He glanced at the blood on my clothes and the gun in my hand, muttering "fuck" beneath his breath. "What the shit did you do now?"
"You're gonna want to call the clean-up crew to aisle six. Somebody spilled marinara."
"What the fuck are you talking about?" he demanded.
"There's a body in the bathroom," I whispered. I'd seen a lot of shit in my life. Blood didn't bother me. But I'd never seen blood quite to the level of someone having their throat ripped out.
Or a body.
There was that.
"Fuck!" he yelled, grabbing my arm and dragging me into his office. "I can't even let you go to the bathroom. Fuck. Enzo is going to castrate me."
"Probably," I admitted. “I’ll give my condolences to Aoife.”
"You okay?" he asked, looking me over for injuries. When he found none, because there were none, he reached down and took the gun from my hand. "Sadie?"
"I'm good," I said. "I've never..."
"It's okay. It was self-defense," he said, reassuring me.
"Wasn't me," I grunted. "Rebel ate him."
His head jerked back in shock, his gaze trailing over to look at the dog where she sat cleaning her blood-soaked paws like the little monster she was. "Where exactly did you find this dog?" he asked, glancing over my shoulder. I turned slowly, Enzo's face filling my vision suddenly as he stepped through the doorway and approached us.
With his nostrils flaring and his jaw clenched, the slow measured steps his feet took as he closed the distance between us should have made me nervous. The unrivaled fury in his face should have been terrifying as his hazel eyes blazed with a vengeance that vibrated through me. He grabbed my face in his hands, coasting them over my body as he inspected me for injury. They came away stained with red, but he was unconcerned with the blood sliding between his fingers.
"Where are you hurt, Baby Girl?" he asked finally, spinning me in place to stare at my back where the worst of the blood must have been, from me elbowing the attacker in the face repeatedly. The sudden realization of the thick, viscous liquid coating my skin and soaking my shirt made me shudder in disgust.
"Not mine," I whispered. Enzo's eyes went to the gun held in Yavin's hand, his face twisting. He rolled his neck as if he needed the action to release some of the tension consuming his body.
"Where was your gun?” he asked, and I swung a sheepish hand toward the tote sitting on the floor by Yavin’s desk. “What the fuck happened?" he barked at Yavin.
"Apparently, you two got yourself a bloodthirsty killer for a pet." Yavin said, picking up his phone and dialing somebody on his speed dial. "Yo, we got a mess we need clean up on. I've got a feeling you'll want to come with them."
"Ryker?" Enzo asked, taking my hand when Yavin nodded. "Show me what happened, Carina. I need to know who to fucking kill for letting someone dangerous back here." Yavin heaved out a sigh of relief, dropping in his chair. "Don't even begin to think you're absolved of this. You should have kept a closer eye on her. You better hope Liam does a better job protecting Aoife or she'll never make it to your wedding day," Enzo warned, taking my hand and guiding me back for the bathroom. Leaving Yavin to his silent rage, I let Enzo drag me toward the spill on aisle six.
I didn't want to go. Didn't want to see what Rebel and I had done, but she led Enzo right to the bathroom. I shoved down the feelings the way I always did, stepping into the bathroom and letting my eyes fall on my attacker. I didn't know why I had such a visceral reaction to his death when I'd seen blood before.
Enzo whistled as he looked at the body, patting Rebel's head. "Good girl," he said, echoing my earlier sentiments.
"He was already down when she ate him," I said. "I had the gun."
"Is that why you're so quiet? Because you feel like he didn't need to die?" I nodded, suspecting the senselessness of it was why. I taught my girls to defend themselves. What Rebel had done went past that line and straight into the line between right and wrong that was so precarious. "Just because he was down doesn't mean he wasn't a threat. Even if he'd lived, do you really think what Rebel did is worse than what Ryker would have done to him? Rebel did the man a favor, Carina."
"You're right," I agreed, some sense coming back as I shivered. "It was a shock, that's all. I'll be fine."
"You did good. I know it's different to teaching others to defend themselves rather than doing it. Walk me through what happened."
I nodded. "He was waiting when I came out of the stall. He wrapped his arm around my throat and put the gun to the back of my head. He didn't hurt me, just asked me to get Rebel to be quiet. I disarmed him before he could ask me to do anything else, but I didn't get the sense he was there to kill me. He'd have just shot me from the get go."
Enzo nodded, nudging the corpse with his boot. "His face?"
"That was me. Elbowed him in the nose. Then kicked him in the chin to lay him out."
"Right. This is the second time you've been attacked this month. I don't know why they're targeting you so hard, but I'm going to have some of our contacts poke around and find out. In the meantime, Ryker will make an example out of this guy’s corpse.” He kicked the body. “Let Tiernan know we mean business when it comes to our women."
"What about my family? Should we be concerned that they'll be targeted?" I asked, staring up at him as horror filled me.
"They're covered. I've had men watching them since your attack."
I sighed with relief as we left the bathroom to wait in Yavin's office until Ryker came with the clean-up crew.
I wanted to go home and stay there for a year.
27
Enzo
It killed me to abandon Sadie when she was so out of sorts, trapped in the reality of what she’d done and seen. A man’s blood stained her body and dead eyes imprinted on her memory. The comfort of her best friend would be enough to see her through the few hours to come until I could come home to her. A best friend who knew exactly what it was like to kill.
To look death in the face and say fuck you.
