Chapter Thirty-Eight Enzo #2
We said nothing for the remainder of the journey. We got into the FBI building, and after he processed me through the system, we went up to his office. It was a nice office, but a glaringly governmental one. Nothing too fancy or glamorous. Practical, clean, and chronically gray.
“Sit.” He gestured to a chair.
I obeyed.
Tom got rid of his coat, rolled his sleeves up to his elbows, then draped himself on the edge of his desk in front of me. He crossed his arms over his chest.
We stared at each other quietly. I couldn’t get a read on him. He looked so collected, so matter-of-fact, that I wondered if our entire affair was nothing more than a figment of my imagination.
“I need you to be Orpheus,” he said eventually. His piercing blues impaled their way into my soul.
“Orpheus?” I smirked nervously. “I always fancied myself more of an Apollo kinda dude.”
“The FBI never dropped the Ferrante case,” he announced plainly, like this wasn’t mind-blowing information.
I didn’t even have the chance to hold my head to keep it from exploding before he continued.
“It’s still in full swing, and we’re making headway.
In fact, we’re very close to wrapping it up.
However, I did manage to carve you out of the blowback and get you a plea deal that’ll clean your hands of the mess, spare you from prison time, and release you from any legal issues that may occur.
So, yes, I need you to be Orpheus. Take the generous plea deal I stitched for you and never, ever look back. ”
My mind was swimming. I clutched the armrests of my chair as if his words could blow me across the fucking office.
He’d lied to me?
He’d kept working on the case the entire time?
Was all of this…what? A joke? A cruel way to punish me? A way to pass his time?
“You…you kept working on the case?”
“I did.”
“Why?” I forced myself to stay calm, and was successful for the most part, but only because the pain hadn’t kicked in fully yet.
I was at the fury stage and had to restrain myself.
If I ended up bashing his head to the point of decapitation in his own office, I was definitely not making it to the engagement shoot.
“Why what?” he asked coldly.
“Why did you lie to me?”
He shrugged. “I wanted to use you to get intel on the Camorra.”
“Bullshit.” I slammed my hands on the armrests, choking them like they were his throat. “You never once mentioned work. I’ll ask again—why?”
Tom remained unbothered, like my rage was nothing but theatrics. “I don’t know what to tell you, Enzo. I wanted to use you, got attached along the way, and decided to spare you. Why don’t we focus on the last part? I’m giving you an out. Take it.”
He was doing this shit again where he bricked over, retreated to that PTSD place inside himself, and buried his feelings. My usual methods of pulling him out of there were not appropriate for his glass-walled office. Besides, I wasn’t going anywhere near his stupid dick ever again.
And this time I was damn serious.
“I’ll call the AG right now so you can sign it before noon.” He picked up his phone. “Take the plea deal, kid. I stuck my neck out to get it for you.”
“I’ll never turn my back on my family.”
“Are you listening to me, Enzo?” He slammed his phone back on the desk, finally losing some of his cool. “I’m saving your life, your liberty, your future. This is the last bus stop where I can actually throw my weight around for you.”
“I never asked you to throw your weight around for me.”
“Well, I did it anyway. I’m about this close to putting my hands on the Camorra. If you take the deal now, you walk out of this untouched. Completely free,” he said. “Lila, too. Tiernan. Tierney. Your mother. They’re all spared.”
Suffocating heat rose inside my chest, the fire curling upward, scorching my airways.
Fuck, fuck, fuck!
“So I should just sacrifice Luca? Achilles? Our soldiers?”
Tom didn’t say anything. He just stared at me, eyes dead.
“Why do I get to walk free and they have to pay the price?” I roared. “Because I sucked some fed’s cock?”
“Yes,” he said bluntly, his eyes burning with all the emotions he didn’t let show.
“You want the honest-to-God answer, Enzo? Then yes. It was because you fucked exactly the right person, at exactly the right time, got lucky, and that man happened to be able to move heaven and hell for you. So. Let. Me. Help. You.”
“Tom, I can’t do this.”
“You have to do this. I arranged everything with the attorney general. It’ll free you from the engagement with Katya, from the Bratva, from this entire world.
You could start fresh. Go to med school, Enzo.
You’re smart and capable. Start over. Come out of the closet.
Have a real relationship. Just give me the okay.
I’ll make the call, and you walk out of here with every dream you’ve ever had—fulfilled. ”
My stomach churned painfully. “I see you’ve given this a lot of thought.”
