“Chase doesn’t know the entire plan. But it’s too late to turn back now. I need you to trust me,” he says, putting a hand to my cheek and pulling me closer. “Trust that I’m doing what’s best for you and the baby. For us,” he adds.
I lean into his hand, eyes closed. I want to trust him, but the thought of him going to jail? I’d be on my own to raise the baby, for who knows how long? “Isn’t there some other way?”
He shakes his head, solemn. “No. Unless my father is behind bars or six feet deep, he’s going to keep coming after you. And killing my own father to start a bloodbath is no way to bring my son into this world.”
I grin a little at that. “It could be a girl.”
He smirks. “We’ll see about that. Maybe I need to send some backup sperm in there to convince it.”
“I’m definitely sure it doesn’t work that way,” I say, surprising myself by laughing, despite the unconscious forms of Luke and Chase and the lingering darkness of what almost happened.
“I’m not. So why don’t you let me take you out of here. One last time before everything happens. We can finish the date we started four months ago. Maybe we’ll even make a little small talk before I end up finding a place to fuck you.”
I blush and bite my lip. “What about Chase?” I ask.
“Good question,” he says, stroking his chin.
A few minutes later, Enzo stands up, brushing his hands together with satisfaction. Chase is tied firmly to a chair by his ankles with his arms wrapped behind his back and taped together. His mouth is taped shut too, and a piece of paper that reads “I tried to rape Enzo’s girl,” is taped to his chest.
“That does seem like it’ll do for now,” I say.
He nods. Both Chase and Luke are still unconscious, but I don’t think Chase is at risk of going anywhere, unless one of Enzo’s brothers comes in and finds him before we get back. Then he might have a few more bruises to add to the ones that are already forming on his face.
19
Enzo
We’re back at the restaurant where we first met for our blind date, where I took her into the manager’s office and knocked her up, and where I eventually dragged her through the parking lot and kidnapped her. We’re even sitting at the same table, the one with the view, except this time I made us a reservation so we didn’t have to kick anyone out of the spot.
We’re working on dessert in a happy kind of quiet. We’ve talked of inconsequential things throughout the dinner, but there have been more quiet moments than moments of conversation, more meaningful bursts of eye contact and subtle facial expressions that say more than words could. We’re both shutting out what’s coming, and what might happen so that we can enjoy this moment.
It’s the first time things have felt anywhere close to right, like they could actually work between us. Except of course, there’s the looming knowledge that I’m almost certainly going to prison right along with my father, as soon as the informant’s case goes through trial. I didn’t tell Neela this, but I made a testimony with her father, taking the blame for everything I know my men could’ve been implicated for. The mole they got may still try to implicate some of them with his testimony, but my own admission of guilt should carry more weight than his accusations. The only people taking the fall should be myself and my father’s side of the crew.
“It doesn’t feel fair,” she says after we’ve finished dessert. She looks beautiful in a black dress with her hair let down, large eyes glistening in the candlelight. “I finally feel like things could really work out between us, and they’re probably going to take you away from us.”
I can see now that she’s been holding back emotion, because her last few words falter and tears well up in her eyes.
"We'll get through it." I may have done the honorable thing by covering for my men and taking the path that led away from bloodshed, but I'm still no saint. I also made sure the FBI's witness knew how much money would find its way into his accounts if he shifted the blame for anything myself and my men were involved into my father. I was also careful in my own wording to Neela's father so that I wasn't actually admitting anything explicitly, just accepting blame for anything that might be admitted. It was a delicate dance of words, and I’ll have to hope I pulled it off. I’ll also have to hope the witness can be bought. Everyone has a price, and I made sure to pick a price no one would refuse.
She nods, smiling sadly. “You never did tell me why they call you The Beast,” she says.
“Because I’m not proud of how I earned the name. I never was.”
She lowers her eyes, seeming to understand all too well. “I won’t keep asking you. I’m sorry.”
“No. You deserve to know the truth. All the truths I’ve kept from you. Like the fact that I lied about never speaking to your father when I kidnapped you four months ago. I did. I blackmailed him into stalling the case because I knew my father would come back for your sister as a last-ditch effort if he heard of any progress, no matter how much I convinced him your father had refused to help us when we kidnapped you.”
“Why lie about that?” she asks, looking wounded.
“I didn’t want you to worry, to realize how much pressure was on your father to keep you safe from mine. But you deserve to know, and I’m sorry I kept it from you.”
She nods slowly. “It’s okay, Enzo. You haven’t exactly been in the world’s easiest position, here. Honestly, my role is a whole lot easier. I just have to sit around and let my knight in shining armor keep me safe. You’re the one making all the sacrifices and taking risks.”
I give her a half-smile. “That’s how it should be. I don’t want you to feel any more stress than we can avoid. I’d never forgive myself if something happened with the pregnancy.”
She’s about to say something but I silence her with a raised hand. “I need to finish. I need to tell you what I did. The reason they call me that....”
She closes her mouth and swallows audibly.
