Chapter 26
Ifollow Enzo to his black Ducati sports bike and my heart rate picks up. I’ve never been on a sports bike, but I’ve always wanted to. I’ve seen them speeding down the highway, the rider a blur of speed, and I’ve wondered what such danger would feel like.
Does it feel like flying? Does it feel like killing? Does it bring peace to a chaotic mind, or does it compliment the chaos in such a way the mind temporarily forgets the untamed thoughts weighing it down?
Enzo stands next to me, still as a statue, but I’m acutely aware of his attention on me, tingling up my spine. He clings to me like a second skin, but I don’t care at this point. My feet slowly carry me toward the bike as he tracks my movement like a hunter with their prey.
My fingers glide over the black gas tank, over the leather seats, and a smile pulls up my lips. I wonder if he would let me ride on my own.
No, wait. I can’t ask that. Dr. Lucy would never.
“Do you like what you see?” Enzo asks with pride. “She’s one of a kind, custom made to my exact specifications and needs.”
“She’s beautiful.”
“Here.” He gives me a helmet, all black with a full vizor attached. I go to slip it on, but he stops me. “Wait. Turn.”
His command has me abiding and I take a moment to question why I so willingly obliged. When the hell did I begin blindly following a man’s lead?
When you were nine, you weak bitch…
Right.
His fingers glide through my hair, and I realize he’s braiding it, gently separating strands and crossing them over in a perfect plait.
“You know how to braid hair?”
“Wanna know a secret?” he replies. I nod, so I don’t pull my braid from his skilled fingers. “When I was a boy, I had a hard time sleeping so my Mamma taught me to braid her hair. I would lay with her and braid a strand over and over until eventually I fell asleep.”
He finishes the braid, securing it with an elastic and I face him, knowing that couldn't have been easy to share.
I stare up into those deep brown irises creasing at the sides, as if in pain.
“Thank you for sharing that with me,” I say, and he brushes me off, sliding the helmet over my head without a response.
He slides his own on and swings his leg over the bike before starting it up. Even through the helmet, I hear the engine roar, and the vibrations ricochet around inside my bones.
When his hand extends toward me, I don’t hesitate. I take it, swinging my leg over the back and holding tight around his waist. My chest presses against his back, and my thighs grip his hips. The contact with his warm, large body has more than my stomach fluttering.
“Ready?” His question filters through the helmet as if we’re speaking on the phone and I assume the helmets are connected through Bluetooth.
“Yes,” I whisper. The garage door opens and as it slowly rises, my heart hammers harder, like the strong beating of wings.
The sunlight bathes us in a soft warmth only the rare Seattle sun can provide, and he reaches back, tapping my leg twice. “Hold on tight.”
The moment my arms squeeze tighter, the bike takes off and the air is yanked from my lungs. A laugh bursts from me at the exhilaration. The trees of the long drive pass in a blur as we fly by. When we get to the gate, it’s already open and we whiz past.
Once on the main road, Enzo takes the curves with ease. I move with him as if we’re one, gliding left then right. It’s instinctual how we move together.
When we hit a straight section of the road, I can’t help but release Enzo’s waist, tentatively at first to feel out my balance. When I’m confident I won’t fly off the back, I fully release him and spread my arms out wide.
“Be careful, Lucy,” Enzo growls through the speaker and I giggle. If only he knew this is the least dangerous act I’ve probably ever done.
“I’m always careful,” I reply as my arms come back to wrap around him.
He taps my thigh twice again and I hold tighter to his black leather jacket.
His biceps flex as he leans in closer to the gas tank and we increase speed.
Once again, my breath leaves me and it’s intoxicating.
That moment when you don’t know when your next breath will come—it’s a dangerous addiction I’ve never had the chance to fully explore, but I know without a doubt Enzo will allow me such freedoms, a safe space to navigate all the new and dangerous areas of myself I know lie within.
And maybe that’s the most dangerous part about Enzo Alessi—his ability to dig through all the bullshit and pull me from a grave of self-hatred and destruction.
We climb up a mountain on a narrow road and the higher we go, more of Puget Sound comes into view. It’s stunning, the pure water and shimmering skyscrapers contrasting with the deep green of the surrounding forest makes me realize how people fall in love with this city.
The bike slows to a stop in a clearing at the end of the road and Enzo pulls over.
He shuts the bike off and I go to swing my leg over, but he stops me with his arm.
Before I can ask why, he’s pulling my leg up and over and with it, my body follows.
In a single breath, I’ve gone from sitting behind him to straddling his lap, my ass sitting on the gas tank.
His helmet comes off and then my own, and he hooks them on the handlebars.
I try to catch my breath, not only from the ride but from the quick move he pulled, but I’m lost in him.
He challenges everything I’ve ever known or believed, the way his large hands rest on my thighs, holding me securely, the way he molds to me like a missing piece.
Despite the role he’s acquired in this life, I can’t help but see the boy I broke all those years ago.
Because under the intensity, there’s always an underlying pain.
And maybe it’s not something others notice, but I do.
“Enzo—” My head drops, preparing to apologize for…
what? I don’t even know. How do I say I’m sorry for everything?
For what happened all those years ago, for what I’m doing now, for what I have to do in the future?
“I told you a secret. That means you owe me one in return.” His hard features soften in an attempt to make me feel safe.
“I-I don’t have any secrets.” His head tilts and I scoff, smiling, because we both know that was a weak excuse. “Fine. What do you want to know?”
His touch runs up and down my thighs, fingers squeezing at my knee, and I fight the urge to pull back, the touch more ticklish than anything. “Whatever you want to tell me. I’ll take anything.”
