Chapter Twelve Enzo
Chapter Twelve
Enzo
“Which one for a night out?” Katya thrust two hangers in front of her phone screen as we FaceTimed. My back was pressed against my headboard, eyes flitting over the skimpy red dress, then the summery pink one with the tiny yellow smileys.
“Do you want to get fucked or be romanced under the stars?”
Katya let out a giggle. “I don’t know, both?”
I snorted, shaking my head. “Can’t have both. You have to choose.”
“Fine. Fucked.”
“Lucky guy.”
She rolled her eyes. “It’s so weird that we’re having this conversation. You’re my fiancé, for crying out loud. Anyway, help me decide. I still need to do my hair and shave my legs.”
I pointed at the hanger in her right hand. “Red one. With the black choker and army boots. You’ll look hot in it.”
Katya was hot, no matter what she wore. So was the sun. I still had no desire to fuck either.
“All right. I’ll wear the red one. I’ll keep you posted on whether it worked or not.”
“Is this a date?” I tossed my Swiss Army knife in the air, bored and dissatisfied, my usual emptiness even more heightened, festering beneath my skin like maggots.
“Not exactly.” She sank her teeth into the corner of her bottom lip, chewing thoughtfully. “He’s kind of my…um, professor?”
Clocking this, I stopped tossing the knife, leveling her with a look. “And you’re okay with the power imbalance of it?”
She rolled her eyes. “Not really. I wish he was more dominant in bed. Unfortunately, hookups don’t come with a manual.” Katya examined her coffin-shaped fingernails. “Really, though, I’m the temptress here.”
I barked out another laugh, kicking back as I hurled the knife to the ceiling again, then caught it. I should’ve known better than to doubt her. “Don’t tell me you’re fucking Vaughn Spencer?”
“No! Oh, God, what’s wrong with you? He’s happily married!” she scolded, her entire face turning red. “It’s another art professor. Professor Pope. Rafferty Pope. Super talented. Super hot. Super reclusive.” She waggled her brows.
“Sounds forbidden,” I mused. “I can see the appeal.”
Understatement of the decade.
“He’s only in his early thirties.” She plopped onto the bed in her dorm, blowing dark strands of hair from her bright blue eyes. “Ugh. I can’t believe you’re cheering me on to sleep with someone else. I wish you were attracted to me.”
My stomach bottomed out. I hated disappointing her. She was already self-conscious about Achilles dumping her into my hands when our father tried to marry her off to him.
I hated even more that instead of wanting Katya, all I seemed to crave was dick. And not just any dick. Oh, no. The particular dick I fantasized about was attached to a fucking fed. One who very much hated my guts.
“I’m attracted enough to fuck you nice and good if you ever need it.” I flashed my lopsided, lazy smirk.
She let out a snort, snatching a hair band from the bed and tossing it at the camera. “I don’t want your pity fucks.”
“I’d never pity you, Katya.”
“Speaking of our soon-to-be dysfunctional marriage, my brother tells me Luca wants us to marry in May?”
“Yeah.” I bristled. “Luca sai—Wait, which brother did you talk to?”
“Alex.” She tilted her head sideways, studying me. Alex was the oldest and the Bratva’s pakhan. He called the shots. “Why?”
“Because if it were Jeremie, I’d have asked you what the hell his problem is, running off with Luca’s wife like that.”
Katya tutted. “Maybe they’re in love? People do a lot of crazy things when they’re in love.”
I wouldn’t know, because I’d never been in love. I’d been faithful to the only woman I’d dated—Adriana—and I definitely developed deep, positive feelings toward her, but I never felt out of contro—
No.
That wasn’t true.
I did feel out of control when it came to Tom.
I sighed. “Hey, speaking of hookups…”
“Yeah?” She hopped from the bed, sliding off her oversize shirt. She wasn’t wearing a bra, just a small black lacy thong. Her perky breasts swung with her movements as she slipped into the red dress. My dick was softer than a plushie.
Dammit, dick, stop being such a snobbish prick.
“I’m seeing someone casually.” I cleared my throat. “Very casually.”
“I figured.” She zipped her dress, tugging her long hair and letting it spill over her back. “Your Instagram was the first clue.”
“Ah, shit.” I massaged my eye sockets. “Sorry. Did that bother you?”
“Not at all. Our families probably speculate that it’s me. Do I know her?”
A lump rose in my throat. I pushed it down. “Nah. They’re not from our scene.”
“They?” She elevated an eyebrow, waiting for more.
I was now ninety-nine percent sure I was gay.
Not bi. Not asexual. Gay.
At some point, I was going to tell her. I think.