“Despite what you might think about the mafia, murder isn’t taken lightly. There are usually one or two guys in an entire family who are responsible for that kind of work, guys who have nothing to lose and no conscience. All the other muscle may end up doing a lot of gun-waving, making threats, and using intimidation, but the vast majority of the guys have never even shot their guns at someone.
“Bribery can cover up scuffles and brawls and all kinds of corruption, but it’s hard as hell to cover up a body, no matter how much money you have to throw around, especially when you’re the first place cops will start sniffing around.
“That’s why the guy I killed made an impression,” I say, watching her reaction. I haven’t admitted to killing anyone in front of her before, and I expect to see a kind of light go out, like she’s turning away from me once and for all, casting me off because she knows how deep my corruption went. Instead, I see only sympathetic interest and pain, so I continue telling the story.
“He was a Toretti. Even though there has always been a rivalry between our families, it had gone on long enough without any serious blow-ups that it wasn’t unusual for our guys to talk to their guys, give them shit, fuck around, that kind of thing. I was young back then, eighteen and hot-headed, but I had big ideas. I wanted to turn the family legit even back then. I saw all the money we took in and how we wasted it, just letting it sit in dusty briefcases hidden in stashes and in safes. I knew we could invest it and turn a profitable business into an explosive one. I figured if we did well enough, we could all leave the crime behind us and just enjoy it.
“That’s where Adrian Toretti came in. He had been talking shit about my ideas. Thought I was a pussy for wanting out of the hard life. He made it his mission to convince as many people as he could that I was soft. I ignored it for a while. Then my own guys started giving me shit, too. They were calling me soft.
“There is no favoritism when it comes to my father. Whether you are blood or a recruit, you have to earn your place in the family. A big part of that i
s by reputation. So trashing my reputation was trashing my spot in the family, chipping away at it bit by bit until I was slipping farther down the social ladder.
“I got drunk one night and ended up walking into this dive bar most of the Toretti’s used as a kind of hangout. I was just planning on kicking the shit out of Adrian, but it got out of hand. Once I had landed a few good punches on him, half his crew jumped in and started trying to fuck me up. I felt one of them going for my gun, so I flipped. I don’t even remember deciding to do it. All I know is my gun was in my hand and there were holes in Adrian that didn’t used to be there, blood splattering the wall behind him.” I pause, looking down at the table as I’m overcome by the memory, the smell of the smoke in my nose and the ringing in my ears.
“Oh, Enzo,” Neela says softly. I’m surprised to hear sympathy in her voice instead of condemnation.
“The story that made it back to my guys was that I’d marched straight into a Toretti hangout, gunned down one of their most promising young captains, and somehow walked out of there with just some cuts and scrapes. They got even more crazy for the story when no cops ever came asking about me. Turned out, the diner was loaded with drugs and dirty money, so the Toretti covered up the murder to protect themselves.
“So I got a reputation as a cold-blooded killer because I was a dumb kid with a temper.”
“It sounds like you regret it, though,” she says.
"I do. The only good that came of it was the way it made me more sure I wanted to find a way to get the family out of the old ways. If I had a son someday, I wanted to raise him better, so he wouldn't be a loose cannon."
“I think you will,” she says. “You made mistakes, and you’ve done terrible things, but you’ve learned from them. If we couldn’t make amends for our past, then what would be the point of living on once we’ve made a mistake?”
I grin. “I don’t deserve you.”
She quirks an eyebrow. “Who said I was yours?”
“You want proof?” I ask. “You have five minutes,” I say with a smirk. “Follow me into the manager’s office within five minutes, or I walk out of here.”
I stand up, leaving her gaping at me in amused astonishment as I walk toward the manager’s office, tracing the same steps I took four months ago but with an entirely different set of thoughts rumbling around my skull this time.
This time, no part of me hopes she’ll run. I want her to follow me into the office with every fiber of my being.
20
Neela
I watch with dumbfounded amazement as Enzo opens the door to the office, says a few words and makes a quick gesture out of the room with his thumb. A man in his forties shuffles out of the room looking scared.
I shake my head, wanting to roll my eyes but already feeling the familiar warmth pooling between my legs, the unmistakable draw he has over me. I want to go straight to him, to rip the door open and claw his clothes off, but instead I decide Mr. Cocky can sweat it out a little bit. I check the time on my phone and go to wait by the door to the manager’s office.
After only two minutes have passed, Enzo shoves the door open and steps out, glaring around until he spots me. “Get in here,” he growls, yanking me in by the arm as I giggle. He pulls the door shut behind us and presses me to the wall.
“I thought you wanted my submission,” I tease between kisses.
“Right now, I just want you.”
I kiss him, trying to memorize the taste of him and his scent—that woodsmoke smell with a masculine undertone. I drink in the moment until I can’t hold anymore, until there’s only now, until there’s no room for what might happen after today or what will happen with the baby.
He kneels down, kissing his way down my body in too much of a hurry to even take my dress off. He stops at my slightly swollen belly, kissing me there against the tight skin before he kisses lower and lower, lifting the hem of my dress like he’s about to put his mouth on me the same way he did four months ago.
I find myself too impatient, too hungry to have all of him to wait. Screw submission. If he just wants me, he’s going to get me.
