Page 92 of Enzo
I felt it like a punch to the chest. Like a door slamming shut.
“What happened?” I asked, my voice cracking. “Why won’t you touch me?”
He didn’t answer at first. Just stared at the floor like it might open up and swallow him whole. “Vinnie is dead. I killed him.” Enzo’s breath hitched, barely a sound. But it was enough. “And I get if that’s too much for you. All you’ve seen is violence, and now?—”
“Stop!” I wanted to be angry he was shutting down, I wanted to scream that I’d fix everything, although I knew I couldn’t. But all I felt was the sharp edge of sadness for him—for what he’d done, for what it was costing him. For how he wouldn’t look at me, as if he was scared I’d break if he touched me with blood still on his hands. “I’m sorry you had to do that.” I reached out, grabbed his wrist, and held on. “I’m so fucking sorry, Enzo.”
His eyes burned. “Don’t you dare say that,” he said, “Don’t be sorry, because I won’t let anyone hurt you Roman, ever! You hear me?”
“You did it for me and now you’ll hate me.” God, how selfish did I sound? “No, I get it, I’m sorry. I’ll let you go… I’ll…” I was still gripping him.
Please don’t hate me. Please don’t let me go. Please touch me.
He stared at me and whatever was in his eyes broke my heart wide open. “I love you,” he said, and gathered me closer. “You’re still mine.”
My heart skipped, my eyes filled with tears, and I twisted my hands behind his neck. “And you’re still mine.”
He kissed me then, gentle, kind. “And I’m not letting you go, not now, not ever.”
“Did Vinnie give you any names?” It was a question I didn’t want to ask, but I needed to know. I waited, forcing myself to breathe. The kitchen clock ticked in the silence between us.
“Vinnie recognized you from a retrieval on the dark web, from John Mitchell.” He paused, and I knew I wavered. I knew all the blood drained from me. I knew I was shutting down.
“Mitchell,” I repeated. “John Mitchell.”
“You have something Mitchell wants, and for that, he needs you back.”
I couldn’t speak. My lungs refused to work, my vision narrowing to a pinpoint. John. Just hearing the name made me feel like I was drowning, like I was back there in that cold, sterile room with his voice whispering in my ear.
“Robbie?” Enzo’s voice came from far away. “Breathe, sweetheart. Just breathe.”
His hands were on my shoulders, steady and warm and I gulped in air, forcing myself back to reality, back to the kitchen with its worn, scratched table and the scent of dinner still in the air.
“He can’t find me,” I managed, my voice cracking. “Enzo, he can’t?—”
“He won’t,” Enzo cut in, his tone leaving no room for doubt. “I promise you that.” I noticed Rio and Jamie coming closer. “We need to know everything. What exactly does John want from you? Can you tell us?” I nodded and it was Rio who asked the first question.
“Vinnie said you have control of millions. What do they mean?”
I pulled away from Enzo, standing so fast my chair scraped over the floor. The walls felt like they were closing in and I wobbled, but he caught me, pulling me into a hug. Then he sat down again and tugged me to him. I straddled his lap like always, and I felt safe.
“Thirty million I managed to scrape, maybe more,” I whispered as Jamie whistled. “And it’s information that John wants. In my head.”
Enzo hugged me tight. “What kind of information?” he asked.
How could I explain the years I’d spent as John’s pet project, his perfect memory experiment.
“I was really small when I went into care, group home reject, nobody looking for me. Perfect for John’s purposes to sell on, because I was so young, but you see, when he found me I was fourteen by then, he saw more in me, said I had something he wanted.” I tapped my temple. “I have an eidetic memory. I can recall everything I’ve ever seen or read with perfect clarity. John realized what he had. A human hard drive who couldn’t forget.”
Enzo’s face remained impassive, but I caught the slight tightening around his eyes. “What information did he make you memorize?”
“Stuff that his bosses wanted at first, and then other things where he was collecting blackmail material, bad shit on bad people.” I sank back onto his lap, burying my face against his neck for a moment, drawing strength from his steady heartbeat. “Bank accounts. Shell companies. Transaction records. Names, dates, amounts. All of it stored right here,” I tapped my head again. “Untraceable. No digital footprint. Just me.”
“Jesus,” Enzo breathed. His arms tightened around my waist. “How much information?”
“So much, hundreds of thousands of dollars. I stopped counting after a while. He’d show me documents, make me recite them back perfectly. If I made a mistake…” I trailed off, the phantom pain of punishment making me shudder. “The other two used me, and he’d hurt me. Keep me chained, starve me. I’d get it right eventually.” My voice sounded hollow even to my own ears. “I stopped telling him what I knew, and the punishments grew worse. He punished me for keeping my secrets.”
“Tortured you,” Jamie muttered.
