21. Enzo’s Confession
Chapter 21
Enzo’s Confession
Raven
Present Day
W alking out of my room with Maverick behind me was odd enough, but it wasn’t nearly as strange as the sight that found me on the other side.
Jayce, Enzo, and Levi were all lounging together.
Levi and Enzo were playing a game of chess.
“What are you doing?” The question left me before I could stop it.
Three sets of eyes settled their attention on me.
Jayce and Levi quirked their lips in amusement, but Enzo heaved a sigh.
“So that’s where you went, Mav. Do you feel better now?” Enzo grumbled harshly.
Levi whipped his fist across the chess board slamming it into Enzo’s shoulder.
“Fuck, I get it! Sorry!”
The world felt a bit topsy-turvy as Maverick helped me onto the couch next to Jayce, offering me a soft kiss to the forehead before moving to the empty seat next to Levi.
In the beginning, I thought Enzo was the nice, kind brother. But I was beginning to suspect neither were that.
They were just varying degrees of traumatized and fucked up and they used different coping mechanisms.
I didn’t blame them.
Jayce wrapped an arm around me, tugging me into his side, and I welcomed the solace. Jayce would always be a home for me to return to. “They announced the eight remaining teams while you were uh, preoccupied , but not the winner.”
Shame and embarrassment threatened to heat me, but I squashed it down.
“Sorry,” I murmured.
My eyes flashed to Levi, but he was smiling reassuringly in my direction.
Stamping down the billowing emotions threatening to swarm me, I attempted to reconfigure my mind. Before this game, I had been a pro at placing a firm wall between myself and anything that could hurt me.
But I was aware enough to admit that these men were now my weak spots.
“Who’s left?” Maverick cut in.
“Our teams,” Jayce advised.
“Obviously.” Maverick steepled his hands together, resting his elbows on his knees .
Jayce chuckled. “Yeah, I guess so. Ivan’s team, unfortunately. 197’s and 32’s made it out too though. And the three other teams I didn’t recognize, but hey, have you all thought about how most of the teams don’t add up to five? How are there going to be five winners?”
His statement caused me to stiffen. Needing the support, I shifted closer into Jayce’s embrace.
Maverick inclined his head. “Tell them.”
My heart beat into my throat as I relayed Maverick’s suspicions. “Maverick thinks—and I agree—we don’t think we’re going to remain a team.”
“I could certainly see that, darlin’.” Levi’s steady voice thrummed with emotion. “But that won’t change a damn thing. I don’t plan on coming for any of y’all.”
“What if they don’t give us a choice? What if we have to?” It would make the most sense to turn us all against each other.
Jayce readjusted, gently tugging me into his lap and wrapping his arms around me. His head falling to the crook of my neck as he breathed in and out a few times. “Don’t be a martyr. There’s always a loop-hole.”
I didn’t believe him, didn’t agree with him, but I also didn’t argue.
“Well, Enzo.” Levi readjusted, abandoning the chess game. He crossed his legs and shifted his ankle to his knee, bouncing it. His arms stretched behind him. He almost appeared relaxed, but tension rolled off of him in waves. “I think it’s time you tell us why the Creators of this deemed you the guilty party.”
“Levi…I really don’t know if you want to hear it,” I argued, attempting to escape Jayce’s arms, but he held on tight. I could have broken free, but I took it as the warning he intended it to be.
While I cared for Levi and enjoyed our time together, I could feel how much he cherished me, but I hadn't known him for that long.
What if this causes him to snap ?
“I’m sure I would be best off going a lifetime without knowin’, but unfortunately, I’m a hard-headed man. I won’t ever be able to let it rest. I need to know. For too long I have suffered with the guilt of my transgressions. I need something, anythin’, to help shoulder some of this weight.”
Enzo stood up and began pacing the room. “Levi, look I’m going to tell you, but I need you to make me a promise. If you decide you can’t forgive me, you have to kill me. Wait until after this game, please . My brother is innocent in this, he doesn’t even know what I’m about to tell you.”
All I could do was wearily watch as this unfolded. A festering wound that had been infected for years . Nobody was innocent, nobody was guilty.
Everybody was innocent. Everybody was guilty.
All forced to do what was needed to survive.
The pads of Jayce’s thumbs found the skin on my wrists. He stroked the scars soothingly, and slowly, I melted further into the safety of his arms.
“I agree.” Levi’s attention was stuck on Enzo. His gaze danced as the latter continued to pace across the room. “Now tell me. It’s been long enough.”
“I—Fuck! Your wife wasn’t who you thought she was! She was a spy for our Government.”
Levi froze. “Bullshit,” he spat.
“Why do you think the men in the Factions slowly started going missing? All across our town they vanished one after another.” Enzo didn’t even look in Levi’s direction.
“So, what has that got to do with her? How would she know what the men in the town were doing?”
“Levi,” I cut in. “Surely you noticed something was off. Surely something didn’t feel exactly right when you came home. Maybe she was becoming more distant with you? Maybe she was asking too many pointed questions? ”
“I—” Levi’s face darkened, his gaze directed downwards. He folded his arms across his broad chest. “She didn’t want me to keep leaving. She was angry with me. She wanted to know everything I was doing so she could make sure I wasn’t putting myself in too much danger.”