Pulling up at Tease once more after dropping both my girls at the estate, I barely had the car in park before I threw myself out of the driver’s seat. Rain poured down around me, my dress shoes splashing in the puddles. The parking lot was empty, only the recognizable vehicles of staff and Bellandi men closest to the black building with the tinted windows.
The doors flew open the moment I approached, Sandro and one of Rafael’s men standing guard. “Bryan said to tell you he’s set. He’s with Irina twenty-four seven now,” Sandro said as I passed. I froze just beyond him, turning on my heel so that my shoe squeaked against the floor. The room filled with sudden silence as I leveled him with a glare in warning.
“Do you think I give the first shit about that right now?” I asked.
“No, Sir,” he said, shaking his head quickly. With a growl of frustration, I moved further into the club. Ryker stood on stage, glaring down at the guards who’d been on duty all day.
“Go home, Enzo,” he grunted. “You should be with Sadie.” Matteo nodded his agreement, but I ignored both of them to ascend the steps slowly.
Casting my eyes about the room, I glared at every single one of the men we’d trusted to keep our business, our employees, ourselves safe. “The girls are in the back?” I asked Ryker.
“Yeah. Detained them in case we needed information, but we didn’t want to scare them in case it gets messy out here. Yav and Calix are with them,” he answered, narrowing his eyes at me and studying my face. “You good?”
I nodded absently in response, searching the small crowd of male employees for the one who’d been on guard when we arrived earlier in the day.
I tightened my jaw when I found him, fidgeting from one foot to the other anxiously. My hand darted to my holster, pulling it so quickly that Ryker barely had time to flinch away from the sudden movement at his side.
Pointing my gun at the guard, I fired a single shot into his thigh.
The scream that echoed through th
e room as the others flinched away from the shot and left him to his pain did nothing to settle the beast in my soul.
To calm the monster rattling the cage bars and demanding vengeance for the harm done to my woman.
“Jesus fuck! You shot him!” one of the male employees shouted as he backed away. Jumping down off the stage, I landed on my feet and stepped into the bastard’s face as he clung to the wound in his leg.
The barrel of my gun touched his forehead, and I applied just enough pressure to make him raise it to stare me in the eye. “Who let him in?” I growled.
He whimpered, swallowing around the saliva building in his mouth. The shifting weight, the guilt on his face even as he struggled to contain the pain. I already knew the answer to my question.
I just didn’t know why.
“I never meant for anyone to get hurt,” he said.
Matteo growled a warning, stepping into his face and pushing my gun away from his forehead. I holstered it, despite wanting nothing more than to put a bullet in his brain. The time for that would come, but answers were more important.
For the moment.
“What did you think would happen when you let someone unauthorized into the back rooms? At best, he would have gotten handsy with one of the girls. At worst, he could have killed Enzo’s woman,” Matteo said, shaking his head as his lips curled in disgust.
“I fail to see how that could have ended any way that didn’t involve someone getting hurt,” Ryker echoed. With his arms crossed over his chest on the stage, he towered over all of us like a monstrous sentry in black jeans and a black shirt.
“I left the door for five minutes. That’s all, I swear. I didn’t think anybody would be ballsy enough to stroll through it!” the man protested.
I stilled, considering how much worse the situation could have been. Five minutes.
Did he have any clue how many men could walk through a door in five minutes?
“Why would you abandon your post?” I asked him, my voice calm despite the storm that raged inside me. The time for blood approached. His answers were naïve enough to believe he’d genuinely just been stupid. I did not suffer idiots in my line of work.
“There was a woman. Blond hair, brown eyes. Tall and sexy as fuck. She wanted me, so—”
“So you thought it was appropriate to endanger everyone in the club so you could get your dick wet?” Ryker’s voice went quiet, his cool fury echoing my own.
“Women like her don’t go for men like me,” he groaned, clutching his thigh in agony. “We don’t all have a buffet of pussy waiting for us if we so much as glance at it.” His bitter sneer transformed his face as the reality of what he faced overcame him.
Without another glance for approval, I withdrew my gun again and pressed it against his forehead. With the sharp crack of the shot reverberating through the space, his body collapsed to the floor. “Anybody else feel like putting my woman at risk with their own stupidity?” I asked the quiet room.
The chorus of responses around the room didn’t come as a surprise. Turning my attention to Ryker, I saw him look down at the body thoughtfully. “I’ll get rid of it. The other one has already been delivered,” he said, referring to the present he’d chosen to leave strung up in Tiernan’s home.
“Find the fucking bitch,” I growled. When he nodded, I turned on my heel and strode out the front doors. Phone in hand, I called Seb to have him send me a copy of the security footage.
They’d better hope I didn’t find the cunt before they did. I’d never killed a woman before.
But there was a first time for everything.
28
Sadie
I drowned in the length of Ivory’s clothes, the sole pair of pajama pants she owned rolled up around my ankles as we walked in from the garage at Enzo’s house. I’d very much appreciated the shower at the Bellandi estate, and the comfort of my friend by my side to bring me back from the shock I’d suffered in the strip club.
Even though the tiles in their guest bath looked nothing like the white ones on the floor of the bathroom at Tease, I’d had a moment where I saw blood spreading across them.
Ivory was quick to remind me it was normal. That it was okay to not be okay.
I’d just never thought it would happen to me.
The familiar comforts of Enzo and Rebel at my side grounded me and enveloped me in the order I recognized as mine. I didn't know what that meant for my apartment or our future. With the shock of the day finally abating, I needed to not make any major decisions.
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.
Shielded Wrongs: A Dark Mafia Romance (Bellandi Crime Syndicate Book 4) Page 27