Chapter 12: Father’s Suspicion

The illusion of peace died with the first ring of the phone. Enzo stood on the private balcony, cold Chicago wind slicing through his open shirt like a thousand razors. Sleet hammered his bare skin, soaking him to the bone, but the numbness was welcome. It kept him from feeling—the guilt, the fear, the hunger that never seemed to leave him anymore. Above, the city was a scatter of indifferent lights and distant sirens, as if the world itself didn't care that everything he knew was starting to rot from within.

He answered the phone with the same dread he'd lived with since childhood.

"Speak, Father."

Don Marco Valenti's voice came through ice-cold, every syllable sharpened like a blade. "I hear you've taken in a Silverfang bitch. Letting her breathe in my city. Is that what we are now? Traitors? My own son, fucking the enemy instead of snuffing her out like a rabid dog."

Enzo flinched, just slightly, but forced his grip on the iron railing until blood welled beneath his nails. He stared down at the city, the city his family bled for, killed for. The city that would never be safe for monsters like Selene. Or for him, if his father truly knew.

How many years had he spent chasing his father's approval? Trying to patch the holes left by the night his mother died, believing if he was ruthless enough, he could fill them with blood and discipline. He'd killed for the Valenti name. But all it ever got him was a colder bed at night.

"The situation's changed," he managed, voice flat, but inside he was screaming. He remembered the warehouse where he'd first seen Selene, her silver eyes defiant even as she'd bled, refusing to plead. He should have killed her then, like his father wanted. Instead, he'd watched her breathe, watched her live, and something in him had fractured.

"Changed?" That laugh jagged as broken glass. "I buried your mother in pieces, Lorenzo. Do you remember her face? Or just the blood? You know what those animals are. And you, rutting with the same wolf that ended her life. Have you gone mad, or are you just weak?"

The words hooked inside Enzo, pulling at old wounds. He'd memorized his mother's face the night she died—her eyes wide with terror, her mouth open in a scream he'd never forget, the blood staining the carpet in sticky rivers. He'd been twelve. Too old to forget, too young to do anything but hide. His father had only cried once—afterward, when the house was silent except for the wailing in his chest. Then the grief calcified and became hate, and Enzo had been forged in that fire.

But hate hadn't been enough to save anyone.

He could feel Selene inside the penthouse, restless, her fear a poisonous ache via the bond. She was awake. Listening, maybe blaming him, and maybe praying for a miracle. He felt her confusion, the crackle of hope and dread—two animals circling in their shared darkness.

"She's leverage," Enzo said, words forced through clenched teeth. "She can give us the names, the hiding places, the patterns. She's worth more alive." He prayed his father wouldn't hear the tremor in his voice—the doubt, the longing, the shame that clung to him now like sweat.

Don Marco spat a curse. "You have forty-eight hours to bring me her head. Or I'll send men who'll take yours as well. Don't make me choose between avenging your mother and cleaning up your mess, boy. Blood is blood, but weakness stains deeper."

Enzo pressed his forehead to the chill of the railing, closing his eyes against the sleet. He saw his mother again, her body broken on the floor, his father's hands covered in her blood, swearing vengeance, swearing never to let a wolf live in Chicago again. He saw Selene bruised but proud, silver eyes burning with anger and fear. He hated himself for what he felt for her. Hated that his heart beat faster every time she looked at him, hated the way he ached to protect her, to keep her safe from the family that claimed his loyalty, the family that owned every scar on his body.

He wanted it to be simple. He wanted to let hate finish what it started. But when he pictured pulling the trigger, all he saw was another corpse, another ghost in his bed. And the thought made him sick.

The call ended in silence so thick it felt like suffocation.

Enzo lingered at the threshold, sleet turning to icy needles, flesh stinging. His thoughts ran wild. What if he just let her go? What if he took her and ran, left Chicago burning behind them? Would his father hunt them to the ends of the earth? Or would he welcome the excuse to bury his son beside the mother he could never save?

He heard Selene move in the bedroom behind him. Guilt twisted in his chest—if he said nothing, if he let the cleaners come, maybe it would be better for both of them. Quick. Clean. No more nightmares.

But he couldn't.

He stepped inside, crossing the cold threshold back into the penthouse, feeling more dead than alive.

Selene sat up, clutching the sheet to her chest, face pale but defiant. Her silver eyes gleamed in the half-light, wide with dread, but she didn't look away.

"My father knows," Enzo said, voice hollow. He tossed the phone onto the dresser, the plastic cracking with the force. "He wants your head. Forty-eight hours. After that, the cleaners come. You know what that means."

Selene's face was bone-white, but she didn't flinch. The bond between them shrieked with her terror, bitter and electric. But she straightened her spine, voice a ghost on the air.

"Then kill me," she murmured. "Do it clean. Before this ruins you, too, put a bullet in my head, and you'll be the dutiful son again."

Enzo closed his eyes, pulse pounding in his ears. He crossed the room in three strides, every step a struggle between duty and desire. He closed his hand around her throat—not tight enough to bruise, just enough to remind her, and himself, that her life was his to take.

"You think it's that easy?" he snarled, lowering his face to hers. "I should have left you to rot. But you got inside me. Now, I can't remember how it felt to hate you." His voice broke. "I should want to see you bleed, but all I want is."

He cut himself off, feral and lost. The bond writhed between them: violence, hunger, guilt, and longing. Unable to speak, he kissed her, brutal and punishing, tasting blood where her teeth caught his lip. It was all he could trust anymore—pain, hunger, the bitter promise of oblivion.

They tore at each other, desperate and reckless. Enzo fucked her to silence the screaming in his head, pinning her wrists so hard her skin went white. Selene clawed his back, blood slicking their bodies as they devoured each other, lost in a feverish tangle of violence and need.

After lying tangled in ruined sheets, Enzo stared at the ceiling, hollowed out and shaking. He wondered if this was how monsters fell in love, bitten by guilt, gripped by terror, praying for death, and dreading it at the same time. He wondered if his father had ever felt anything this sharp, this impossible.

And he wondered how much longer he could keep his hands clean, before the blood finally drowned him too.