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He lets out a sigh. “Fran didn’t do well in a classroom setting. She has severe social anxiety. She would have panic attacks so often, I was picking her up from school almost every day. It all came to a head a couple of years ago.” He clears his throat, eyes straight ahead on the dark road. “She hurt herself pretty bad.”
Without thinking I reach out and put my hand on his arm that rests loosely on the gear shift. “Oh, Enzo.”
He takes my hand and I intertwine our fingers. “She’s good now.” He says. “She talked to someone. She’s on medication. I got her out of that school. She has a tutor come to the house once a week, does majority of it on her computer.”
My heart breaks for her. “Does she not miss her friends?”
He glances at me, eyes young and shrugs. “She doesn’t really have any. She spends time with our cousin Aria but she’s a bit of a lone wolf. Likes her crafts and hobbies. You should see her studio. We like to say it’s where hobbies go to die.” He smiles to himself. “I built her a ballet studio when I bought the house. She was big into ballet back then. Lived and breathed it but she dropped it. Now it’s just filled with every kind of craft equipment you could think of. She made me a rug for my birthday last year.” I like the way he talks about her. He’s proud of her.
“A rug?” I ask, still admiring him from my seat. It’s hard not to.
“Yeah in the shape of a Nike dunk.” He laughs. “It’s good too. She could sell them.”
“I’ve got to see her set up now.” I reckon her and Hannah would get on like a house on fire. Hannah loves crafty bits. She’s always upcycling little bits of furniture for the apartment.
He turns to me, his elbow resting on the window. “You’d be her favourite person if you let her show you one of her crafty things.”
I fold my legs underneath me, turning my body to face him. “You sound like a parent.”
He shrugs like it's nothing. “Pretty much the only parent they’ve got. They’ve been my responsibility since our mom died.”
My face winces and I don’t mean to, but Jesus. That's a lot. “I'm guessing your dad just mentally checked out and left it all to you?” Fucking typical really, isn’t it? Men.
He laughs but it's hollow. “You could say that. Three years after she died, he sold the house and hid himself away in one of his penthouses. I had my eyes on the mansion for a while.” He nods his head backwards towards the way we just came. “I wasn't serious about buying it but had to get serious pretty quick.” He spares me an amused look.
My chest aches for him. He’s had so much on his shoulders from such a young age. It couldn’t be more opposite from my upbringing. I had to just worry about me and Aleksy but we took care of each other. I don’t think Enzo’s ever had someone take care of him, not that I think he’d let you but something inside me wants to do that for him. I need to stop. This is what I was afraid of. I’m drawn to the broken ones. My inner mother hen comes out and I grow attached.
“How did your mum die?” I could search it on the internet, I'm sure I could find out but it doesn't feel right to find something like that out via the internet. It needs to come from him.
His jaw twitches and his hand on the steering wheel tightens. “She was shot when I was 15.”
I don’t know what I'd do if I lost my mum now, let alone at the age of fifteen. “I'm sorry you had to deal with that at such a young age.”
He shrugs again. “I wasn't that young. It was harder for Fran and Benny. They struggled to adjust, Fran wouldn't leave my side at all for the first year.”
“Don’t downplay it. You were Fifteen. You were a child.”
He glances over at me. “Most men are initiated into The Family at 16.”
“But not you?”
“I was born into this. This was my life before I was even conceived, like it is for all of my brothers.” His expression turns blisteringly cold. His moods confuse me. One moment he's carefree, laughing and joking, the next it's like he doesn't have any feelings.
“You don't have a choice in it?”
“I didn't. Not that I would have chosen differently if I did. After my mom was murdered I threw myself into the life, her death forced me to step up for my siblings. I was all they had.” He takes his eyes off the road for a second to glance at me and they’re icy, none of the warmth and fire I saw earlier. Even though they are completely different colours they remind me of Luca’s, dead. I wonder how many lives he’s taken since that day. I’m not sure I want to know.
13
Enzo
Thirteen Years Earlier
Queens, New York City
My mother is dead. Murdered. I've never felt anger like this, just pure rage like a fire tearing through a house. It’s swallowing everything I have and am. My father’s barely been at home. Benito and Fran won't stop crying. Raff doesn't know what to do with himself and Luca hasn't said a word in the weeks that followed her death. He hasn't cried, he hasn't screamed or shouted. He's been silent.
I'm just trying to keep myself together for them. It's what Mom would have wanted from me, to look after my siblings. If I'm honest, I have no clue what I'm doing. I don't know how to comfort them or make them feel better. I feel like my insides are a raging inferno, the urge to smash and kill is eating me up. I want to destroy every single person, not just my enemies but everyone. People in the street, people on the television. I want to watch them all suffer.
