vanish, to dissolve into the marble and re-form somewhere quieter, somewhere less cruel. Instead, I stand perfectly still, my face a porcelain mask.
“Actually,” I say, clearing my throat and catching my mom’s gaze. Then I lift my hand, the six-carat puzzle-cut diamond we picked up from the Russo estate before flying here catching the chandelier’s light like it’s throwing daggers. “Lorenzo’s my—”
“I’m her fiancé,” Enzo finishes smoothly, his voice absolute.
I watch my mom’s lips twitch, the micro-expression of someone who’s just been checkmated.
“Piper! Holy shit, you actually came.”
Teddy appears like salvation, a whiskey tumbler in one hand and the kind of grin that’s never been Harrington-approved. His tie is already loose, his hair a little mussed, his eyes clear despite the alcohol. He wraps me in a hug that smells like good whiskey and better intentions.
“You look like a revolution.” He grins when he pulls back, hands still on my shoulders, eyes seeing all of me. Then he turns to Enzo, gives him a slow once-over that’s neither threatening nor deferential. “So you must be war.”
A laugh escapes me—the first real sound I’ve made since walking in. Enzo extends his hand, introduces himself properly. “Lorenzo Russo.”
Teddy takes it with a firm grip. “Alright. Yeah. I see it.” He nods, a private assessment completed. It’s the only real introduction that happens in this house of performances.
We circulate for a full hour—sixty excruciating minutes. My mother finds me between conversations, her comments soft and steady, precision-guided missiles.
“Are you still at that internship? I thought it was only for… common people.”
“Is that dress… yours? The cut is so interesting.”
“Your lipstick is a little bold, darling. Remember what we discussed about first impressions.”
With each question, each subtle criticism, I feel the weight of it building—every inch of distance between the daughter they want and the woman I’ve become. My shoulders tighten beneath my dress.
The room seems to contract, the air growing thinner as I breathe it. Enzo stays close, his presence steady, his eyes tracking every microscopic flinch I try to hide.
His thumb moves against my back, slow and deliberate. “Do you want to leave?” he murmurs, just for me. Rather than coaxing me, he’s reminding me of the option.
I shake my head once.
“You run this,” he adds. “We go when you say.”
The room fills with people who know a version of me that hasn’t existed for years. Former classmates, family friends, business associates—they ask about charity organizations I don’t know about, congratulate me on achievements I’ve never claimed, speak to me in the language of a future I rejected.
“This place doesn’t deserve you,” Enzo murmurs near my temple. “They look, but they don’t see. And still you stand taller than all of them.”
My father corners us near the library doors, martini in hand, his eyes slightly narrowed—the look he gets when he’s about to deliver what he thinks is wisdom.
“Well, let’s hope this one works out better than your last boyfriend, ” he says, glancing at Enzo with the idle disinterest of a man evaluating livestock. “That campaign manager nearly ruined your mother’s summer.”
I feel Enzo inhale beside me—sharp and slow. The kind of breath people take before court rulings or executions. One tilt of his head, one unreadable smile, and my father steps back like he’s heard a threat no one else can.
“How tragic,” Enzo drawls, eyeing my dad. “But I guess that’s what happens when you try to pawn your daughter off on someone unworthy.”
Yeah, I’ve told him all about the guys my parents tried to set me up with, and how it was always about how it affected them, how it looked for them.
Something inside me goes quiet at my dad’s words. Not breaking—nothing so dramatic. Just a simple, clean silence, like a circuit being cut. The insult of comparing Enzo to someone who was most definitely not a boyfriend hits hard.
After placing my untouched champagne on a passing silver tray, I smooth my dress with hands that don’t tremble, and I look my father directly in the eyes for the first time today.
I don’t wait for Enzo to defend me. I don’t need him to. But I feel him behind me—still, coiled, ready. Not a shield, a sword. And if I said one word, he’d burn this house down and salt the earth. But this is my fight.
“We’re leaving,” I say. “And I’m not coming back.”