I push against his shoulders, urging him to lay back against the hard ground in the office so I can climb on top of him, straddling him just below his erection. I reach to unbuckle his belt and then his zipper.
“This is highly unsubmissive,” he says with a grin.
“Deal with it.”
He runs his hands along my legs, pushing my dress up so that it bunches around my waist, giving him a clear view of my already-wet panties.
I shift around a little until I am able to slide his pants down enough to unleash his swollen cock. It flips out with a slap against his skin, heavy and fully erect, just begging to be inside me, hopefully not for the last time.
I’m about to try to maneuver getting my panties off when he sits up slightly, grips them by my hips, and rips them apart. I raise an eyebrow. “That’s one way to do it.”
“Give me that fucking pussy,” he growls.
The heat in his voice makes me chew my lip and blush, feeling sexy like only he can make me feel. Feeling dirty in the best way.
I take him by the base of his cock and slide my hips forward until I’m moving my wetness across his length, not pushing him inside me yet, but teasing him just enough that I get to watch the building impatience in his face.
I can tell he’s hardly able to hold back from just lifting me up and—
He takes me by the hips, lifts me like I'm weightless, and adjusts himself so that his cock lines up perfectly with my opening. I gasp as he stops holding me up, causing me to slide down on him and fills me with nearly every inch of him in a single motion. The suddenness of it is oddly pleasant, and once the shock has faded, I find I've already adjusted to his size as much as I can. He fits inside me so fully that it feels like if he were even the slightest bit larger, I wouldn't be able to take him all in, like he stretches me just enough to give me the pleasantly intense friction, but not so much that it hurts.
I dig my palms into his strong chest, squeezing the hard muscle there and using him for leverage while I grind my hips into him. I’m already so slick that I can hear the sounds of our sex, wet and so wonderfully dirty.
I bend down over him so that my hair makes a wall around both our faces and I can see into his green eyes that take on an almost golden hue in the right light.
“I love you,” he says up to me, even as he’s gripping my ass and working himself into me.
“I love you too,” I breathe. I’ ve grappled with the question of whether I did or not before now. I’ve gone back and forth, wondering if I could love someone who might be bad for me, who might be dangerous. But right now there’s no doubt. No question. Nothing that feels so good and so perfect could be anything but love. He’s the father of my child. He’s the man who has done everything in his power to protect me, no matter the cost. He’s the man I love.
He takes a fistful of my hair, kissing me roughly, face held in a mask of intensity. He flips me over then, just carefully enough that I know he’s being cautious of my pregnant belly, but quickly enough that I know he’s also turned on out of his mind.
“I fucking love you, Neela,” he says again, his mouth crashing into mine.
I would respond, to reaffirm my feelings, but he doesn’t seem to want to give me a chance. By the time he pulls his mouth away from mine, his pace is so fast that all I can do is moan and gasp for breath, wrapping my legs around his hips and urging him deeper inside me with my heels, wanting nothing in that moment as bad as I want his cum inside me.
He fucks me like it’s our last time, and maybe it will be. He doesn’t hold back, doesn’t take his time, doesn’t toy with me.
We are a tangle of reckless passion.
My brain feels like a wash of white light, like little bursts of ecstasy are going off as fast as fireworks, casting everything in such a blindingly bright light that there’s nothing else, only the pleasure of friction and sensation.
My orgasm comes without warning, making my body tense and my hands tighten around his taut shoulders. I feel my core clench around him, and it must be all the push he needed, because he makes a deep sound in his throat, pushing himself as deep as he can as his cock pulses with each wave of his hot release.
We lay there together, tangled up and unworried about the fact that we’re in a public restaurant, separated from the polite company of nearly a hundred people having an expensive meal by nothing but a flimsy wooden door. We don’t talk. We don’t need to. He sits against the wall and I lay my head on him, letting him stroke my hair.
“So all that’s left is for you to kidnap me again,” I say after a while.
He still strokes my hair, silent for a moment before he responds. “If only. Now is the part where the story changes.”
21
Epilogue - Enzo
The trial is a circus. There haven’t been any big cases involving organized crime in decades, and when the news agencies found out the Luciani family dirt was being dug up for everyone to see, it meant that every court hearing was held in front of a full crowd and every participant was ambushed by photographers and reporters immediately after.
My attorney warned me that it would be extremely illegal for me to talk to any witnesses at this point in the trial, but when the witness who started all this offered to meet me at his place, I knew I wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity, especially when he’s set to testify tomorrow.
He’s in a new house now, likely because he told witness protection I had found him at the apartment he was in before. His new house is in a suburb, of all places. I sit down at a scratched and half-broken table in his kitchen while he grabs me a beer from the fridge.
I knew him a lifetime ago, before I started distancing myself from my father’s side of the family. He was my father’s go-to for anything violent. Everyone just called him Ice, because he never batted an eyelash when it came to hurting people or even carrying out hits. He looks different than I remembered. There’s a permanent crease of worry in his forehead, like whatever it was that hardened him to the world years ago wore off somewhere along the line.
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