Okay, I’m the White Owl, I killed your mom but I didn’t want to and I’ve been trying to make myself feel something other than hatred for myself ever since and I also feel like I’m falling in love with you but probably because you’re the only man who has made me feel alive and worth something, but I’m also planning to take my blade and slice you and your brother’s throats, like I did your mother’s.
But I know as soon as I do, I won’t want to live a moment longer on this fucking planet.
Too much?
“I hate spiders.”
He stops stroking my legs and throws his head back, letting out the biggest sigh I’ve ever heard. “I told you something no one knows about me, a sacred memory of my mother and I, and you tell me you hate spiders?”
“I…really hate spiders.” I shrug, holding the position and closing one eye, waiting for his explosion at my taunt.
“You’re driving me to madness, woman!” His hands go up in frustration, his true Italian roots showing and I curl forward, laughing.
“Okay, okay. Let me think for a moment,” I finally say after catching my breath.
“Make it a good one.”
I think back on my life, trying to find anything to compare to his secret, but I come across nothing.
Not simply because I need to be cautious of what I tell him, but because his memory was sweet, filled with love and I have none of those moments in my life.
Even the ones with Ilya are stained with hurt and betrayal.
Ilya was the only one who cared for me but even still it was in response to what he had done to me; it stemmed from a deeply rooted guilt as opposed to genuine love.
“I’m afraid I don’t have a secret as beautiful as yours. All I have are nightmares who still wait for me.”
He brackets my neck with his palms, thumbs pressing into the groove under my chin as he watches the move and whispers against my lips. “I don’t want beautiful, I want dirty. I want your nightmares, so I can show them what a real monster looks like.”
I’m in no shortage of monsters and nightmares, so I give him what he wants.
“When I was thirteen, I was…studying with my tutor. We were finishing our lesson when he tried to kiss me. He was seventeen, a boy who had been tutoring me for years. I rejected him and he didn’t like it. He pinned me under him and touched me…”
A growl rumbles deep in Enzo’s chest. His grip tightens to the point of pain, but I don’t mind it, in fact, I appreciate it. Pain has always grounded me to reality when my mind seeks the escape to a fantasy I can’t afford to believe in.
“His fingers were rough; he shoved them down my throat and made me gag until I felt like I was going to throw up before he shoved them down my shorts.”
"Stop. Please, before I go fucking crazy." Enzo lips meet mine in a slow perusal. An exploration I can’t resist giving into. His lips warm mine, his tongue gliding along my bottom lip, gently asking for permission.
I open further and a low growl slips from his throat as he pulls me in tighter.
Enzo claims to be the ruthless, uncontrollable twin, but the way he kisses is nothing but merciful and meticulous.
The way his lips and tongue embrace my own like a comforting lullaby, easing and soothing all the hard edges of my nightmares.
When he pulls away, his forehead meets mine, but keeps my throat in his grasp. “I need to stop myself,” he whispers as we both try to catch our breath.
“Why?” I ask before I even realize the complications not stopping would bring.
“Because you deserve more than a quick fuck on my bike. Although that could come later.” His sullen expression fades into a flirtatious grin and I appreciate he didn’t ask me further about what happened.
I was able to stop the boy before he went further but I’ll never forget the first time a boy touched me intimately.
I always wondered how I would feel the next time a man touched me; would my stomach sour with disgust?
Would it feel like nails on a chalkboard?
But when Enzo touched me on the canvas, when his fingers and lips caressed my body, it felt like he was worshiping me, desiring nothing more than to please me.
And I know, without a shadow of a doubt, if I would have asked him to stop, he would have bound himself to my command.
When his hand drops from my throat back to my hips, my arms come up to wrap around his neck, finding exactly where they feel like they belong. “I’m playing with fire,” I confess, and his grin widens.
“Kinky girl.”
“Not what I mean. I meant…I’m falling into dangerous territory with you.”
He leans forward, quickly kissing my lips in a playful way. “Catchin’ feelings, Little Doc?”
“Would it be so bad if I were?.”
My words dim the spark flickering between us and his features fall a fraction.
“Maybe,” he says and even though I’m acutely aware I shouldn’t, my heart falls out of it’s enclosure and flops around on my fucking diaphragm.
“The only feelings I know how to give are pleasure and pain, Lucy. I don’t know what it feels like to love someone like you. ”
“Someone like me?”
A fraud, a heartless, weak little girl.
“Someone temporary. Isn’t that what you want? I can handle a lot of fucking shit, Lucy. But if you tell me shit like that, I’ll fall to my knees for you. I’ll give you the fucking world—heaven, hell, and everything in between. But you have to promise to stay.”
Stay? Even if I decided I wasn’t going to kill them, it’s not like I could lie to him forever.
And let’s say I told him the truth and he forgave what I did, I’d put him and Rafael in danger.
Alexey would hunt me until the day he confirmed I was dead or died himself.
There would be no ending where Enzo and I would live happily ever after, and I’d be a fool to believe otherwise.
I’ve lost my mind following my heart and fuck if it doesn’t hurt.
“I can’t promise that,” I say.
He inhales, his chest expanding as his jaw tenses. “Then you need to leave, Lucy. We cannot afford for you to be a weakness if you’re not willing to fight to be with us. If you’re not strong enough.”
His words hurt more than I expected them to, but I can’t deny he’s right.
Like me, I was raised for a purpose—one I’d forgotten.
Weaknesses are not an option. Weaknesses can be used against you.
Enzo and Rafael are a weapon, but not in the way I initially thought.
It’s not their guns or knives but their ability to hold my aching heart in their grasp that could destroy me.
I steel my spine. “You’re right.”
Enzo’s phone buzzes in his pocket, interrupting us. “There better be a good fucking reason you’re calling when I explicitly told you to leave me the fuck alone today.”
A deep mumble comes from the speaker, and he glances at me. “Fuck. Be there in ten.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Someone fucked up.”