25. Enzo
ENZO
“I didn’t hear her leave.” Demi’s eyes widen my way, her pupils enlarging when she looks at me despite everything going on around us.
I want to carry her out of here in my arms and keep on walking until we’re somewhere safe, somewhere the fucking Bratva will never find us, a cave if that’s what it will take to ensure she never comes to any harm. But that’s not real life, and I have a promise to fulfill.
“It isn’t your fault. Bianca makes her own choices.”
Demi shakes her head. “Do you think she’s gone to Malevsky?”
“Only one way to find out.”
Neither of us moves. I’ve waited twelve months for this moment, and never expected it to happen this way, but there’s no one else I would rather fight for. Not even my brother.
I go to her, tilt her chin towards me, and kiss her softly. “I love you, Demi. I never stopped loving you, and even if this is the last time I get to say it—”
“Don’t.” Demi swallows hard, tears squeezing from the corners of her eyes. “Save it for when this is over.”
“Deal.”
I peer around the foyer where I had to climb over bodies earlier to get to Demi. The empty foyer where all that remains is an empty smoke canister and a shitload of blood drying on the floor and the walls.
“They moved the bodies,” I say more to myself than to Demi.
There’s no time to explain. I haven’t acknowledged the momentary lull in the battle taking place nearby until it starts again, only this time it’s coming closer. From all directions.
“Which way?” Demi asks.
Behind us is the piano room soaked in gasoline and with no other way out. Upstairs isn’t an option. And Malevsky had the house surrounded when I arrived, so we’re not walking out through the front door with our hands above our heads and being given a free pass to a destination of our choice.
“This way.” I turn right towards the living spaces and the den, gun ready.
Gunshots ring out from the room on the other side of the hallway, and I tug Demi down to the floor, covering her body with mine.
When they move on, I rise first, help her onto her feet and point to the open doorway at the far end. “Run!”
We both sprint, gunfire following us in the surrounding rooms, sporadically as if tracking our movements blindly.
It doesn’t feel right. If Gio came with an army, he wouldn’t stop until he’d taken down every last fucking one of them… Unless they’re hiding, biding their time till he has walked into the trap and they can wipe him out in one fell swoop.
Malevsky was quick to lock us in the piano room when Gio arrived.
Too quick. I didn’t question it because I was focused on freeing Demi and Bianca, but replaying his parting words in my head, I don’t buy it.
He already had the audience he’d been waiting for: me.
He could’ve lit the fire and gone after Gio knowing he was the only surviving Sabatelli, but instead, he gave us the opportunity to flee.
Why?
It hits me like a crippling punch in the gut, leaving me winded and breathless.
Gio was the target all along.
He knew my brother wouldn’t take his family and leave me behind; it isn’t in our blood to run from danger.
He targeted me because he saw me as the weakest link, mooning after Demi, drinking myself into oblivion, taking risks because they made me feel alive.
But there’s nothing I can give Malevsky that he can’t find from a hundred other privileged assholes with a healthy bank balance and the right contacts.
Gio, however, is like Rumpelstiltskin, turning everything he touches to gold.
I’m not revenge.
I’m the sacrifice.
The room at the end of the hallway is empty as I knew it would be. Malevsky kept me alive because, dead, I served no purpose. He allowed Gio and his army inside the house for the same reason: we’re all a part of whatever game he’s playing, and he’s moving us into place before he calls checkmate.
Which means we’re exactly where he wants us to be.
“Enzo?” Demi watches me with narrow eyes. “They’ve stopped.”
Anyone could be fooled into thinking that the house is empty, were it not for the bullet holes in the hallway behind us.
Malevsky might enjoy playing games, but he’ll attack when the time is right, and I’d wager my life that Gio and his men fired the shots we just heard while the Russians are building up to the finale.
“I want you to stay here.” I see it in her eyes, the fear that I’ll walk away from her and never come back, and I wish I could promise to stay alive, if only long enough to put things right between us. “I’ll be back.” It’s the best I can do.
“Where are you going?”
“To find my brother.” I pull her against me and remember how our bodies always molded together so perfectly, like we were made for each other. “Stay out of sight and keep this ready.” I point to the gun.
She nods, and fuck, all her mannerisms and gestures come flooding back to me as if we’ve never been apart.
With a small smile, I step back into the hallway and listen to the sounds of the house lying in wait.
