"I didn't hire you." He catches my wrist as I bring the towel back to his chest. The grip is firm but incredibly gentle. His thumb brushes the diamond ring on my left hand. His mother's ring. The cold metal sits heavily on my finger. "The contract was a lie. I knew it the second you walked into Il Corvo."
The admission strips the air from the room. We spent days that felt like weeks playing a high-stakes game of corporate warfare against each other. Every conversation was a battlefield. He used my crushing debt. I used my cynical armor. We fought tooth and nail to maintain the illusion of a business arrangement.
He just admitted he rigged the game from the start.
"You told me I was a tactical asset." I press the towel against the muscle of his chest. The friction makes his skin flush.
"I lied." He doesn't look away. "I needed you in my territory. I needed a reason to put my ring on your hand. The Bellanti operation was just a convenient excuse."
The arrogance of the man. The unmitigated audacity.
"You bought out my landlord's holding company, leveraged eighty-four thousand dollars of law school debt against me through a shell, and engineered a fake retainer—just to get my attention?"
"I would have bought the entire city block if that was what it took." The edge in his voice sharpens to a lethal point. The contract is being rewritten in real time, every clause tilting toward me. "I mapped your daily commute. I memorized the layout of your office. I ran a full background check on every opposing counsel who got too close in a deposition."
"That is stalking, Costa. It is a federal offense."
"Arrest me." He leans forward. His bare chest brushes against the front of my robe. The heat radiating off his skin is overwhelming. "Put me in cuffs. Lock me in a room. Just make sure you are the only one with the key."
My cynical armor officially dissolves into dust. Years of building walls to keep men at a distance, and this terrifying, blood-soaked mobster just walks right through them. He doesn't ask for permission. He simply claims the territory and sets it on fire.
"You are insane." I trace the ridges of his abdomen down to the waistband of his combat pants with a clean edge of the towel.
"I am entirely clear-headed." His hands drop to my hips again. The touch is reverent. "For the first time in my life. I see exactly what matters."
I set the bloody towel on the edge of the sink. I rip open a plastic packet of sterile saline and squirt it directly over the jagged cut on his bicep. The pink water runs down the muscle of his arm, dripping onto the pristine marble floor.
He barely registers the pain. He is too focused on the ring on my finger.
I tear open the butterfly bandages. My hands are remarkably steady. I press the sticky adhesive across the cut, pulling the separated edges of skin tightly together. The wound is clean. It will scar, adding to the violent tapestry of his life, but it will heal.
"Matteo is going to demand answers." I smooth the final bandage into place. "He runs this operation. You destroyed his strategy. What happens tomorrow morning?"
"Tomorrow morning, Matteo will rebuild." Enzo's tone brooks no argument. "It will take time. The Bellantis have an opening now that they did not have before. We have the ports. We have the politicians. We will find another angle. The cost is real. I accepted it the second Rourke said your name."
"And if he demands I leave the compound? Now that the cover is blown?"
The temperature in the bathroom plummets. Enzo's eyes snap up to mine. The raw violence roaring behind his pupils is staggering. A muscle jumps in his jaw. The veins in his neck bulge.
"You are not leaving." The words are a vow. A threat. A promise. "This is your home. This is your territory. If Matteo has a problem with it, he can take it up with me. In the yard."
He is willing to fight his own blood brother for me.
A knock sounds on the oak door of the bedroom outside.
Enzo instantly shifts. The soft, pliant man vanishes. The fixer recalibrates in a fraction of a second—every variable in this room re-ranked by threat level. He stands up, his frame blocking me from the doorway. His hand drops instinctively to his waist, reaching for a weapon that is currently sitting in a pile on the floor.
"Enzo." The muffled voice belongs to Turi. "Are you decent? I have medical supplies. And a message from your brother."
Enzo's shoulders drop, recognizing the voice of the man who raised him. But he does not step aside.
"I am fine, Turi." Enzo projects his voice through the bathroom into the bedroom. "I don't need supplies."
"I am leaving a tray outside the door." Turi's voice carries clearly through the wood. "Gemma made food. Matteo is currently tearing the industrial kitchen apart, swearing about blown operations and ruined ledgers. Dante is laughing at him. The house is secure."
A pause. A held breath on the other side of the door.
"Turi." I call out, ignoring Enzo's attempt to handle the situation alone. I step around his body and walk toward the bedroom door.