“You can’t leave now,” my father insists. “It would embarrass your mother.”
I scoff.
“You had one chance to love her. You used it to measure her instead.” Enzo’s voice is quiet, brutal. “You have no idea what you lost,” he finishes, still not raising his voice.
Then his hand finds mine like we’ve rehearsed this exit a hundred times—and maybe, without saying it, we have. Without another word, we lea ve. And with each step, I begin feeling weightless. As if I’ve set down something heavy I’d forgotten I was carrying.
The front door clicks shut behind us with the soft finality of a safe deposit box. Outside, the air is sharp with winter, honest in a way the heated rooms behind us never were. I breathe it in, feeling my lungs expand for what seems like the first time in hours.
Enzo stands beside me. He’s not pushing. Just there—solid as the ground beneath my feet.
“Fuck!” I scream, startling the parking attendants that are still busy outside. “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!”
“Piper! Wait!”
Teddy bursts through the door behind us, coat half-buttoned. He moves with the loose energy of whiskey and absolute conviction, more alive than anyone inside that house has been in years.
“Christ, I didn’t think you’d actually do it,” he says, but there’s something like wonder beneath the rasp, something like pride.
I cross the distance between us before I can think about it, wrapping my arms around him and holding tighter than I mean to. I press my face against the only part of my family that ever felt real.
“Thank you,” I whisper, my throat suddenly tight, the words smaller than I want them to be. “For every time you saw me. For never looking away.”
His arms tighten around me, one hand coming up to cup the back of my head. We stand like that for a moment that stretches. Behind us, I feel Enzo retreating, giving us space. Or maybe he’s asking for his vehicle.
Teddy pulls back first. He cups my face in both hands, his palms warm against the winter air, and looks at me like he’s memorizing something important. “You don’t owe them a goddamn thing,” he murmurs, voice low enough that only I can hear it. “You never did.” He kisses my forehead.
“I know,” I say, and for the first time, I think I might actually believe it.
Teddy turns me so I’m at his side, his arm around my shoulders as he looks at Enzo. “You,” Teddy says to him. “You see her.”
It’s not really a question, but Enzo answers anyway. “Always,” he says, the single word carrying weight beyond its syllables.
A soft purr sounds as one of the parking attendants drives Enzo’s car up to us, leaving it idling as he gets out and hands over the keys. “Nice ride,” the attendant observes before walking away.
Teddy steps back, giving my shoulder one last squeeze before releasing me entirely. “Go. Be free. Fly, Piper, fly.”
Enzo moves then, opening the passenger door for me with the fluid grace that comes second nature to him. I get into the car without looking back at the house, at its windows glowing with a light that’s anything but welcome.
I w atch Teddy through the window. For a moment, backlit by the glow from the house, he looks like something out of a painting; the solitary figure, half in and half out of the world behind him. Then he turns and disappears back into the noise.
Enzo slides into the driver’s seat like he’s switching roles—from shadow to executioner. Every move precise, every breath measured, as though violence would’ve been easier than restraint.
“I was ready to drag you the fuck out of there,” he seethes. “Fucking parasites.”
When I look over at him, his jaw is tight, but there’s pride in the set of it.
“I wanted to hurt them,” he adds. “God, Toy, I wanted to rip them apart.”
He reaches across the console and takes my hand, his thumb brushing once across my knuckles—a gesture so small it shouldn’t matter, but it does.
Then, without a word, he leans across the space between us and kisses me again—this time slow, worshipful.
Like he needs my taste to erase the stench of everything we just left behind.
I kiss him back just as fiercely. Because he didn’t just stand beside me in there.
He let me fight. And he stood ready to burn it down if I’d asked him to.
“I almost wish you had,” I whisper against his lips. “Almost.”
Pulling back, he arches an eyebrow. “Airport?” he asks, and there’s a universe of understanding in the single word.
“God yes,” I nod, feeling the last threads of tension unravel from my shoulders. “Let’s go home.”