“After,” he said, tugging at my wrist. He strode for the back of the house, his bedroom door ominous as it loomed closer, and I struggled to keep up with his stride. It left me with just one question, my heart racing in my chest as I considered the possibilities.
After what?
Enzo should have been my safety in the Bellandi family. The one with the conscience who wouldn’t cross certain boundaries that the others seemed to ignore. But something rattled at the cage, begging to be set free from the confines of his control.
I had a feeling the beast was hungry, and that I was meant to be dinner.
“Enzo,” I whispered my protest. Anything louder would have felt like too much in the quiet space as we stepped into the dark bedroom.
Only the light from the floor to ceiling window to the left of the bed gave us any light, the waxing moon shining against his hardwood floors. “Take off your clothes and get on the bed,” he ordered coldly.
I swallowed back my curse, choosing a slightly less antagonistic way of defying him. “No,” I said, tearing my wrist from his grip. I hurried back out the bedroom door, determined to make it to my bedroom with a lock on the door so I could wait out whatever had come over him.
His arms wrapped around my waist, lifting my feet from the floor as he carried me back in. He positioned himself between me and the door and closed it behind him, leaving me to glance around for an escape that didn’t exist.
Short of throwing myself out the window, there was nowhere to go.
Even with Enzo scaring me half to death, I knew that was slightly extreme.
“I will only tell you once more, Carina. Get on the fucking bed.” I shook my head, staring back at him and hoping the curse, the frustration of it, was a slight hint of Enzo beating back the rage to see how close he came to crossing a line. His lips twisted into a snarl as a growl clawed its way up his throat, and he stepped closer to me. There was nowhere to go but further into the room, backing away until he trapped me in the corner.
Clasping me around the backs of my elbows with a harsh grip, he lifted me from my feet and tossed me to the bed. I scrambled to sit up, scooting to the edge of the bed as he jerked open a drawer in his nightstand. Filled with weapons, I hurried to the other side of the bed at the sight of glinting blades, loaded guns, and coarse rope from just a single peek inside.
Hands grasped my ankles, tugging me back until my stomach collided with the bed. Enzo’s weight leaned over me, rolling me to my back and shoving me to the center. Straddling my waist, I stared up at him in horror. Tearing the rope from where he’d held it clenched between his teeth, he fed it through the slats in his charcoal grey headboard and pulled it out the other side while I swatted at his chest and shoved. “What kind of fucking pervert keeps rope in his nightstand?” I screamed in his face.
“The kind who sleeps with a gun and is fully prepared to kill anyone who sneaks in here while I sleep,” he grunted, snatching my right hand off his chest as I dug my short nails in to mark him.
Angry red welts raised, the brutality of them shining against his skin and threatening to bring tears to my eyes as the rope wrapped around my wrist tightly.
Without a doubt, I’d have marks of my own by the time he finished with me. “This isn’t you,” I said, trying to appeal to the man I knew would never hurt me. Even in the face of his demon, I knew I’d be safe with him in the end.
Somehow, Enzo would push me to the edge of my limits but never pass them. Even if it felt like a false promise, I knew it down to my core.
He ignored my plea, snatching up my other hand and shoving it above my head. “Enzo!” I yelled as the rope tightened against my skin and stretched my arms over my head.
Sitting back so that his weight settled over my hips, he stared down at me strung up like a feast waiting to be devoured. Even as I squirmed and tested the bonds, the heat that bled into his stare despite his rage threatened to consume me with my own need.
He reached his hand into the nightstand drawer, dragging out a knife slowly. The blade glinted in the moonlight, reflecting light back onto Enzo’s face to reveal the cruel twist to his lips. “Do you want to fucking die, Baby Girl?” he asked. “Is that what you were looking for when you ran toward a burning building?”
“No,” I gasped, the cool metal of the blade touching the skin just below my throat. Enzo trailed it lower, applying pressure so light that he didn’t break the skin, despite the sharpness as it slid over my flesh.
