23. Enzo
ENZO
E
In and out. That’s all it was meant to be; get inside the house, disarm the alarm, set fire to the den so that it would be visible from the surrounding properties, and plant the warning in the piano room on my way out.
Security was minimal. The occupants were in Russia, and that was the whole fucking point of carrying out the job while the place was vacant.
I had a bad feeling in my gut that day, like I’d eaten some dodgy seafood, but I ignored it because… I felt I owed this favor to the person with the grudge against the Bratva.
If I’d known then that it would turn my life upside down and have me back at the scene of the crime a year later, I’d have walked away, gone home to Demi and made pasta, opened a bottle of wine, listened to Frank Sinatra.
I didn’t even tell Gio because I thought I could handle it.
It’s fair to say that I’ve learned a few lessons over the past twelve months.
Lesson number one: some fuckers are born twisted and belong in a cage. Or on a distant planet at the edge of the universe with a tank of oxygen and a single weapon for survival amongst all the other sick fuckers enjoying the same fate.
Lesson number two: when you find love, you don’t need to throw money and fancy things at it. All you need to do is listen.
Lesson number three: even superheroes can’t save everyone.
Deep down, I already knew the real Nyx. Was it luck that I chose her door the first time I entered JADED, or would it have made no difference? They could’ve placed Demi in whichever room I chose, dressed her up differently, given her a brand-new persona, and the connection would’ve been the same.
Because love is love, and once you discover it, your heart beats solely for the person who holds it in the palm of their hand, whether they want it or not.
Gio hasn’t called, and that’s more disturbing than seeing Malevsky with his arm around my woman. The pakhan has it coming to him. But silence is out of character for Gio; when I asked Megan to call him and get them out of the city, I was expecting a warning at the very least.
“Don’t let your emotions mess with your head.” I can hear his voice now.
The Fish shot Megan and left her for dead with a bunch of explosives for company.
He kidnapped Amber and hid her in the bunker beneath our mountain lodge in Stowe, Vermont.
He slaughtered our entire security team and almost killed Megan’s best friend Nikki.
But somehow, my brother kept his cool until the very end.
We might carry the same genes, we might fall hard and fast when we meet the right woman, but that’s where our similarities end. There’s nothing calm and collected about me when it comes to Demi.
My cell rings, and my heart skips when I think it might be her again.
It’s Megan. “Enzo, have you spoken to Gio?” The panic in her voice is coming through loud and clear, and it’s contagious.
“I thought he was with you.” At least, that’s what I’d hoped. If he isn’t…
“I can’t get hold of him. I don’t know what to do. Should I take the twins and go get Amber on my way to the airport?”
Fuck, fuck, fuck! I need to chill the hell down; Megan and Demi need me to take care of them, and I can’t do that while I’m mentally turning Dmitri Malevsky’s body into a pincushion.
The Bratva got into my apartment like it was a kid’s maze to solve: follow the lines and reach the penthouse.
They haven’t touched Gio’s family, yet, but they’ll be watching the building, and I can’t risk them holding Megan and the children hostage in a different part of town while I’m on a mission to save my woman.
“No, stay put with Bianca. I’ll send Luis for Amber and I’ll find Gio.”
The pause stretches a beat too far. “Bianca isn’t here,” Megan says in a small voice.
The fear in my gut is stirring like someone just prodded it with a stick. “Where did she go?”
“I don’t know. I went to check on the twins and when I came back, she was gone.”
“Okay, stay right there. Gio keeps a gun in the safe in the bedroom. I want you to get it and use it if you must but promise me you won’t leave the apartment.”
“Enzo, I don’t think I can…”
“You can do it for the twins and for Amber.” Motivational talks are not my forte, but I sense Megan needs more. “Aim for the chest; it’s the widest target, and you have more chance of keeping them down. It’s you or them, Meggie, you know how it works.”
“I-I’ll try.”
“Good girl. Remember what I said: don’t leave the apartment.”
“I won’t.”
I end the call and try Gio’s number; it goes straight to voicemail.
I’m confident that the Bratva hasn’t got their hands on him; Malevsky would’ve gotten too much joy from that snippet of information to keep it to himself. So, wherever he is, he has good reason for flying under the radar.
I’m pissed at Bianca for leaving Meggie and the kids, but I’ll deal with that later.
