Epilogue Enzo
Epilogue
Enzo
Two months later
I pulled back from the autopsy table and admired my handiwork.
It had taken me almost three weeks to skin and process Slava’s corpse. First, I’d had to recover it from the morgue after the FBI was done with it. There were a lot of things working against me—the state of his cadaver, mutilated organs, and trauma to the flesh, to name a few.
I took special care dealing with his body. Then there was the process of curing, tanning, and dyeing the skin. Afterward came the pattering, stitching, piecing, and lining.
I’d managed to make three waist-length leather jackets out of Slava Rasputin. Perfect for next winter.
Carefully folding the camel-hued jackets, I placed each of them in an individual black box.
I spritzed some perfume onto the leather, letting it air, before closing the black velvet boxes and wrapping them with a white satin bow.
There was a tantalizing thrill about opening a designer box containing a stunning new piece of clothing, and I wanted the recipients of these parcels to experience the same delight.
Lining the boxes on top of one another, I exited my office—formerly one of Tom’s two home offices.
Carrying the gifts through the hallway, I stopped at our bedroom’s doorway. Tom was sitting in bed, reading the New Yorker, as always.
He looked up from the magazine and beamed at me. “Hey.”
“Hi.”
“Is it time?”
“It is.”
“Let me grab my shoes.”
“You don’t have to come.” I shook my head.
It was scandalous enough that he knew what the jackets were made of.
Although I wasn’t reckless enough to actually flay people in our apartment.
No. I did it in my mama’s basement and brought the leather home, like a nice, respectable psychopath, with manners and shit.
Tom swung his feet to the floor and stood. “Nonsense. It’s your passion, and I want to see you in your element.”
Forty minutes later, we entered Celine, a designer boutique catering to a very specific, rich clientele. Namely—high-profile mobsters like me.
Audrey, the leggy buyer, slipped from behind her office desk and threw her arms around me in a hug. “Enzo! Sweetheart, it’s been a minute.”
Audrey was the middle-aged wife of a very prolific mobster who had killed one of my best friends. He, too, wore a jacket I’d made for him. She stepped back, still smiling brightly. “How have you been?”
“Good. Aud, I want you to meet my, uh, boyfriend—Tom.” I gestured toward the love of my life. I was proud when he not only offered her an outstretched hand, but also a warm, genuine smile.
“Boyfriend, huh?” She took his hand but gave me the stink eye.
The whisper of distress turned into full-blown anxiety.
Up until now, everybody we’d met had been so supportive of us—my family, Zeke, Tom’s grams, Iris and Silas.
It was easy to forget not everybody reacted this way, especially in my line of work.
“Yeah…” I rubbed the back of my neck, feeling the spot heating up. “I’m—”
“An honorable man, not some plaything,” she pointed out tersely. Oh, shit. Here we go. “And men of integrity do not have boyfriends, Enzo, they have husbands. So what do you intend to do about that?” She continued shaking Tom’s hand with surprising force, shifting her attention to him.
Tom raised an eyebrow. “I intend on asking him to marry me.”
The man did not miss a beat. My heart was in my underwear. Jesus.
“Aud. Stop it. It’s new,” I coughed out.
“So what?” She finally let go of Tom’s hand. “I only met Boris twice before we got married. We made it work.”
“It’s not that new,” Tom supplied. “I chased him for three years before he gave me a chance.”
Audrey clucked her tongue. “But was he worth the wait?”
“Oh, you have no idea.” Tom grinned.
“Then do something about it, or another man will.”
“Aud!” I broke in, before she interrogated him further.
“Fine, fine! Let me see the goods. People have been begging for them.” Audrey wiggled her fingers in delight. “We have two high-profile Bratva men vying for these, and about three Yakuza guys who are willing to outbid them.”
I slid the boxes on her sleek white desk, and she popped the first one open, gasping softly as she took in the jacket. Carefully, she fingered the fine leather, examining it from all angles, like it was a piece of art in a gallery. “Enzo, these must cost a fortune to make.”
“Fashion is my passion,” I said laconically.
“You’re such a natural. How much does it cost you to produce them?”
“Not that much. I told you, it’s from a small factory at an undisclosed location in Europe.”
This was my best-kept secret.
The flayed bodies of mobsters became jackets their friends wore. The same Bratva goons and Camorra thugs paraded about their old partners in crime without knowing it.
I’d prepared the jackets in a particular way. They were always the same camel-hued color, the same cut, and the same length. They had become a status symbol of sorts in the underworld, and many mobsters wore them.
What said mobsters didn’t know was that this jacket also symbolized danger to sex workers and marginalized people forced to work under the Mafia. It was a telltale sign for them to step back, run, and avoid.
This was my contribution to society. I had singlehandedly managed to make mobsters unwittingly buy their own prison uniform, something to warn people about who they were.
And it cost me nothing but time and vengeance.
After another round of superlatives, Audrey finally bade her farewell to me and Tom. He laced his fingers through mine when we got out of the boutique, bringing my knuckles to his lips as we strolled together on the busy street.
I was stuck in my thoughts, so he bumped his shoulder against mine. “So this is what you do, huh?”
“What?” I asked absentmindedly. Months ago, Slava had asked me what I did with the skin of the people I flayed. Little did he know at the time that he was going to become one of them.
“You make mobsters jackets out of other mobsters, and warn people off them.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Discord chats. Dark web. It can’t be tracked back to me if it blows up, though, because I created a label, a company in Italy, and a small factory. Everyone just thinks it’s my side hustle to make some extra bucks.”