It burned in the knife’s wake, a trail of red appearing as he slid it between my breasts and grasped my sleep-shirt in his fist. “You can’t cope with what’s going on around you and you need a rush to find your balance?” he grunted, slicing the blade through fabric in a smooth motion until it split down the middle. “You come to me, Baby Girl. I am the only fucking rush you need.”
Sliding the knife into the left sleeve, he cut it away from my body. Repeating it on the right, he didn’t stop, carefully touching the blade to my skin just enough to hurt.
Just enough to make me feel and bring me back from the blank void of emptiness that consumed me in the wake of the fire.
He tore my shirt out from under me, leaving me naked from the waist up with my shirt discarded in tatters. I didn’t own many clothes. I’d lost nearly everything I owned, but Enzo didn’t give a shit about the material objects he could easily replace.
He cared about my body. The very same body he tormented with the threat of pain to show me how fragile it could be.
Goosebumps erupted across my skin as he trailed the blade through the valley between my breasts, teasing it back up over my ribcage to draw thin red lines around my nipples. The sharp pain that consumed me made me arch my back as he continued his path down and over my belly button. Unknowingly seeking more of the pain I’d never imagined I’d like.
Rough sex I knew, but I’d never trusted someone to the level where I could let them touch a knife to my skin and know I’d walk away without bleeding. Enzo’s control held steadfast, even as the beast rattled the cage and begged to be set free.
He controlled it just enough to keep me safe. The threat of what came after I was naked hanging in the air around us only adding to the adrenaline that pulsed through my body.
He cut through the material of my sweatpants and shorts in one motion, ignoring the fact that he could have just taken my pants off like a normal person. The unnecessary force of it appealed to me on a primal level I’d have never expected. To be so consumed by the adrenaline coursing through my veins as the tip of the knife dragged over the bare skin of my pussy, my breath wheezed out of my lungs in a ragged gasp.
Enzo finally moved to my shoes, tossing my socks and sneakers to the side haphazardly and pulling what remained of my pants down my legs to follow suit. With the blade clenched in his grasp, he slid a hand behind each of my thighs and shoved them high. Until my knees touched the sides of my breasts, folding me in on myself, and the edge of the blade scraped the skin of my stomach. He bared me to his view, staring down at me as he considered his options.
He finally smiled down at me, a dawning cruelty in his gaze as he seemed to realize what he wanted to do. Apprehension slithered along my skin, the dark promise in his eyes hinting that the worst of his punishment had yet to come.
He released one of my legs to flip the knife in his hand, the blade clenched in his palm carefully. He slid the hilt of the knife to the space between my legs, nudging the end against my clit gently. There was no resistance from my body as he pressed more firmly, slipping it between my folds to glide against me as he moved it back and forth in smooth torment.
“I think this just became my favorite knife,” he murmured. “Are you going to stain it with cum so that I’ll always remember the way it looked nestled inside you?” he asked. Wetness coated it as he touched it to my entrance, pushing it inside me slowly, shallowly.
I should have been ashamed of the way he made me want this. Of the way my body craved everything he did to me. With the
hilt of the knife filling me up, he leaned forward and touched his chest to the tip of the blade. His skin split under the pressure, his blood coating the blade lightly.
With a growl of frustration, he set it aside. Finally burying his face in my pussy and shoving my other leg high again. He worked me right up to the edge of an explosive orgasm with furious strokes of his tongue against my clit. Just when I thought I would tumble over into something mind blowing, he chuckled against me and turned his head. Biting my thigh, he marked me so savagely that I cried out and fought against the binds still holding my wrists above my head. “You fucking asshole,” I hissed, my words defying the heat that bloomed in his bite mark in my flesh when he slid his tongue over the wound and soothed it.
He released my legs, flipping me to my stomach with that cruel glint back in his eyes. The rope twisted, pulling me closer to the headboard ever-so-slightly. The metal of the knife was warmer when he touched it to the skin of my ass, trailing the tip of the blade over the swell just beneath the dimples to either side of my spine.
