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To be in a place where tomorrow didn't exist, and I could just enjoy the one moment I had with Enzo. It had almost been stripped away from me. If I'd been less capable of protecting myself, if Rebel hadn't sensed something coming and come to the bathroom with me, who knows where I might have ended my day.
Or if I'd even be alive to see the sun set over Enzo's backyard and the pool illuminated with the reds and oranges mingling and reflecting off the pavers.
Enzo grabbed a steak from the fridge, cubing it frantically as Rebel salivated from the sidelines.
"When do you go grocery shopping? Do you sneak out while I'm sleeping or something?" I asked, sidling up to his side in the kitchen. I was determined to lose myself in the normalcy of being home, even if it did all come crashing down on me sooner or later. Scooping all the meat onto a plate, he set it on the floor and Rebel wasted no time digging in. "Isn't raw meat bad for dogs?"
"Some people give their dogs an entire diet of raw meat. I think she'll survive one steak. She ate plenty of raw meat today anyway," Enzo grunted, scratching the top of her butt while she ate. "Who's a good girl? Who protected her Mommy?" he asked, shifting his voice to that distinct tone people used for animals.
I laughed, watching as he washed his knife, cutting board, and hands and carefully lined them up in the dish strainer so they were straight. My heart swelled, the feelings oddly similar to what I would have guessed to be love.
But I couldn't go there today. When I finally said the words to a man, Enzo or not, it wouldn't be because I was coming down from the adrenaline spike of an attack. It would be because I knew without a doubt that even when sober and not in shock, I loved that man with everything I was.
All of him. From his head to his toes, from his soul to his smile.
I couldn't name a single thing about Enzo that I didn't love, aside from perhaps his possessive and jealous interests in controlling me. But as we came to understand one another, and as I grew more possessive of the man I thought of as mine, I found that we weren't so far apart. I didn't oppose his rule that no man could touch me, so long as it went both ways.
I didn't oppose his interests in keeping me safe while I did whatever I needed to do to stay sane, because he only tried to redirect me to a path that would be less risky. I couldn't fault him for that, even though I wished the courtesy could apply to me too. The thought of Enzo rushing into danger, rather than running away from it, terrified me.
“I’ve never seen her like that,” I murmured. “She’s always so gentle.”
“She protected you,” Enzo said, shrugging. “Like you said, she’s never shown any signs of aggression until you were threatened. I’ll sleep easier knowing she’s looking out for you.” Once he dried his hands, I stepped into his chest and wrapped my arms around his waist. He sighed, the sound both relieved and pained as he dropped his head to rest his mouth against my hair and murmur into it. "I'm sorry, Baby Girl."
"Why are you sorry?" I asked, tilting my head up to look into the hazel eyes so filled with regret that my heart hurt.
"I'm supposed to be protecting you. My job is to shield you from wrongs and keep you safe. Today never should have happened." The pain in his voice was a tangible thing, and I stretched up a hand to cup his face.
"It wasn't your fault. You left me in a place that should have been safe. With someone to keep an eye on me," I reassured him, willing him to see the truth to my words. I couldn't have been more protected unless I'd been at
the Bellandi Estate.
"You were still attacked," he sighed.
"Did you know him? Was he an employee who turned or something?" I asked, moving to the fridge and glancing in at the stash of food that hadn't been there that morning. "You still never told me when you go shopping."
"We pay a shopper to do it for a bunch of us in the community. I give her a list every week and she delivers. She's married to one of the dealers, so she knows to keep her mouth shut," Enzo answered, leaning his ass against the counter as I dug through the fridge and considered the ingredients. There was a ton of food at my disposal, but without scouring his cupboards, too, I wanted something simple. Few ingredients but just flat out good food. Grabbing the ground beef out, I set it on the counter and opened the pantry. The container of oil I'd seen the night before was exactly what I was looking for. Grabbing the dutch oven from the rack in the pantry, I carted both over to the stove and filled the pot with the oil. "What are you doing?"
"Cooking you dinner," I said, giving him a shy smile. In all our nights together, we were typically so busy we had food delivered to the gym or the club or the house and then passed out in exhaustion. Having to do everything together wasn't practical when we both lived busy lives. There was a reason that Matteo had Scar protect Ivory. Why Lino had Ciro protect Samara. Why Calla had Dante.
I just wasn't ready to suggest that maybe it was time to resume our individual schedules, or insinuate that I'd need a bodyguard for the rest of my life. Still clinging to that trace of hope that when the war was over, just maybe I could return to being on my own again.
"What are you making?" he asked as I set a second pan on the stove and threw some ground beef into it. Grabbing spices from the cupboard, I added them liberally.
"I may not be Ivory," I laughed. "But I can make a mean empanada." While that cooked, I moved on to making the dough.
"You're going to make empanadas? You can cook?" he asked, giving me the face I'd grown to expect.
"Yes, I can cook," I laughed, but unease slithered down my spine. I'd never cooked for Patrick or anyone else. It was one of those activities that revealed too much about my compulsions to risk it, so I avoided it entirely like the coward I was. Enzo grabbed a wooden spoon, stirring the beef as I added ingredients and worked butter into the dough with my hands.
Rebel moved to her bed when she realized more steak wasn't coming, settling down with a full tummy and having a well-deserved nap. It must have been exhausting to kill a man. I knew I felt dead on my feet, but drawing Enzo away from the melancholic place I could feel him retreating to felt more important than sleep in that moment.
Between attacking me in his nightmares and the attack at Tease, for Enzo the blows to his confidence in his ability to keep me safe just kept coming. He sighed finally, checking his phone for an update from Ryker. "He didn't work at Tease. Or anywhere for the Bellandis."
"So what the fuck was he doing back there?" I asked, furrowing my brow.
"Looking for someone. One of the guards was distracted by a pretty piece of ass. We won’t know anything about whether they were there for you or Yavin or someone else and just took what they could get until we find the woman. Yavin is the most likely target considering he’s marrying Murphy’s fiancé, but I also put a gun to the man’s head at the meet.”
"He was probably actually there for Yavin," I murmured. "Why would anyone have a plan to infiltrate Tease when I've only been there once before? It wasn't your scheduled day to go either, so it's not like someone could have learned our schedule and predicted it," I said. Enzo grinned as he listened to me speak. "He was there for Yavin, but he saw me and decided I'd probably be an easier target but still make Tiernan happy."
