“I need to speak to Church,” Enzo continued. He frowned. “What? I don’t fucking care. I want to talk to him. No. No.” He rubbed his eyes. “Yes. Listen?—”
A muscle flexed along his jaw before he let out a soft snarl.
“I know what the fucking deal was,” he snapped. “I was there when it was made. I need to know—” He paused, his chest moving quickly as he listened to whatever Sylar was saying to him.
“Fucking asshole,” Enzo snapped, pulling the phone away from his ear and looking to me.
“Hung up?” I asked.
“That guy is fucking nuts. I hate dealing with him. Or whatever the fuck version of him that was. Fuck!” Enzo swore and got up to pace the room.
“What’s going on?” E asked, coming in with a sleepy-looking Lazarus at his side.
Lazarus was E’s son, conceived through rape in the underground. Celeste had raped E, got pregnant, and Enzo married Celeste after E begged us to hide it all because he didn’t want Rosalie to know.
Basically, Celeste was a cunt who fucked us all over, and I was glad we’d gutted the bitch and burned her body.
We called Lazarus Riot because the kid had a wild streak. He was somber and quiet until he wasn’t. He rarely spoke. His mother had cut his throat and hurt his vocal cords when he was an infant. He’d only barely survived.
We loved the shit out of him, though. He looked so much like E, thankfully.
And E was a helluva dad. I was impressed.
Enzo handed E the paper as Riot wandered to the kitchen in his pajamas, his dark hair a mess.
E took the paper from me and stared at the front page, his green eyes narrowing in that familiar way I’d come to know meant violence.
“It doesn’t say if she’s OK. Only that she was taken to the hospital.” E gripped the paper tightly. “Call Church.”
“I did,” Enzo muttered. “He’s not available to take my call. Sylar said none of it was my business with Rosalie and to stay out of it.” He gave me a pointed look. I knew that look. It meant Sylar reminded him of the arrangement we’d made with the underground after we’d killed Celeste.
Dante Church was a prick asshole and had been searching for a way to keep us from Rosalie. In the agreement, because he’d requested that Celeste be returned to him in the underground and we refused, we had to sign in blood never to reach out to Rosalie. The only communication we could have with her would be if she made first contact.
We hadn’t told E the deal we’d made, but it was fucking hanging over our heads every goddamn day since we’d made it. It was why we hadn’t gone after her.
At least that’s what I told myself. I wanted to go before the arrangement was made, but Enzo kept holding me back, sticking to the agreement. Some days, I didn’t think he wanted her to come back.
“Fuck him,” I snarled. “We’ve been doing this shit for over four years. Waiting. She’s not coming back unless we go to her?—”
“We can’t,” Enzo snapped. “I’m not fucking fighting a war with the underground. You know how Church is.”
“I don’t want to go back there,” E said, his voice strong, still not having a clue what we were talking about. “I won’t fucking go back. Let’s just keep an eye on things. She has Anson. He will protect her.”
“She’s not coming back,” Enzo said, looking at me like he knew what I was going to say. “I don’t fucking want her to come back. Not to this.” He gestured around to our high-rise.
“The fuck?” I got to my feet. “We’ve been waiting. Doing as we agreed with fucking Dante Church and letting him handle shit. I didn’t do this shit for nothing!”
“No fighting,” E said, looking from me to Enzo, who stared back at me. “I have to make Laz his breakfast. I don’t want him to see us fight.”
Neither of us said a word as E left the room. The moment he was gone, I opened my mouth.
“Cole. Stop,” Enzo said before I could get a word out. “Let her go. I’ve been telling you for four fucking years?—”
“No! For four years, you’ve been telling me we’ll get her back! To keep holding on. Was it all a lie? Huh?”
He blew out a breath. “I-I wish she would come home, but this isn’t home anymore. You know it’s not. It’s a fucking high-rise in the city. Our home sits vacant. She’s living her dreams. We need to let her.”
I glared at him and swallowed hard.