He traced some kind of pattern, his movements methodical as the blade pressed slightly harder into my flesh. The sting spread across my ass. “What are you doing?” I whimpered, the curve of a circle at the right side of my cheek burning as he connected the two ends.
“Reminding you of what happens when you fuck with what’s mine.” The knife clattered against the nightstand as he tossed it to the side, the bed shifting as he stood. From the corner of my eye as I turned back to watch, he stripped off his clothes in frenzied movements. When he climbed back into the bed behind me, he grasped me around the hips and lifted me to my knees. I rose up onto my elbows, struggling against his grip as he shifted his hands to my waist.
Shoving inside me without warning, he struck the end of me on the first stroke and tore a strangled scream from my throat. Too full, too suddenly, despite the wetness that coated my center. His hands on my waist pressed down, pushing my upper body against the bed so that only my ass tipped up for his use.
He grunted as he drew back, lifting a leg to cock it to the side of my body and shove even deeper on the second thrust. With my arms trapped above my head and his hands pinning me at the waist, he leaned his body over mine and fucked me in deep, harsh thrusts that stole the breath from my lungs.
“Enzo,” I gasped my warning. The bindings pushed me to my limit, tested the boundaries of what I would give him in a way that the knife against my skin hadn’t done. His hand came down on the sensitive flesh at the top of my ass, slapping against the burning marks he’d left etched into my skin.
“You’ll take what I give you, Carina,” he growled. “Just be grateful I didn’t belt your ass for what you did. This is my body. This is my fucking ass, and I will not tolerate you putting it at risk.”
“I didn’t mean to do it!” I protested with a snap, my voice muffled by the hair that surrounded me as he jostled me with his brutal claim on my body.
“I. Do. Not. Fucking. Care!” he roared, making me flinch and then still. He slid a hand beneath me, using two fingers to stroke my clit until I couldn’t hold back the twitching in my thighs. “Who owns you?” he asked, putting so much pressure against the bundle of nerves that it crossed that line from pleasure to too much.
“You do. You fucking twat,” I argued, shifting my thighs forward what little I could to relieve some of the intensity from his touch.
“And are you going to put my woman at risk again?” he asked.
“No!” I shrieked, my body convulsing with my release as he shoved deep with one final thrust. He worked his fingers over me more gently as he filled me with his release, until I shuddered and cried out with a blinding climax that brought me over the edge of normal and into a land I’d never dreamed could be real.
Death by orgasm felt very real as he pulled out of me and untied me from the headboard. The reality that I would have to trudge back to my own bed hit me like a punch to the chest, but I stood and made my way to his bathroom to clean up.
It was only when I turned and started to leave the bathroom that I saw my ass in the mirror. Even backwards, there was no mistaking his name scratched into the flesh of my ass.
“ENZO!” I yelled, rage filling me at the sound of his roar of laughter as it came from the bedroom.
He stepped into the bathroom, leaning against the doorway with his arms crossed over his chest and a satisfied smirk on his face. “It’d be better as a tattoo,” he said, taking my hand and guiding me to the bed. He tucked me in, pulling the covers over my head and moved to a chair at the edge of the room with a blanket that had fallen off the end of the bed. “Go to sleep, Baby Girl,” he murmured.
It wasn’t quite having him in bed with me. But after the night we’d had, I’d take it for what it was. At least I wasn’t alone.
Sitting on the couch and staring at the fireplace in the corner, I hated the red and orange flames and the way they danced. What had once felt like a comfort only felt like an ominous reminder of everything that was gone. "Your parents are on their way," Enzo said, his voice tight as he studied me from the kitchen.
He was supportive and did what he could to comfort me when my emotions took over since I'd gotten up that morning, but the deep bags under his eyes showed just how tired he was.
And still pissed, no doubt.
"You called them already?" I asked, glancing over at the clock. It was only nine in the morning, and I'd only woken up less than an hour before and rolled into the shower.
"I wanted to make sure someone told him before he saw it on the news. Especially so that he would know nobody was hurt," Enzo confirmed. I nodded, feeling like a terrible daughter because it hadn't been the first thought on my mind when I woke up that morning to a roomful of new clothes Enzo’d had delivered urgently. "You should eat something," he commented.