“What do you do with those extra bucks?”
“Charity.” I swallowed. “Every penny goes back to the people I try to protect.”
“Enzo…” Tom’s voice was soft. I stared ahead. I knew it was fucked-up, what I did, even if it didn’t hurt innocent people. My violent tendencies were probably never going away. The least I could do was to channel them into some kind of social justice.
I cleared my throat. “So, you don’t think I’m a freak?”
“No,” he said gently. “Not at all.”
We were silent for a moment. The street was busy, smoke erupting from manholes, with people huddled in their puffy jackets, rushing in all directions.
“Butterfly?”
“Tomcat?”
“Mind if we make a pit stop somewhere?”
“That depends. Is that place a police station?”
He chuckled. He’d been doing that a lot lately. “No.”
“Sure, then.”
I had all the time in the world when it came to this man. An eternity to remind him how much I loved him for all the sacrificing he’d done for me.
Tom stopped in front of the subway, letting out an anxious puff of air. Damn. Things were serious if he was willing to use public transportation.
“Lead the way.”
“Well, this…certainly brings back memories,” I said twenty minutes later. I stared, wide-eyed, at our surroundings.
We were outside the gay club where it had all started.
The neon sign flickered on and off. It wasn’t quite dark yet, but otherwise, everything looked the same.
“Just like the first time, huh?” I turned to smile at him.
“No, not like the first time,” he whispered. “That time, I wasn’t in love with you.”
My smile faded. I didn’t like his wistful tone. He looked…on edge. Worried. “Tomcat…? Why are we here? What’s the meaning of this?”
“It was here—in fact, right on this spot”—he toed the cobblestone with his elegant boot—“that you asked me for a kiss. Just a kiss, not a ring, were your exact words, Enzo.”
I looked up at him, confused, when suddenly his lips fastened on mine, his tongue coaxing them open in this cocksure, potent way that still made my entire body quiver. The passion and skill were present in the kiss, like they always were. But there was something new, too.
Desperation.
Something that told me the hunger of his mouth wasn’t just for my body.
I stumbled back a step when we disconnected, heaving. Both our lips were swollen and pink.
“I wish I’d known,” he said.
“Known what?” I blinked.
“That I couldn’t fight this. This…this thing you stir in me. Even back then, I had a catastrophic feeling I was going to destroy my life to save yours.”
“Tom…” I cupped my mouth. That man better have a fucking ring in his pocket.
He went down on one knee. The universe shivered. It felt like my entire life, every heartache, every self-doubt, every minute of darkness, and cutting, and itching, and crying, had led me to this moment. To this man.
He produced a blue velvet jewelry box from his pocket and popped it open.
“Now you get to have both, my love. The kiss and the ring.” And then Tom Rothwell gave me the smile of all smiles. “Say yes.”
The ring was amazing. Exactly what I’d envisioned wearing when I thought of myself as a married man. A BVLGARI black ceramic. Thick and edgy, with small diamonds.
I offered him my outstretched hand. He slid the ring onto my finger, bringing my hand to his mouth and kissing my knuckles.
I snapped a picture of him doing that, uploaded it to my Instagram, and wrote a simple caption, no hashtags.
I said yes.
And that’s the story of how I broke the internet.
Tom
He looked so fucking beautiful with my ring on him.
Like a striking painting made even better with a genius splash of color.
Grams, Iris, and I had gone back and forth about this ring. It had to be masculine but striking, and stylish to a fault. I prided myself on my elegant, sophisticated taste, but even I had my doubts.
It needed to be perfect.
Just like him.
As I laced my fingers through Enzo’s, we glided back in the direction we’d come from.
I would love him in broad daylight from now on, but some things I would forever keep in the dark.
Like the time I’d met with Slava in Vegas shortly after Enzo and I had started texting, and offered him a mouthwatering sum of money, as well as the pakhan throne, if he collaborated with the FBI.
I was the one who’d conjured the idea of the Bratva shipment. The one who’d steered both organizations straight into the eye of the storm, but made sure only one of them was able to avoid catastrophe.
Initially, I’d done it for my own selfish reasons. I had wanted to rid myself of my Enzo obsession—and what better way to do that than locking him up for life?
Bringing down the Camorra, and Enzo with it, had been the master plan. However, I had made sure to have a plan B in store, for a different scenario.
I’d also taken into consideration what might happen if I succumbed to my infuriating attraction to the brown-eyed heartthrob, and to everything that lay beneath it.
Either way—I hadn’t left Vincenzo Ferrante up to chance. Whatever his fate was, I had intended to write it in my own words.
It had turned out exactly as I feared. Enzo was now the proud owner of my body, mind, and soul. Two days ago, I’d told him the story of what really happened during those tumultuous weeks. I wanted him to know my best-kept secret, so he could always trust me with his.
Nobody else was ever going to find out, though.
How Slava popped up as an informant out of nowhere only because I had summoned him, led him like a sheep to a slaughterhouse, promising him the pakhan crown, Las Vegas, and the Camorra on a plate.
How I’d fooled Sully, and Zeke, and the entire department.
How I’d pretended to stall, research, think, and analyze to throw Zeke and Sully off my scent.
How it had become apparent I was going to sacrifice everything to save the man I loved.
And how I’d sent my own informant to his death, breaking every code of honor and ethical integrity, just to have the Camorra’s enforcer all to myself.
Ours was the story of how I fell in love with a beautiful monster.
And how, for him, I’d become one, too.
The End