Chapter 31
Chapter Thirty-One
ENZO
My mind is spinning in a hundred directions and these motherfuckers are toasting?
Glass clinks. Liquor flashes. For a second I swear I’m back at a table where men make toasts right before they order someone’s death. My skin goes tight over my bones.
This isn’t celebration. It’s negotiation dressed up like civility.
“She’s not even here,” I whirl on them. “It’s not up to us.”
“No, it’s not,” Dario says.
“I just said that,” Saul says. “I’ll go back, talk to her about whatever we say here.”
No.
I circle the room, get in his face again.
His collar’s still not sitting right from earlier. My fingers remember the fabric.
He stands there like I didn’t have him pinned a minute ago, like I didn’t want to slam him into a wall just for saying her name like it belongs to him.
“You’re gonna talk to her? Tell her what?” I demand. “That you, her white knight, and Mr. Suave here want to divide her up like pie and where does that leave me? The asshole with the temper who knows twelve different ways to kill someone with his bare hands?”
Saul stiffens.
Dario’s jaw tenses. “That’s not what you are. Not how she sees you.”
“But it is.” I turn away. It’s all over my face. I’m not like them. Not good enough for her.
Fuck.
I can be. It all clicks in place.
“I want out.” The words scrape my throat raw. I look at Dario because if I look at Saul I’ll hear judgment, and if I look anywhere else, I’ll lose my nerve.
“She loves you, Enzo.” Dario closes the distance.
I laugh. “Not out from her. Away from this. Away from the part of me that keeps ending in blood. Let me protect her. Let me make all my crimes count for something.”
Saul’s brows rise. “What are you saying?”
“I can bury Sal. Not with my hands. The things I’ve done under his orders alone is enough to put Sal away for life.” My body coils tight. I pace like I can outrun what I’ve done.
“You’d be a rat,” Dario says, low and vicious.
It lands in my chest like a boot.
I step into him anyway, close enough that if he breathes wrong we’re a headline. “Say it again,” I whisper. Not because I want to hurt him. Because part of me thinks I deserve it.
He stands his ground. Says nothing.
For a second nobody breathes. Dario’s eyes go darker, and my body answers like it’s been waiting for permission.
Saul shifts. Not toward the door. Toward us. Like he’s already decided which one of us he’d hit first to stop this from becoming a crime scene.
“I’d be free.” My voice shakes. “And more than that, she’d be safe. For real. No more looking over her shoulder. No more wondering if someone from the family will find her. I testify, Sal goes down, and it gets quieter. Safer. Not perfect, but real.”
I turn to Saul. “You could make that happen, couldn’t you? That’s your job. Making deals.”
“It’s possible,” he says and the careful in his voice makes me want to break something. “But it’s not simple. You’d be giving up everything. Your name, your history, your life.”
“I don’t have a life. I have a job that’s killing me and a family that’d put a bullet in my head if they knew I’ve been lying to them.” I drag in a breath. “But I could become someone who doesn’t poison everything he touches. Someone who deserves her.”
“You already deserve her,” Dario says.
“Maybe. But I need to deserve myself.” I think about everything. “I’ve done things I can’t take back. I can stop doing them. I can protect her instead of being the reason she needs protection.” I focus on Saul. “Can you make this happen?”
I see him thinking.
“Yes,” he says. “I can make it happen. If you don’t bullshit me. If you don’t protect anyone. If you don’t leave anything out.”
He doesn’t look at me like a savior. He looks at me like a problem he’s willing to carry if I don’t make it worse.
“One lie,” he says quietly, “and I walk. You don’t get to curate your sins, Enzo. You dump the whole body.”
Saul looks at Dario.
Dario flicks his eyes from one of us to the other.
“Allowances made for Dario,” Saul says.
“I’ve killed people.” The words are barely audible. “For Sal. For the family. People who probably didn’t deserve it.”
“I know,” Saul says.
“And you’d just… what? Wave a badge and make blood evaporate?”
“It’s not that simple,” he says carefully. “But yes. For testimony significant enough, sentences can be reduced, charges dropped, identities relocated. You’d have to tell everything. Names, operations, crimes.”
“Whatever it takes. However long it takes. I’ll testify. I’ll burn the whole fucking family down if it means she’s safe. If it means I can be someone worth loving.”
Something in my chest loosens.
“Then we’ll make it happen,” Saul says.
“How?” I move to the bar and pour a drink I don’t taste. I need something to do with my hands that isn’t breaking someone’s throat.
