Chapter 38
Chapter
Thirty-Eight
RAYNE
Enzo told me about his meetings today—the Mancinis, the pakhan, his plan to confront the don tomorrow. I should hate how easily he pulls me into his world. Instead, I find myself liking it. Liking that he tells me things and even more so that he trusts me with them.
We were about to go sit on the roof with a bottle of wine when Micah arrived. His face is solemn, which means this is bad news—or terrible news. Enzo ushers us all into his study.
Micah pulls a small thumb drive from the inside pocket of his jacket and places it on Enzo’s desk. “I’m pretty sure this is what we were looking for. It was in a house in Green Valley. A place Joseph kept off the books and we only found out about this morning. This was the only thing in the safe.”
I stare at it like it’s a hornet and might kill me if I touch it.
With everything that’s happened, especially Ethan’s death and confession, the video has become less important, at least to me.
“So he never intended on giving it to me that day at the club?” I ask with a shudder.
“Probably wanted to get me to his house in Green Valley.”
Enzo snarls. “Disgusting fuck.”
Micah signals his agreement. “My best bet would be that the Bertellis intended to use this as some sort of leverage to take down Carmine and orchestrate a takeover.”
“That makes some sense, but why did they need me? They could have used this to blackmail Carmine or manipulate Enzo without me.”
Micah stares at his older brother.
Enzo cracks his neck and grimaces. “Had they come to me with this, I would have gouged their eyes out for watching it. I would not, under any circumstances, have responded favorably. But if you had come to me with this…” He rests his hand on the small of my back, just above my ass—both soothing and possessive.
“Everyone in this city knows I only have one weakness, cuore mio.”
I’m still not sure what that means, my brain still catching up.
“You, Rayne,” Micah says. “They intended to use you to manipulate Enzo.”
I guess that makes sense if they knew that the recording exonerated me. “Well, personally I’d say I’m a strength not a weakness, but…”
Enzo pulls me onto his lap, making me yelp with surprise. “Can you not be both?”
“I guess.” Against all my better judgment, I let myself melt against him, his arms somehow protecting me from the vile thing on his desk.
Micah clears his throat. “I’ll leave you both alone. Let me know if there’s anything else you need before tomorrow.”
“You okay with the plan?” Enzo asks him.
He winks. “Of course.”
Enzo thanks his brother and then Micah leaves us alone. We sit in silence for a few moments, both staring at the thumb drive on his desk. I want to ask for more information about the plan for tomorrow, but the video is taking up all of my attention.
Eventually he speaks. “What do you want to do with it, Rayne?”
“What are my options?”
He brushes his lips over the bare skin of my shoulder. “Whatever you want to do. We could destroy it—”
“You’d do that?”
He cups my cheek, rubbing the pad of his thumb over my lips. “If that’s what you want.”
“But don’t you want to see it? Don’t you want to see the proof of what Ethan did. Of what I told you?”
His brow furrows in a frown. “No, Rayne. I don’t want to watch that piece of shit hurting you. And I know what happened because you told me. And I also that know my father and Carmine planned it all. So, no, I don’t need to see that video to believe anything. To believe you.”
I stare at it, hoping it might magically burst into flames. A part of me wants him to watch it, even if the thought of him seeing what happened makes me feel sick. “But if you watch it, then you won’t have to believe me. Then you will actually know.”
“Rayne.” My name is spoken like a command, and he takes my face in both of his hands now, holding my head still so that I’m forced to look into his eyes. “I already know, because you are not a liar.”
“But you called me a liar. You said…”
His eyes fill with pain. “I know, cuore mio, and I regret doubting you for even a moment, for saying things that no amount of apologies can take back. It was my anger speaking, not my heart, and definitely not my brain. I heard my father’s voice in my head and…
” He stops speaking and shakes his head.
“None of that matters. I should have spoken to you instead of accusing you.”
“How did your father get into your head? I know he wasn’t my biggest supporter, but you never used to let that bother you.”
His hands slip from my face and pinches the bridge of his nose, his tell that he’s stressed or frustrated. “I don’t want it to sound like an excuse, because it’s not.”
“Tell me, Enzo,” I plead, needing to know.