But it’d be nice to establish more trust first. My sexuality wasn’t something I wanted the underworld to discover.
A lot of prejudice, homophobia, and stigma still riddled the underbelly of society.
Out of my entire extended family, Tierney was the only one who knew the truth.
Only because I had been sloppy enough to accidentally upload a picture of my actual face to a gay dating app some years ago before she texted me to take it down when her friend recognized me.
Dodging the question, I pointed at the lipstick Katya now brought to her lips. “No, not that one. Too pale. Go with a maroon. A shade lighter than the dress.”
She tossed the lipstick into her makeup bag and grabbed another one. “You’re right. What was I thinking? How do I look?”
“You look perfect,” I said softly.
Perfect for someone else.
I checked the time on my watch. I had to head to the gym, then work. “All right. Good luck with your not-date. If he makes you uncomfortable, SOS me. I have a soldier on campus to ensure your safety.”
“You too?” She grunted. “Lyosha makes me walk around with two of them. An overkill, if you ask me.”
“It’s for your own safety.” I made a move to end the call.
“Wait, before you go.” She snapped her fingers. “I’m coming back home when it’s a bank holiday here in a couple weeks. I’ve already compiled all the venues I want to check out, the catering, florist, etcetera. Everything is going to cost a little extra, though, because of the rush fee.”
I froze, her words spreading in my veins like a lethal injection. It was becoming real.
“Not a problem,” I mumbled.
“Can you believe we’re going to be married in six months?”
I couldn’t.
Which was why, as soon as we hung up, I scratched the living hell out of my arms, my torso, my back, feeling my skin crawling with the lies I’d spewed to the world.
Gasping for breath, I clawed my skin off my body, desperate to rip chunks of it out and dump it on the floor.
Growling, I scraped my fingers on my raw flesh until it turned pink, then red.
I tore my way through the pain and the numbness that came after, digging and digging like a dog with a bone, desperate to uncover all the truths that lay underneath the surface I kept so perfectly intact.
Out.
I wanted to be out of this body.
Out of this arrangement with Katya.
Out of the closet.
Cash’s unmaterialized threat was always there, in the periphery of my mind, like a loaded gun aimed at my temple.
Someone already suspected.
Someone wanted to destroy me.
They were just looking for proof. And here I was, idiot of the fucking century, about to provide it to them in the form of an illicit affair with a fed.
Why him? Why him? Why him?
The big irony didn’t escape me.
The only thing that made me feel alive these days was the very thing that could get me killed.
Tom Rothwell.
I wasn’t waiting for Friday to see Tom.
Fuck that.
It was like asking a junkie to patiently wait until next week for his hit while they were convulsing with withdrawals.
He’d laid down some rules, but at the time, I wasn’t in a position to bargain over them.
Sure, he had a highly demanding job catching bad guys. Well, I was a bad guy, and I wanted to be caught. Win-win, if you asked me.
I’d tried to honor our arrangement. For the most part, anyway. But then the shit with Katya happened, and I needed something, anything, to take my mind off the impending calamity that was my love life.
This morning, some dirty fed on the Camorra’s payroll, Tony, happened to tell me a black-tie event was taking place at headquarters, and that everyone in Tom’s department would be attending.
Arriving at a high-profile FBI event was sheer lunacy, considering my day job. And yet my need to explore our sexual chemistry further dulled all my other senses. I didn’t even consider hooking up with other men on apps or through Instagram.
First of all, after the Cash debacle, I really valued Tom’s hawkish approach to confidentiality.
Second, I wasn’t an idiot. I knew the attraction for Tom wasn’t just because he was a man. It was because he was my grumpy tomcat.
For our one-sided date, I decided to bring out the big guns and wear a black cutoff muscle tee and fitted jeans. I plopped one tendril of hair over my forehead and glanced at the mirror.
Perfect.
I lathered Clobetasol propionate on my psoriasis-affected skin and popped a steroid.
Satisfied, I shrugged on a biker jacket and strolled to the building where the event would take place.
I smoked a cigarette on my way there, which I tossed aside halfway through, remembering I wanted to choke on his tongue and cock.
I’d bet both my nuts he was the kind of prudish snob who got turned off by the scent of cigarettes.
Once I got to Federal Plaza, I leaned against the building across the street and watched the revolving door leading up to the entrance. Ancient-looking people in ill-fitted smart clothes milled around, so I figured the event was almost over.
Please let it be over. I need my grumpy tomcat.
I waited ten minutes, then twenty.
This wasn’t stalking.
It wasn’t.
You couldn’t stalk someone you were kind of, sort of hooking up with.
Fine. It was stalking. But it was a form of repayment for all the other times he’d stalked me.
