Chapter Forty-Nine Enzo
Chapter Forty-Nine
Enzo
“And how did it make you feel?” Dr. Andrews asked as I sat on the possibly-vintage-but-probably-Anthropologie-sourced green tufted Victorian sofa in front of her. “When Timothy sacrificed his entire career for you?”
Obviously, I hadn’t given her exact details about what Tom had done, or where he worked. I hadn’t even given her his real name. I called him Timothy. But we had been talking about him. A lot.
It had been almost a month since the morning he waited outside my apartment, and I had used every single second of it working toward getting better.
“It made me feel”—I slurped my green shake, shaking the ice inside it distractedly—“unworthy.”
“Why?” She folded her legs, perching her chin on her knuckles.
Dr. Andrews was a stylish woman in her sixties. She had a sharp gray bob, eccentric jewelry, and a proud smirk whenever I had a breakthrough. I liked her.
I’d learned that psychologists weren’t much different from toddlers. Their go-to word was Why? I found it maddening. It also gave me a terrible headache. Therapy was like a workout for the mind. And my brain was grossly out of shape.
“Why do I feel unworthy of such sacrifice?” I rubbed my chin, considering the question. My phone vibrated in my pocket. I ignored it. “Because…well, because all the people in my life who love me have always loved me with strings attached. Other than my sister Lila, maybe.”
“And Timothy doesn’t?” She scribbled on her notepad.
“Nope.” I worried my lip, contemplating this. “He just loves me because…”
“Because?” She stopped scribbling, her gaze flitting to meet mine from beyond the reading glasses perched on the tip of her nose.
“Because…” I halted, trying to articulate the reason Tom was so devoted to me.
“Yes?”
“Because…I’m…worth it.” The words were spoken quietly but felt loud inside my head.
She did that smirk thingy. Her silent ka-ching.
My chest felt tight and warm. This was a monumental discovery. The realization that I was worth it. Worthy of love. Of sacrifice. Of grand gestures and life-altering decisions.
My phone vibrated in my pocket again. I swallowed hard and mumbled, “Sorry. Please continue.”
She flipped a page on her pad. “I want to go back to that night you came to visit Timothy—”
My burner beeped in my back pocket. I froze. This was code red. Meaning the world was fucking ending. Apocalyptic-shit bad. Dystopian-level emergency.
Dr. Andrews pursed her lips. “Do you need to take that?”
“Uh…yeah.” I smiled awkwardly, fishing the burner out. Luca’s number showed on the screen. I pressed the phone to my ear, hard. “Ah…hello?”
“Enzo.” My name ripped from my brother’s throat. I’d never heard him so panicked, so out of breath. I sat up straight.
“Hey. What’s going on?”
“It’s…it’s Sofia—” He strangled out the word, unable to continue.
“What about her?” I was already up on my feet and heading toward the door without sparing Dr. Andrews a second glance.
No answer from the other end of the line. I wanted to break something while tearing through the narrow, well-kept hallway of the old redbrick that hosted the psychologist’s clinic. “Luca!” I roared. “Focus. Tell me what’s happening.”
“They took her.” His voice broke. “Jeremie. He kidnapped my wife. My son.”
For the first time, my older brother sounded like a child. He was lost, out of his depth, and in need of help.
“Where are you?” I growled.
“Our…the house.” He swallowed audibly. “The house I bought for us. In the ’burbs.”
“Wait there. I’m picking you up. We’re flying to Vegas.”
When I called Achilles, I was informed the plane was already waiting on the tarmac.
It was time for war.
Taking a leaf from Dr. Andrews’s book of self-love, I put myself first this time around.
It meant that before picking up Luca and Achilles, I stopped at Tom’s place. I knew he would be home, because we’d texted earlier and he told me he was doing some home improvement shit to get rid of the pent-up horniness.
I went up the elevator and knocked on his door. When he opened up, the first thing he did was grab me by the ass and hoist me to wrap my legs around him. The way I glued myself to him should be studied by scientists for years to come. I doubted he could pry me off using a fucking crowbar.
I couldn’t get past how his entire face melted into this radiant, gorgeous smile when he first saw me. He was so stingy with his smiles, but they were glorious. They rearranged things inside me that years in therapy couldn’t.
We devoured each other, tongues stroking, coaxing our mouths to open wider. We kissed like kissing was the endgame and the entire point. I didn’t even grind my engorged dick all over his muscular stomach. If that didn’t earn me a Nobel Prize, then what the fuck could?
I arched and melted in his arms, his fingers digging into my ass, his mouth making demanding grunts I tried to placate him with more tongue and more sucks. His heart picked up, and mine did, too. They sledgehammered holes through our chests, trying to merge into one entity.
“Butterfly,” he croaked. “You’re really here?”
“There’s nowhere else I’d rather be.”
More kisses. More nipping, biting, licking, chuckling in euphoria. Oh, God. How was I going to leave this behind even for a few hours, let alone the eternity of death?
“I’m going to Vegas.” The words spilled between us, into the passionate kiss.
He froze, still holding me tightly to him. I waited for him to fight, to argue, to tell me not to go. But I guess Tom had done his share of growing, too, because he realized nothing could tear me from my family obligation, and just squeezed me closer, letting his eyes flutter shut.
“In case I don’t come back…” I rolled my tongue along his chiseled jawline, savoring the saltness of his skin.
“You will come back.”
“Yes, of course, but on the off chance the universe tilts and throws all of us into the abyss…” I brushed the tip of my nose against that spot in his throat that begged to be sucked and worshipped, trembling all over with yearning.
“I want you to know that there was never anyone else. Only ever you.”
“We both have pasts.”
“No, Tom. Only you do. All I had before you was camouflage.”
He plastered his forehead to mine, his ragged breath rattling in my lungs. Our eyes met. I couldn’t fucking breathe when he looked at me like that. Like I was the epicenter of the universe.
“My heart won’t take it if anything happens to you,” he warned.
“I know.”
“You cannot, under any circumstances, die.”
“Ever, or…?” I made a comical face, and he narrowed his eyes, awarding me with a sharp nip that left my lower lip smarting.
“Promise me you’ll be careful.”
“I’ll be careful.” I meant it. I usually wasn’t, but now I had something tangible to come back to.
Loving him was killing me. But not loving him was going to kill me more.
I was ready to start living. In the light. In truth. And by his side.
I was ready.
“Be safe, my rook.”
“Rook?” I cocked my head.
“That’s your chess piece.” He thumbed a floppy piece of hair from my forehead, even though it always fell back. “You’re the protector of your family, Enzo. But this time, I also need you to protect yourself.”
“I will,” I promised. “And when I come back…”
He held his breath.
“When I come back, Tom, you’re making an honest man outta me.”