"I'm not hungry," I whispered back. The truth was that I was always hungry, but not then. I didn't think I could eat a bite. The doorbell ringing at the front jarred Enzo out of whatever he'd been about to say.
My heart leapt into my throat knowing who waited on the other side. My eyes snapped to Enzo, and he sighed, closing the distance between us. He helped me stand from the couch, touching his forehead to mine. Our sex the night before hadn’t been enough to erase his anger over what I’d almost done, but just having him close went a long way to easing the worry that I’d fucked up beyond all repair. "All they care about is that you're safe, Carina."
Leaving me standing in the center of the room, he went for the door and tugged it open after a quick glance through the peephole. Mama's face filled the doorway, her distraught features morphing as she glanced around Enzo and pushed past him to charge at me. Hands coming down on my face and grasping it in her hands, she whispered softly. "Oh Mahal." Watching as tears flooded my eyes, she tugged me into her arms and squeezed as tight as she could.
Glancing up from her embrace to watch Dad walk into Enzo's house, his eyes were intense on mine. "I'm sorry," I whispered, the sound echoing through the silence of the room.
"Don't you dare. What the fuck were you thinking? Trying to run in for my goddamn belt!" he shouted.
"Oscar," Mama snapped, spinning and glaring at him. "You're not helping."
Turning a glare to Enzo, resentment filled me that he'd betrayed me by telling my father something so personal. A secret I'd trusted him with in the expectation that he would keep it to himself. "I know how important it is to you," I whispered, watching my father’s face twist.
His lip trembled and nostrils flared as he closed his eyes. When he opened them, they filled with moisture as he stepped closer and filled the space Mama vacated for him. "I have truly failed you as a parent if you can't see that you mean far more to me than a gym and a belt ever could, Sadie Girl," he said, tugging me into his chest to hold me.
After he eventually pulled back and looked down at me meaningfully, Enzo seemed to sense that I was overwhelmed and needed a minute to myself. "I'd like to show you some of th
e photos. Share the police report so you have it for insurance," Enzo said.
Dad nodded. "I love you Sadie. We'll figure it out together, okay?" he asked me, wiping some of my tears away with a stroke of his thumb, then moving to follow Enzo, and they went down the hall to his office, leaving Mama and me alone.
"Enzo is pissed, hm?" she asked, making me clench my eyes shut.
"I fucked up," I admitted.
"You did. Men like Enzo aren't the type to sit back and watch you live your life, Sadie. He wants to be your life. When you tried to run toward the danger of the burning gym, he saw it as you choosing the gym over him. That building was more important than your future together."
"If I'd had to choose between saving the gym or saving Enzo, I'd have saved Enzo in a heartbeat," I said. "It wasn't a conscious decision."
"You know that and I know that, but men are giant pains in the ass. What do you think Enzo would have done if you'd made it inside? He'd have followed you, Mahal. You didn't just risk your life and your future with Enzo, but you risked his life, too."
I slumped down on the couch, staring at my feet as Rebel immediately hurried over to cover them with her body. Who needed socks when you had a dog?
"What do I do, Mama?" I asked.
"You fix it. If you love him, tell him. Show him. Just do it before you lose the best thing that ever happened to you," Mama said, taking a seat next to me and wrapping her arm around my shoulders to tug me into her side.
I should have been pissed that Enzo and Dad were talking about the gym without me, but for once I just wanted to snuggle into my mama's side and be taken care of.
31
Enzo
Explosions.
Surrounded by the incessant, rapid gunfire, and bomb exploding down the street. The building we'd taken shelter in shook, the Earth beneath it rumbling in protest. Logan and I shared a glance as I peeked around the corner of the hallway. The others in the building were long gone, separated by a rain of bullets that came through the second story window as we tried to make our way to the ground floor.
Shielded Wrongs: A Dark Mafia Romance (Bellandi Crime Syndicate Book 4) Page 29