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“Go!” I shouted. “Just go.”
Sammy scrambled to his feet and took off, cradling his hands.
Enzo leaned over the desk, his jaw pulsing. “I almost fucked you in front of Sammy,” he snarled, “but it would have made me like Silvio.” He recoiled from his own words as if he’d never meant for them to tumble from his mouth. As if he’d spilled secrets he never intended to share with anyone. Not even me.
“Enzo...”
“No, no,” he clutched his head, smearing blood on his cheek. “Don’t ask me about it.” He was in a frenzy from sharing a secret he’d intended to take to his grave. Saying it out loud made it all real. I knew that. I’d lived that myself. Admitting it made the pain tangible, and none of us wanted to feel that. But sometimes we had to. He needed to let it out becausethathad clearly been building up for a very long time.
His admission had sent him to some terrifying place in his mind. Probably where all that guilt and hatred lived. The place where Silvio was still able to hurt him.
He wasn’t sane, so I kept my eyes on the gun twisting in his hand.
He lifted his revolver to gesture at me. My breath caught, but I brought my gaze up to his eyes and kept them there.
“You don’t have to be ashamed of anything that happened to you,” I said. I took a step forward and he took one back. I just wanted to get my hand on his gun, because Enzo, as I knew him, was gone. What was in front of me now was someone trying to confront their innermost demons.
* * *
Enzo
My mind wentto a moment in my past. Silvio had a woman beside him, his pants unbuckled, his spent cock out. I wrapped my hands around a beer as I scooted to the furthest end of the couch. I had watched them. Him inside her. My fingers had gripped the bottle. Music played overhead, and blinding lights illuminated the stages. The bass rattled my chest.
“Come on, boy. If you’re going to be a Viglione, you need to be a man.”
I shook my head and raked my nails against the glass bottle. I tried to say no. I tried. But he made me fuck her after he had. And it felt good. That was the worst part.
“I tried to say no,” I said out loud. I felt the revolver’s weight in my hand. “He got hard,” I said in a strained voice. I twisted the gun at my side. I was stuck in a memory that broke me, a secret no one knew the extent of besides my dog.
The familiar sound of nails clicking on wood met my ears, and there was a tongue against my hand. A harsh whine pushed inside my mind and drowned out everything else. The stage disappeared. Silvio vanished. I dropped the gun, and it thundered as it hit the ground. I fell to my knees and buried my face in Atheist’s neck, crying as I pulled him closer. His soft coat warmed my hands, which had begun to feel like ice. I looked up, blinking away any signs of weakness, trying to hide the fear that made my body tremble against my will. Gia was kneeling in front of me, her hand on my revolver, dragging it away from me.
I expected to find fear on her face. I thought she’d look at me like I was fucked up. Because I was. Instead, she nudged Atheist out of the way and wrapped her arms around me. She held me in a grasp that I melted into. I looked behind her and saw Marco. All the blood. I sighed. It was going to happen anyway, but it shouldn’t have happened like that. When I saw him, when he looked in my eyes with disappointment on his face, I fucking lost it. And Sammy. Fuck. He was...I just had to know he wasn’t involved. I couldn’t lose both of them. But I probably already had. I sighed and sat back on my heels, pulling myself out of her grasp.
“Well, fuck,” I said as I dropped my head back. Energy drained from every muscle inside me, as if it was sucked out of me the moment the adrenaline left my body.
What happened, what my galloping heart was still trying to recover from, was too fucking much. The pure anger that ripped through me transformed into my need to release my frustration through Gia, like it always did, but taking her in front of my brother would have made me too close to Silvio and his sick, twisted showmanship. Admitting that to her?That'swhat tossed me into the deepest depths of my mind and made me panic. It trapped me inside a quicksand field of memories. I never wanted her to know what happened to me. I needed to be strong and instead, was only weak. Her knowing made me feel lighter and heavier at the same time. Lighter because Ifinallytold someone about what Silvio did to me. And heavier because I was certain she’d never look at me the same way again.
I struggled to look at Gia. She wouldn’t want to marry that Enzo, the Enzo that was capable of the blood hanging in the air. I had shed more Viglione blood. Betrayed another one of my flesh and put the fear of God in the other. Actually, it wasn’t the fear of God. It was the fear of me. And it would spill onto Gia one day.
I stood up, dragged her to her feet, and pulled her against my chest. I just needed to feel her because when everything was wrong, she always felt right.
ChapterThirty-One
Gia
Enzo had fallen asleep on the couch after he showered and washed off the memories of last night. He’d shown weakness and strength. I knew something happened to him as a child. That was why he celebrated the death of his father instead of mourning him.
I took a shower after him, drowning my own memory of yesterday. Wet strands of hair circled my head, dampening the pillow. I turned over and sighed. I couldn’t sleep. I got out of bed and tugged down the hem of his sleeveless t-shirt I was wearing. The frayed fabric grazed my thigh. I went to the drawer, grabbed the cigarettes, and pulled one out.
Stagnant night air greeted me as I stepped onto the patio. I lit the end of my cigarette and puffed on it. My damp hair made the sleeveless shirt stick to my skin. Enzo came up beside me and reached for a cigarette. I gave him mine and lit myself a new one. He put it between his lips and leaned over the railing, balancing on his elbows as he wiped his hands through his hair.
“I’m sorry, Gia.”
“You need to apologize to Sammy, not me,” I said as I inhaled.
“I will.” The smoke swirled around us. “I don’t know what happened to me in there.” He turned and leaned his back against the metal railing.
“You bottled shit up, that’s what happened.”
