“I don’t tease,” I replied. “I follow through.”
He laughed again. “Then I look forward to the follow-through.” He paused for a minute. “Can I ask you something?”
“Yes. Of course.”
“That song you played in Boston.All I Needed was You.Was that about you and me?”
I licked my lips. “Yeah. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. It’s a good song. It’s actually one of the reasons I wanted to reach out to you. To let you know that I’m not that guy anymore. I didn’t want your last memories of me to be that scared kid who was afraid to be touched and to touch. The addict. The waste who couldn’t get his shit together. I guess I just wanted to reintroduce myself.”
“I never thought you were a waste, Ethan?—”
There was a loud bang, and Ethan swore softly.
“E, you prick fuck, get down here! Hang up with that bitch! She’s a biter! Levin fucking said she uses her teeth. He fucked her with Fallon in high school!” Cole’s voice called out.
“No, he didn’t,” Ethan shot back. “And get the fuck out of here. I said I’d be down later.”
“Give me the damn phone, pretty boy. I’ll handle her for you. May as well share the fucking love, right?”
There was some rustling and grunting, so I assumed they were fighting.
Knowing Cole would likely get the phone, I decided to hang up to avoid dealing with him. When it was time for me to talk to him, I’d call him directly.
I disconnected the call and rubbed my eyes before thumbing out a message to Ethan.
Rosalie: Thanks for the chat. It was nice. Talk soon, OK?
I snuggled down in my bed, wondering what the hell my next steps even were and what I was doing with Ethan.
Could I be friends with him when he still made butterflies burst to life?
Likely not, but I wanted him in my life. If I was uncertain before, I was definitely on the side of yes now. Hearing how good he sounded let me know he was in a different spot in his life, like I was.
“I’ll just… see how things go in Chicago,” I murmured to myself as I closed my eyes. “Then…”
I didn’t finish the thought because it was too terrifying.
23
ENZO
Ipulled the trigger, not giving a fuck what this piece of shit had to say to me. Dante let me deal with my shit on my own, but if the person owed the underground, I swore to bring them in.
This was a low-level Russian piece of shit that the Bratva had sent. I was sure of it. Getting caught trying to break into my warehouse was a very bad fucking idea. They’d been trying to regain their footing for ages now, but we kept knocking them back down.
It was a death sentence as he quickly found out.
Their new management was shit.
“You know,” Cole said, pushing off the wall he was leaning against as I walked past, wiping the blood from my face. “You could keep these fucks around for a bit before ending them.”
“What’s the point?” I muttered. “I have better shit to do tonight than to listen to some cunt beg me to spare him while swearing he didn’t know it was my warehouse.”
“Whatever. Can we go home?”
“Yeah.” I led us outside as my men did cleanup. I’d just purchased a crematory, so things were looking good in the disposal aspect of my career.