“I make calls. Start the process. It’ll take time, months, probably. Negotiations, depositions, building the case. But it’s possible.” Saul waits for me to look at him. “You’d need a cover identity. A reason to be in Colorado permanently once the trial’s done.”
“What kind of reason?”
“The simplest would be a family connection. Someone already in the program. Someone you’d have a legitimate reason to relocate with.”
My heart sinks. “I don’t have family in…”
“Zoey Carter is a single woman running a bakery in a small Colorado town,” he continues. “If she were to have a husband move in with her, someone the locals haven’t met yet, but whose name she already shares.”
“You want me to marry her.” The room tilts. My hand tightens on the glass until it complains.
Saul’s jaw flexes. Dario goes still.
For one second I think this is where we lose the thread and become what we are.
“I want you to have a cover that makes sense. That protects both of you. Witnesses with family ties to an area are easier to place. They have reasons to stay, support systems, roots.”
“That’s.” I shake my head. “That’s insane.”
“It’s practical.”
“Practical.” I laugh, but there’s no humor in it. “You’re suggesting I marry her for paperwork.”
“I’m suggesting you marry her because you love her and you’re already planning to build a life with her. The paperwork is just details.”
I look at Dario. “You’re okay with this?”
“I’m not in love with labels,” Dario says carefully. “What matters is that she’s safe. That she’s happy. That we all have a place in her life.” He pauses. “A marriage license doesn’t change what we are to each other.”
“And you?” I look at Saul. “You’re really okay with me marrying the woman you love?”
“No,” he says honestly. “The idea of her being legally yours makes me want to put my fist through something. But it’s the saftest option. And I love her more than I hate the idea.”
The room goes quiet.
“I need to think,” I say finally.
“Take your time,” Saul says. “It’s no small thing testifying against a man like Sal. The family.”
“The family will survive without my uncle.” Dario pours another drink. Hands it to me. “There’s something else,” he says.
We both look at him.
“Before any of this happens, the testimony, the relocation, the logistics, I need time with her,” Dario says, and there’s a brutality in how honest it is.
“Not scraps. Not a stolen hour between disasters. I need her when she’s laughing and bored and annoyed and real.
I need to see her choose me without fear in the room. ”
“Time,” Saul says.
Dario’s jaw tightens. “I had one conversation with her. One real conversation in all those months. And then one…” He stops. Doesn’t finish.
But I know. One time. Fast and desperate and nothing like what he wanted.
“I need to court her,” he continues. “Properly. Show her who I am beyond the man she had to run from. I need her to choose me knowing everything.”
“How long?” I ask.
“A few days. Just, time. Uninterrupted.”
Jealousy flares hot in my chest.
Days of him having her completely. Waking up with her. Cooking for her. Learning her in ways that were mine.
This is what sharing looks like. It looks like swallowing broken glass and smiling anyway.
“Okay,” Saul says. “You get time with her. To court her. To build something real.”
“And then?” I ask.
“And then we figure out the rest. Visits. Schedules. How this actually works day to day,” Saul says.
“No cages,” Dario says. “No rules that turn her into a schedule. But we need boundaries we can live inside without lying.”
“No one lies to her. Not for protection. Not for convenience. Not for ego,” Saul says.
“No one touches her pain like it’s leverage. If she hurts, we stop. All of us,” Dario says.
“No one uses the badge to threaten what she chooses,” I say.
“It’s a lot of trust,” Dario says.
“It is,” Saul agrees. “But if we can’t trust each other with her, this doesn’t work.”
We stand there. Three men who should be enemies.
United by nothing except the woman we all love.
None of us say the quiet part out loud: every rule is a blade turned inward.
“I should go,” Saul says. “She’s waiting to hear what happened.”
“What are you going to tell her?” Dario asks.
“The truth. That we talked. That nothing’s decided. That this is complicated as hell.” He moves toward the door. “But that we’re willing to try. All three of us.”
“When do I get my time with her?” Dario asks.
“Soon as I get back. I’ll tell her. Give her the choice.”
“And if she says no?”
“Then we respect that.” Saul holds his gaze. “But I don’t think she will.”
“Bennett,” I say when he reaches the door.
He turns.
“Thank you.” My voice is rough. “For coming here. For offering witness protection.” I stop. “For not putting her in a cage made of good intentions.”
“Don’t thank me yet. This could still be a disaster.”
“Probably will be.” I almost smile again. “But at least we tried.”
“Yeah.” He opens the door. “At least we tried.”
This is going to hurt. The only question is whether it hurts her.