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“I'll be here if you need me.” She calls as I disappear through my bedroom door. I get into bed and curl up with the blanket around me. I reluctantly pull my phone out to see missed calls from Enzo. I delete the notifications. I open up my call log and my finger hovers over Alek's name. He’s the only person I want to speak to right now but I don't want him to see me like this. I need to be strong for him.
24
Enzo
Present-day
Manhattan, New York City
I didn’t plan to tell her. That trip was meant to be a goodbye. My last hit of her before I made myself give her back, but then she told me what happened. She told me every agonising detail of what he did to her and after she was finished she pulled her shoulders back, lifted her chin and said ‘Pain is just a lesson’. That was it. I just knew. She was mine and I’d do anything to keep her.
Things that I just passed over before seem so much more significant now. After everything that's been done to her, for her to so freely, put her trust in somebody like me again and do so without complaint? That takes a different kind of strength. That's not a strength you wake up with one day, it's cultivated after time and time again of people letting you down and hurting you. That's a strength you build on every single time you get back up when everything in you tells you to stay down. It’s not her physical appearance that's beautiful, it's her soul.
She passed me her heart with trust in her eyes when nobody has ever treated it kindly and I dropped it.
I couldn't lie to her anymore. Couldn't carry on the hurt. I needed to fix it and I needed to do right by her. I love her. I don't know when it happened but it happened. I’m fucking sick in love with her.
I have to do this right. I have to treat her how she deserves to be treated and that's gotta start with honesty.
I've never done anything solely for myself. Every decision I have ever made has been for the good of the family, to secure our place in this world but I can't deny myself of her. I need Casimira and only her. I don't care what I need to do to make that happen. If it means going to war with the Irish too, then so be it. If it means giving up my position, I’ll do it. The stark realisation makes me feel physically ill.
I got in my car and drove straight to the gym.
I needed to hit something. I needed to kill something but a punch bag will have to do. I don’t bother wrapping my hands, I just start attacking the bag while I wait for Luca to show up. He's the only person I can be like this with, the only person that knows this side of me.
Luca comes strolling in already in shorts and a plain tee shirt. “You’re going to have to wrap your hands, brother. I have an event tomorrow. I can't have my face ruined.” He slaps his hand on his scarred cheek.
I grunt and push the bag away from me to start wrapping my hands as Luca does the same. We stand in silence whilst we finish. Luca pulls his t-shirt over his head and we both jump in the ring and drop into a fighting stance as we circle each other.
“Bad day?” He pouts. I shoot forward, jabbing him twice. He blocks both, dropping his head down and keeping his hands up.
“I take it you told her then?” He delivers two jabs and a kick to my side knocking me back.
“Yeah,” I grunt as I swing again landing one right hook to his face and another to his torso. He shakes them off, bouncing on his feet.
“You wanna talk about it?” He asks as he hits me again, I don’t block this one, I let the impact hit me. I deserve it.
“I can't do it.” I bite out as I swing again.
He dodges my last punch. “Can't do what?” He slides to the side and I bring my foot up, connecting with his ribs with a little too much force causing him to shoot me a look.
I return the look. “I won't marry Isla.”
Luca drops his hands and his body stills. “Don’t fuck about, Enzo.”
“I’m not.” I look him dead in the eye and his face falls.
“The contract is signed. In Blood. It's done. If we back out of this, our whole reputation would be lit up in flames. We don’t break blood contracts. It will be like calling open season on us all.”
I run my hands over my face taking a deep breath. “My whole life I have devoted myself to the family. Everything I’ve ever done has been to benefit and protect our place in the world. But this, I can’t do it.”
He walks over to the ropes, leans his forearms against them and drops his head. “All this because of a woman?” He laughs sardonically and I get it. Me and him always used to say we’d never let a woman make our decisions but it’s different when you’re in it. I’d do anything for her. I'd sell my kidney if it meant making her smile.
I walk over and stand next to him leaning my back against the ropes. “It crept up on me. One minute it was about sex the next I’d fucking die for her.” I shake my head at myself. It's typical, isn't it? I find the perfect woman and it just so happens to be when I'm promised to someone else.
He pauses for a while, his expression cold as usual. “I’ll do it, instead of you.”
“No, I won't ask that of you.”