He takes a breath. “He’d started making comments, veiled accusations about you and Tommy. I dismissed them, of course, but then he said you were just like my mama.”
And now I’m just plain old confused. “Your mama was a wonderful woman. I miss her every day. What’s wrong with being like her?”
His mom died a year before everything happened. It was terrible, and I’ve often wondered since if any of it would have played out the same if she’d still been around. I suspect not.
He closes his eyes and when he opens them again, they’re filled with tears. “Promise me you won’t think any less of her, Rayne. She adored you, and all of her children. She was a good mother.”
“She was the best mom. Why would I think less of her Enzo?”
His arms slide around my waist and he holds me tighter, like he’s afraid I might run away. “When I was five years old, she had an affair with my father’s best friend.”
“Oh, god.”
“That’s not the worst part. Then she left us. Angelo, Micah, Rafael, and me. I begged her to stay, and she still left them. She left me.” A tear runs down his face, and he swats it away angrily.
I realize now that he’s not holding onto me in case I run away, but because he needs to hold onto something.
To someone. And I’m happy to be his anchor.
I slip my arms around his neck. “Enzo, I’m so sorry.
” I know what it’s like to lose a parent so young.
My mom left when I was a baby too, but I barely remember her at all.
My dad did his best, but I could never quite compete with his love of whiskey or cocaine.
“She came back. It felt like a long time to me, but she told me it was just a few days. And she never left us again. Not even for a single night. And she did everything right. She had Luca a year later, and she loved us so fucking hard, like she would trade her lifetime to make up for that tiny period of time when she wasn’t there.
But I never forgot. I couldn’t, even though I tried.
I don’t think I ever truly forgave her, and she knew it.
I could tell by the way she looked at me. ”
“Oh, Enzo.” My heart is breaking for him, five years old and begging his mommy not to leave. “Why didn’t you ever tell me?”
He wipes another tear that leaks from the corner of his eye.
“Nobody ever spoke about it. Not her or Papa. My brothers don’t remember, and so I just kept it to myself.
Buried it in the hopes it would eventually disappear.
And I would have hated for that to have affected your relationship with her.
You were the daughter she always wanted. ”
I understand that, even if he didn’t need to protect me like that. But I’m guilty of the same, wanting to protect him after what he did to Tommy. “All of my memories of your mama are wonderful, and nothing will ever change that,” I assure him.
He gives me a sad half smile. “So, yeah, when I saw you with Tommy, I thought about my mama and Uncle Sal and I was five again.”
I rest my head on his shoulder, and for a moment we just sit, holding each other.
His hand rubs over my back. “Watching that video won’t change anything for me, baby.
If you need to see it for some kind of closure and you don’t want to do it alone, then I will sit through it with you and hold your hand.
But you absolutely don’t have to, and especially not for me. ”
I look at it again. An innocuous-looking blue thumb drive—the kind people rarely even use anymore. We don’t even truly know if that video is on there. And I decide I don’t want to know. “Can we destroy it?”
He kisses my forehead. “Of course we can.”
“Shall we burn it? Maybe we should burn some sage too and have ourselves a cleansing.” A laugh bubbles out of me.
“We can burn all the herbs if that’s what you want, baby. I think there’s some oregano and basil in the pantry,” he says deadpan.
When I look at him there’s no hint of amusement on his face. And now, I snort a laugh—a very very unsexy one.
He pulls a confused face. “What?”
“Enzo, you do know that sage for cooking and sage for burning are two different things, right?”
His lips twitch in a smirk. “Now why the fuck would I know that, Rayne? I don’t cook, and I’m not a Shaman.”
Images of him grabbing all the dried herbs from his kitchen has me almost doubled over. “Yes, let’s burn some sage from the pantry and have the entire penthouse smell like chicken.”
He shakes his head, a wide grin on his face now.
But now I’m suspicious. “Hold up, you know that Shamans burn sage though?”
“A lucky guess.” He shrugs.
“So you do know that they’re two different things.”
Another shrug. “Believe whatever makes you happy, baby.”
You make me happy, Enzo. I don’t tell him that, because this can’t last. I need to leave and go back to my old life. But for now, I can enjoy whatever this is. I snuggle against his chest and pretend that we can have this forever.