“Levi, I’m sorry. I had my suspicions. I had to find out what she was doing. I followed her. When you were gone, she went around to our neighbors and then shortly after most of them ended up disappearing.”
“You could have told me your suspicions.” Levi was practically vibrating now. He clearly wanted to jump up, to shake Enzo, but he was restraining himself.
I wasn’t sure how the rest of this would go. “Maverick, come here please?” I asked, gesturing to the empty seat next to Jayce and I.
To my surprise, he didn’t argue. He wasn’t stupid. He could clearly tell this wasn’t going to end well. He got up slowly, carefully, as if to not startle a frightened beast and walked across the space before sitting down in the empty spot.
To my further disbelief, his hand made its way to my thigh. His long slender fingers pressing into my skin there.
Jayce didn’t comment or react, a stark contrast to the beginning of this game.
“I did tell you! We had all grown up together for years, but you didn’t trust me!” Enzo shouted, gesturing wildly as he spoke. “I told you she was fucking the neighbors! Told you she wasn’t any good for you! That she was cheating on you! But you didn’t fucking care, you loved her!”
Levi snarled, “You were lying! She wasn’t cheating on me.”
“I fucked her!” Enzo expelled. “She has a fucking birthmark on her left—"
Levi roared, jumping to his feet. His face was red, a vein pulsating in his temple .
I had never seen him this angry before, and for a beat, it caused my body to tense up.
But then Maverick’s nails dug down, not breaking skin, but just on the edge of doing so.
The pain grounded me.
“No, you fucking didn’t!” Levi advanced on Enzo.
Enzo didn’t move, didn’t falter, instead he took a few calming breaths as the large and incredibly angry Levi stomped to him.
“Levi,” I whispered. “Please. Just listen to him. I know this is hard and painful, but please don’t hurt him.”
Levi twisted to me, and for a heartbreaking moment I thought he might snap at me too, but then his face relaxed, his brows pulled together, a glassiness formed in his eyes.
He kept his gaze firmly on my face. “What happened next?”
I wasn’t sure who he was asking the question to, but to my shock, it was Jayce that answered.
“You gave her false intel, didn’t you? Did they kill her because of it?” His chest vibrated against my back as he spoke.
“They took her. And then—” Enzo stopped abruptly.
“And then Levi sold out our brother, George, because of it,” Maverick supplied emotionlessly.
The stinging on my thigh intensified as his nails broke the skin and drew blood, but I didn’t react.
This pain was nothing compared to how he must feel.
“I—” Enzo hung his head in his hands, “Yes. I am the reason Violet is dead, and in the same vein, I am the reason George died too.” His voice broke around a sob. “I’m sorry. ”
Levi let loose an animalistic growl before storming out of the room and banging his bedroom door shut. The unmistakable sound of crashes and smashing came from the other side.
I tapped Jayce’s arms that still enveloped around my stomach and this time he released me. Untangling myself, I swayed on unstable legs to Enzo.
Wrapping my arms around him, I half expected him to throw me to the ground, but instead, he allowed me to comfort him as he broke apart and the sobs intensified.
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” he repeated over and over again as I patted him soothingly on the back.
“I know. But you didn’t kill them. That was this country. Our Government.”
My goals solidified.
Maybe, just maybe we could be the difference this country needed to change.
So friends, families, lovers wouldn’t be forced to turn against each other.
I don’t know how long we stood like that, but eventually Enzo returned my embrace, wrenching me tightly to him.
“I miss George.” He shook around the words. “He wouldn’t have made these mistakes; he would have known what to do.”
I understood what Enzo had done wasn’t okay, that he probably could have gone an alternate route, but I wasn’t sure I would have done any differently.
When we finally drew apart, I half-expected the room to be empty, but Jayce and Maverick still sat side-by-side in silence.
“Thank you,” Enzo murmured, escaping my hold. “Maverick?”
Maverick’s lips tightened, his jaw ticking, as he stood up abruptly. “This is a lot to process. I will be burying it until after we escape.” He marched away to his bedroom, slamming the door shut .
Enzo offered one last sad smile before he retreated to his own room.
“Just you and me now,” Jayce commented. “That was heavy. You okay?”
“I guess.” I shrugged, wobbling a bit.
“ Raven,” Jayce reprimanded as he got up and gathered me in his arms, lifting me carefully off the ground. “You’re overdoing yourself. You’re going to open your stitches.”
“I–” A breath rattled out of me. “You know I love you, right? My heart may hold space in it for others, but you know I will always run back to you, don’t you? That you’re my home.”
“I know, sweet girl. I love you too. I know our lives haven’t been easy or kind, but we have each other. And we’re going to make it out of this together. ”
I wanted more than anything to believe Jayce’s words, but I couldn’t help the anxiety that slithered deep into my body, coiling tightly around my heart.
But what if we don’t have a choice?