Equality for all, amiright?
Actually, I kind of missed his stalking, now that he was no longer doing it.
I still didn’t know what to make of his claim that the FBI was off our backs. It seemed too convenient, too abrupt, but I also knew asking him about it was pointless. He was cagey when I asked him how his days were going, so this was firmly out of the question.
Luckily, the Camorra was all buttoned up, so it didn’t really matter. Besides, I was just as tight-lipped with the federal agent as he was with me.
Figuratively, of course. My mouth couldn’t open wide enough for Agent Asshole in the literal sense.
After thirty minutes, I lit myself another cigarette. A sinking feeling weighed my entire body down. He wasn’t coming out.
At half past eleven I threw in the towel. Maybe he hadn’t attended. Maybe he’d stayed home. Or at the office. Maybe he was sick.
With a groan of frustration, I flicked the cigarette butt sideways, turning in the direction of my apartment.
“Pick it up,” a husky voice demanded behind me.
I spun around, finding Tom in a full tux, looking like the purest aphrodisiac, and every thought in my head evaporated into the ether.
How was he so good at sneaking up on me when I dedicated most of my waking moments to searching for his face in the crowd?
Struck speechless by his presence, I reached out to kiss him. He stepped back aloofly, hands wedged in his front pockets. “I said, pick it up.”
“Pick what up?” My confused moan grated in my ears. And did I really just try to kiss this man in the middle of the damn street?
“The cigarette butt. You’re littering.”
A laugh rippled through my tight chest. “Tom, we’re in New York.”
“Pick it up.”
I groaned. “Is this a degradation kink you’re exploring? Because you’re going about it a bit tediously, if you ask me.”
“I’m not gonna ask again. I’ll simply arrest you.” His tone gave me frostbite.
“You can’t arrest me for breaking city laws.”
“Federal land, federal jurisdiction.” He gestured at the building we were standing next to. “Now, don’t make me ask again.”
Fuck.
I stood there and stared at him, calling out his bullshit. Surely he wasn’t that fucking obstinate.
Only he totally was.
“Jesus fuck, this is not what I had in mind when I thought you were anal.” I stomped to the damn cigarette butt.
I made a show of picking it up and dumped it into the nearest trash can.
“There you go, Your Highness. Happy now? Thanks to you, New York is back to its pristine condition.” I motioned around us, at the mountains of garbage bags sitting on the side of the street, the flattened fast-food wrappers, and the pile of dogshit at my feet.
“What are you doing here?” He scowled.
Damn. He didn’t even tell me I looked good, and he made me pick up garbage.
Why couldn’t he ambush me again and fuck me?
I didn’t need his chiding right now. I needed mindless distraction, to drown the voices in my head, to forget the path my future was put upon, the charade I was expected to carry for the rest of my life.
“I came to claim my fuck. It’s been eight days. I’m horny.”
“I don’t care,” he deadpanned, amusement dancing in his sharp blue eyes. They sparkled behind his thick-rimmed glasses, which right now I had the urge to break. “I told you, we’ll meet on Friday.”
“Fuck Friday. Make time for me now.”
“It’s midnight.”
“Your obligations are over.”
“You’re not in my plans.”
“The best things in life usually aren’t,” I hissed, realizing I was breathless for some reason. “They happen spontaneously, without permission; this is one of those things.”
“No. You’re nothing special,” he insisted, his throat working around the words, like pushing them out took effort.
I waited. Maybe he’d change his mind. I didn’t like begging, but this wasn’t a real relationship, and in the grand scheme of things, it didn’t matter who initiated our meetups, as long as they happened.
Right now, they were the only thing keeping me going.
Tom shook his head. “Enzo…”
I knew FBI agents worked insane hours, but I also knew people made time for shit they prioritized. Fucking me was low on his to-do list. I was already feeling disposable and on edge. Begging him to come home with me seemed like just another thing to dampen my mood and sink my self-worth further.
Resisting the urge to itch the back of my neck, which I could already feel flaring into another bout of the disgusting rash that’d take over my entire back, I gave it one last try.
“Look, I’m already here, and I had a shitty week. Are we doing this or not?”
Tom clasped his jaw, working it back and forth, and I sensed an internal battle frothing its way up the surface. He wanted to say no, maybe even needed to say no, to prove something to himself, but I had a feeling he, like me, wanted this.
Finally, he opened his mouth. “I’ll see you Fri—”
“Nah, fuck that.” I made a show of jerking my cigarette pack out of my pocket, produced one cigarette, tossed it on the ground, and crushed it with the tip of my boot. “We’re done.”
I turned around and stomped away.