I don’t know how, but my gut is telling me that Gio is waiting behind one of these closed doors, probably as flummoxed as I am about Malevsky’s intentions.
But whether we’re playing into his hands or not, I’ll take my chances alongside Gio rather than alone.
Here goes… One way or another, in about five seconds time, I’ll know if my gut has let me down or not.
“I’m Enzo Sabatelli,” I call out, “and I’m unarmed.”
I fix my stare at a spot on the door directly in front of me, waiting for it to be blown to smithereens and take me with it.
By the second beat, I allow myself to draw a breath.
By the third beat, when I watch the handle move, I lower my gun and wait for my brother to appear.
Gio’s gaze tracks left and right along the hallway, gun raised to chest height, before he steps forward and pulls me into a hug. “I’ll save the argument for later,” he says, releasing me. “Where are they?”
“Good to see you too, brother.” I give him a half-smile. “I assume you mean our Bratva friends. I was going to ask you the same question. Malevsky was playing with fire until he figured you’d arrived, and then he vanished in a cloud of smoke.”
Gio’s eyes narrow. “Demi?” Megan must’ve told him.
“I’m right here.” Demi runs along the hallway and hugs Gio. “Will you please tell your brother that he can’t take on the Bratva single-handedly?”
She steps away from Gio and leans against me, and my good arm curls around her shoulders from muscle memory.
“Nice try using Meggie to let you do this alone,” Gio says. “Like there was any possibility of me running to Sicily while you handled the Russians.”
“Are Meggie and the children safe?” I ask.
He’s right, I knew he would be here by my side, no matter how high the stakes.
Running away would cost him the respect of every family member, every mafia connection we’ve ever made, everyone he has done business with around the world.
But more important to him than that, it would be the end of any self-respect he has.
“They’re en route to Sicily. I’ve arranged for Sofia and Leo to join her there.”
The mention of my niece and nephew reminds me of someone else currently missing in action. “Bianca was here.”
Gio blinks slowly like it will help to place our sister’s name into context. “What happened?”
“We lost her.”
“She vanished, Gio,” Demi elaborates for me. “I don’t know how she got here, or why, but I had no idea she was involved in any of this until today.”
He nods once; we long ago stopped questioning Bianca’s reasons for preferring her chances alone. “She’ll show up when she’s ready; there are only so many places to hide when the Bratva are involved.”
I recall the foot soldiers in the soot-covered beds upstairs when I arrived. “You think they’re still inside the house?”
“They didn’t put up much of a fight outside,” Gio says.
“They wanted you to find me.” I realize that I’ve not explained my thought process to Demi when faint lines appear between her eyes. “I hate to break it to you, brother, but you’re the target.”
“Gio?” Demi seems to shrink away from him. “You were Brian?”
I loop an arm around her neck and kiss the top of her head. After all this time, these little gestures are so normal, I perform them without thinking. “That was all me.”
She peers up at me, her eyes large with unshed tears, and Gio clears his throat to get our attention.
“We should split up. You lead a team upstairs, and I’ll concentrate on this level and the basement.”
“The basement,” I repeat.
Inertia has allowed the pain of my ruined shoulder to crawl back inside my head, and I lean on Demi for support while I drag the layout of this property to the front of my mind.
I don’t recall seeing the basement on the drawing plans Bianca gave me a year ago.
It would’ve been the logical place to start a contained fire, and now I’m questioning whether she deliberately kept that piece of information to herself, because it would also be the logical place to hide a family when danger comes a calling.
“How many men did you see in the house?” I ask Demi.
“Half a dozen, maybe more. Everyone else was outside.”
I do the math in my head. “We killed maybe eight men upstairs. More in the foyer. But the bodies were moved by the time Malevsky vanished. Unless the basement is the size of the property and then some, it’ll be getting a little claustrophobic down there.”
“Not if it’s an escape route,” Gio says.
The phone call from Demi outside Gio’s apartment block cleared my head, but the concussion is coming for me with a vengeance again now.
“He’s mine.” I’m already following Malevsky’s route when he left us in the piano room. “Get Demi to safety.”
“Wait!” Demi’s voice follows me. “You can’t expect me to leave now.”
“We had a deal,” I shoot over my shoulder. “You promised.”
“Yeah, I lied.” She’s hot on my heels. “You can barely stand up, Enzo. I’m not letting you take on that fucker alone.”
“He won’t be alone. Demi,” Gio adds.