“I did, actually.” He straightened a little. “And I made the executive decision for you, because you were never gonna put yourself first, and at some point, someone fucking had to.”
My nostrils flared as pieces of the puzzle clicked together in my head.
Oh, God.
Please. No.
No, no, no, no, no.
He wasn’t bluffing when he said he’d put me here.
“How did I get here?”
“What do you mean?” Tom asked in his usual haughty tone, but I could see him flinch.
“This…” I gestured toward the room. “It all seems too…orchestrated. Me getting arrested for some bullshit nothing. You arriving at the scene before I even got officially arrested. Wiring that money to Naples, making the case federal with a plea deal already put together for me…” I frowned.
“You making me promise I’ll take your advice when you give it to me…
The get-out-of-jail-free card… The influx of arrests among our soldiers…
Wave after wave of detentions that kept our ranks short and pushed Luca to put me on protection duty, so I’d do this nonstop, so you could find a CCTV where I was recorded and compromised… ”
I stared at him in horror, waiting for a denial that never came.
He tricked me. He trapped me. Betrayed me on the deepest fucking level.
“Tom?”
“What do you want me to say?” A surge of anger zinged through his eyes.
“I tried to see you as collateral, but when push came to shove, I chose to put my own career on the line to save you. So make it worth my while,” he croaked, his voice soft and pleading.
“I chose you, Enzo. Now it is time you choose me.”
I closed my eyes. Took a ragged breath. Opened them.
“No.”
“No?” He sneered. “Well, you don’t have a choice. You’re in my custody.” His face smoothed into a hard mask again. “You’ll have an anklet that will be activated if you wander two miles from your apartment to ensure you don’t do anything stupid. Like getting yourself into more trouble.”
“I do have a choice,” I countered, forcing myself to stay glued to the chair, knowing people at his office were watching us through the glass. “I can go back to headquarters, get re-arrested, and have my lawyer bail me out.”
“You won’t do that,” he snarled. “The FBI will raid your operation any day now. It’s over, Enzo. The Camorra’s done. I’m talking life without parole. For everyone.”
I dropped my head into my palms, groaning. When I looked back up, I was trembling all over.
“You’re offering me a new life where you can flaunt me around as your boy toy without being embarrassed in front of your colleagues? Is that it?”
“You don’t want to marry Katya.” A muscle jumped in his jaw.
“Tom, you’re sacrificing my family without asking for permission…”
I couldn’t believe he was doing this to me. Couldn’t believe he’d gotten me fucking arrested for extortion so he could extort me and make me sign a plea deal.
And I couldn’t believe it was really over. The Camorra. My family. Everything I’d ever known.
“Butterfl—”
“Don’t fucking call me that!” I screamed.
“Enzo,” he corrected himself, “the train’s in motion. I can’t stop it, even if I wanted to. I’ve risked a lot to get this deal for you. I’d be lying if I said I don’t want you to take it—I want you to be happy, free, and mine. All three of those things can happen. All you have to do is let them.”
“Yours?” I spluttered, jumping to my feet. I could no longer keep it together. This was the moment I truly lost my shit. “You want me to be yours? You’re ruining my fucking family!”
He shook his head. “No. They’re ruining themselves. They are getting what they deserve.”
“They raised me,” I roared. “And you’re taking them away.”
“If it weren’t me, it would be someone else. I did everything I could—”
“Forget fucking you, I could never even look at you again without wanting to vomit.”
He stared down at his shoes, swallowed hard, and didn’t say anything.
“Do you get what you did?” I shrieked. “Do you get how you ruined everything?”
“All I wanted was to save you.”
“Well, you haven’t saved me, and now I no longer want anything to do with you.”
“I figured you wouldn’t,” he said quietly. “And still, saving you and not having you seemed the better option than having you and watching you get locked up for life.”
The weight of his words hammered down on me all at once. Luca was going to prison, forever. Achilles, too. Me, as well, since I wasn’t going to let them face whatever it was the FBI would throw our way alone. I’d never do that to them.
Our lives, our legacy, our loves, our families, the children, Mama, Lila, Sofia, Tierney…
I bent over, the pain transcending the physical. The world dimmed, washed with cloudy, murky white dots of panic. I staggered backward.
“Enzo…”
Tom’s voice, once music to my ears, now sounded like the out-of-tune note of a rusty piano key.
My knees buckled. And then finally, the confusion, the rage, the bitterness of betrayal melted into sharp, potent agony.