Right now, I need weapons, and then I’m going to prove to Demi that I meant it when I said I would die for her.
Luis calls in favors around the city and turns Megan and Gio’s apartment into New York’s equivalent of Fort Knox.
Backup would’ve been a bonus, but I think I always knew that it would end this way, right from the first moment I set eyes on Demi.
I would’ve liked a second chance, time to prove to her that I could meet her in the middle and do things her way, hell I would meet her in a fucking crypt with corpses for company if it would make her happy.
Now, the best I can hope for is that I get to tell her in person that dying for her is a privilege.
Either way, I’m taking Malevsky down with me.
I’m half-expecting to find Gio at our armory in an abandoned hangar outside of town. When he isn’t there, I run a quick inventory, hoping that he’s prepared, but nothing appears to be missing either.
I take as much as I can carry without drawing attention to myself. There isn’t a taxi driver in the city who will pick me up kitted out with a machine gun and explosives, but there are plenty of smaller weapons that I can conceal inside my clothes and socks.
I’m not afraid.
Walking out of the armory with the weight of my weapons of choice keeping me grounded, I feel more serene than I have since Demi left me. This is the life that the Sabatellis are born into, and I never once considered trying to fight it.
Even so, my footsteps are a little lighter, when a car carrying Luis and a small security team careens across the tarmac surrounding the hangar, tires squealing as it halts in front of me.
I climb into the passenger seat. “Megan and the kids?”
“Covered.”
I nod. They’ve done what I asked. The rest is down to me. I give Luis the address of the burnt-out property. “They have Demi. Whatever happens, we keep her alive, and Malevsky is mine.”
We don’t speak in the car.
Luis parks the vehicle some distance from the derelict building so we can approach on foot and scope out the enemy before barging in there.
No vehicles are parked outside, but the tire tracks on the gravel driveway leading up to the entrance means that Malevsky brought an army. Maybe he has forgotten that I know the layout of the building too.
“Movement in the lower windows,” Luis says.
“They won’t risk hiding upstairs.”
I don’t add that Malevsky is no doubt confident that we won’t get that far, but whoever built the house at the beginning of the last century, having probably never heard of the Bratva, had more traditional ideas about security.
They planted oak trees around both sides of the building to provide shade at various times of the day, and those acorns have grown into giants.
Giants that will get us inside the house while the bratva guard the regular entry points.
“Their weakness is our advantage. How are your tree-climbing skills?”
“I’m surprised you need to ask,” one says. “Do we have a plan?”
“Plans are for the Bratva. All we need is a hostage.” I have a vague notion of how this might go, but it won’t solidify into something I can work with until I know what we’re up against.
We split into two small groups, Luis and I head left, and the other three guards make their way to the right.
I could kiss the original homeowners for leaving nature to take its course.
The trees are so dense, the heavy branches keep us in shadow as we ascend, sticking close to the trunk.
Once we’re level with the upper story windows, all we need to do is choose a branch strong enough to get us to the house, and from there, we can lower ourselves inside through the vacant window frames.
The bedrooms on the upper level are charred, the walls blackened, the furnishings singed and left to rot, but the bulk of the damage was caused by smoke rather than flames.
However it managed to spread, it either burned out before it reached these rooms, or the fire department got here in time to salvage what they could.
We enter with our guns held at chest height. Through the first room, the door is ajar, and we’re able to peek out into the dingy landing. The house is silent.
Too fucking silent.
Bianca and Gio both confirmed that the Bratva is operating quietly, but that’s behind the scenes. Doesn’t mean they’ll exact their revenge with the same level of hushed dignity, even if they intend to tarnish Gio’s name with the sick Malevsky brush once this is over.
I gesture for Luis to cover me as I step outside the first bedroom.
It isn’t only voices and movement that’s missing; it’s the subaudible sounds of a house going about its daily routine, electricity humming through cables, curtains catching the breeze through an open window, floorboards creaking.
I take a step, placing my weight hesitantly on the sturdiest floorboard.
It holds without a sound. We proceed in this fashion, testing our weight as we go because crashing through the ceiling and landing on Malevsky’s head isn’t quite the grand entrance I envisaged.
It might give us the element of surprise, but it will also alert every thug in the vicinity to our presence before we’re back on our feet.