Chapter 85 A Deal
Nobody moved for about three seconds.
Then, without warning Enzo grabbed Zion’s shirt, using it to pull him closer and hit him hard enough that Zion's head snapped to the side and he went into the wall.
Zion pushed off the wall and came back, which was either brave or stupid and was probably both, and got one solid hit in before Enzo caught his arm and redirected it then drove his elbow into Zion's ribs. The sound of it was bad. Zion doubled forward and Enzo grabbed the back of his head and introduced it to his rising knee causing Zion to go down onto one knee with blood running freely from his nose.
He tried to get up and Enzo hit him again before he made it.
Molly watched from the pillar she was tied to. Her wrists were still bound and her heart was beating really fast, she watched Zion try to get his arms up and fail to get them up in time as he took another hit across the jaw that put him fully on the floor.
"Stop," she said.
Neither of them responded. Zion rolled and got his hands under him and pushed himself up partway, Enzo grinned and merely kicked his arm out from under him and he went back down.
“You fucked up fool!” Zion yelled while Enzo's grin widened further.
"Stop it!" Molly pulled against the binding on her wrists, which accomplished nothing except hurting her wrists.
Enzo stood over Zion and looked down at him with his head tilted to the side as if he was thinking. Zion was on the floor, one hand pressed to his face, breathing in an uneven way, he was sure his ribs were cracked. Blood on his mouth. Blood on the floor beside him. His shirt was torn at the collar from where he'd gone into the wall.
Enzo cracked his knuckles, “You can stop it you know,” he turned to Molly, looking directly at her. “Talk," he said.
Zion lifted his head from the floor. His voice came out wrecked but functional. "Molly, don't. Don't give him anything."
Enzo looked down at him and hit him again. Precise, almost clinical, and Zion's head dropped, cracking the concrete floor.
“Fuck!” He screamed.
“Sorry cousin,” Enzo said with a chilling smile and it was obvious he didn’t mean it.
"Stop!" Molly's voice came out louder than she'd planned. "Stop hitting him, I'll talk. Just stop."
Enzo straightened up and looked at her and waited.
Molly looked at Zion on the floor and felt the specific sick weight of someone choosing between two people they didn't want to hurt, and knowing the choice had already been made by the situation regardless of what she wanted.
She didn't want to betray Grace as she had already done that once and the bad memory of it had been sitting in her chest ever since. Grace's face in the car. The way she'd looked at Molly when she'd understood what was happening, Molly had been replaying that look for days.
But Zion was bleeding on the floor, Enzo's expression said he wasn't finished, and Molly was bound to a pillar in a place she didn't recognise and there was no version of waiting this out that ended well.
"I can't do the spell myself," she said. "I don't know how yet. My abilities are sealed."
Enzo straightened and looked at her, “What spell?”
"To find Grace, the spell locates people. I can’t do it, but my mother can," Molly continued. "She's done it before. She used it to find Maddox's location when the police were looking for him." She paused. "She can do the same thing for Grace. Work through a connection to track her."
The room was quiet.
Then Enzo said, "Where was Maddox?"
Molly blinked. "What?"
"The location your mother found," he said. "Where was it?"
"They're gone by now," Molly said. "Whatever camp or town they were in, after the police showed up they would have moved. You'd be going to an empty location."
"Where was it," Enzo said again.
"It doesn't matter, I just told you—"
"Hey?" His voice was quiet. "Where."
She looked at him. Then she told him the area, the name of the region her mother's tracking spell had pinpointed on the map, and Enzo stood very still while she said it. His expression gave away nothing.
"They'll be gone," Molly said again. "It's been days."
"I know," Enzo said, and he said it in a way that suggested the information had been useful regardless.
Zion raised his head from the floor. He looked like the effort cost him. "Molly." His voice was rough. "You don't have to do anything he wants. Grace already ran from him once. There's a reason for that."
Enzo turned and looked down at him.
"Don't," Molly said quickly.
Enzo turned back.
"I'll take you to my mother," Molly said. "She can do the tracking spell for Grace the same way she did it for Maddox. But you have to agree to something first."
Enzo waited.
"You don't hurt my mother," Molly said. "You don't threaten her, you don't touch her, you don't do whatever you just did to Zion, else, I’ll kill you myself,” she looked dead in his eyes and Enzo’s eyes narrowed for some reason because he felt an unexplained slight chill. “She cooperates and you leave us alone."
"Fine, whatever,” Enzo said.
"And Grace," Molly said. "You find her, fine. But you don't hurt her."
"She's my mate," Enzo said. "I'm not going to hurt her."
"That's not as reassuring as you think it is," Molly said flatly. "Like Zion said, she ran away from you for a reason. Promise me."
Something moved across Enzo's face. "I promise."
Molly held his eyes for a moment longer. Then she said, "Just Maddox. Whatever you're planning, it's just Maddox."
The room went quiet.
Zion pushed himself up to sitting against the wall, one hand still at his face, the bruise underneath his eye was already beginning to heal. He looked at Molly with an expression that had moved past pain into something more alert. "What?"
Molly didn't look at him. She kept her eyes on Enzo.
"Just Maddox," she said again. "That's my condition."
Zion stared at her. "Molly, what are you—"
"He killed my brother." She said it simply, directing it at neither of them specifically. "Daniel." She paused. "So whatever Enzo is planning, I don't have a problem with the Maddox part."
Silence filled the room once more.
Zion looked at her from the floor and his expression was complicated, tired, and something that might have been understanding underneath both of those things. He didn't say anything else.
Enzo looked at Molly for a moment. He looked at her like he knew something she didn’t but he said nothing.
"Agreed," he said.
Molly nodded once.
Enzo walked across the room to the pillar she was bound to and in one swift motion, he cut the bindings with a little pocket knife, releasing her wrists. Molly brought her arms forward and rolled her wrists, the blood returning to her hands with that prickling sensation.
Enzo got up and walked out from behind the pillar, he looked at Zion on the floor. "Can you walk?”
Zion looked up at him with a bleeding lip and a healing eye that was previously swollen shut. "Can I walk," he repeated, sarcasm very evident in his tone.
"I'll take that as yes," Enzo said, and turned toward the door. He paused with his hand on the frame and looked back at Molly. The corner of his mouth lifted slightly, “Let's go to your house then."
Zion got to his feet slowly, using the wall. He stood upright and assessed himself silently for a moment and then looked at Molly with a frown that was almost disappointing.
Molly looked back at him and immediately frowned, “You don’t get to be disappointed at me,” she looked down at herself pointedly, “You owe me a damn dress.”
She followed after Enzo. Despite her bravado, Molly didn't feel good about any of this. She felt like someone navigating a situation with no clean exits, picking the option that cost the least rather than the option that was right. Grace was going to be found either way, her mom was going to do the spell either way. The only variable Molly had managed to control was the agreement about Grace's safety, and whether Enzo's word meant anything was something she had no way of verifying right now.
But Maddox had killed Daniel.
She held onto that the way she'd been holding onto it for days, turning it over, and it was still true every time. Whatever Grace felt about him, whatever complicated history existed between them, the man had killed her brother. And if Enzo's mission ended at Maddox, then Molly was not going to stand in the way of it.
She walked out the door with Enzo.
Behind her, Zion was still frowning.