The voice was so cold I felt slivers of ice slide over my burning skin, but it was also very familiar. So very familiar. Yet I had nothing to say to him, so I stayed where I was on the floor, although I did sit up onto my knees, wincing when they protested the change in weight, and wiped the tears from my face and the blood from my mouth.
There was a knock on the bedroom door. "Boss?"
"I'm fine," Luigi answered. "Stay where you are." He didn't move away from me. "I was wondering when you were going to show up. Honestly, Enzo, I was disappointed when you didn't try to stop the wedding." He sighed dramatically. "But instead, you decided to interrupt my wedding night."
I heard the buzz of a cell phone vibrating, and then it stopped. A second later, it buzzed again.
"I can only assume from the fact that someone is frantically calling you that my son doesn't know you are here."
"No."
Still standing over me, Luigi threw his arms wide, the belt dangling near my face. I cringed away. "So? Now what, boy? What are you going to do?"
The silence in the room was palpable. I glanced over my shoulder. Enzo's hands were fisted at his sides, his teeth clenched to together so tightly I could hear the enamel grinding off. But other than that…
Nothing. He was going to do nothing.
Luigi cocked his head. "All these dramatics…breaking my window…and for what, Enzo? For nothing."
"Not for nothing. Sera is mine."
My heart skipped a beat, my body traitorous, as always. But it didn't matter. I was Luigi's wife now. It was too late. He was too late.
"Yours?" Luigi laughed again, and then sobered just as quickly. "If I ordered you to kill her right now, you would. Just like you killed Alessandra."
"No."
"Don't fuck with me, boy. Your loyalty is to your family. It always has been, and it always will be." His voice lowered. "It's why I trusted you with my son. You would die for him. I know that, and so does he."
"So would Tristan."
But Luigi shook his head. "Tristan would throw himself in front of a bullet because he doesn't care if he lives or dies, this is true. But if he found someone who could take his pain away, he would betray Luca's trust in a heartbeat. Unlike you, Enzo, he would choose. And something as trivial as loyalty to the family wouldn't weigh on his conscience." He walked around until he was standing in front of me, my face at the same level as his groin. He did it on purpose to make his point. I scooted back out of his reach, not that it would stop him from ordering me to suck him off in front of Enzo if he'd get a kick out of it.
"You don't know Tristan," Enzo told him. "And you don't know me."
"I think I do, boy. Now get the fuck out of my room and let me finish consummating my marriage." Looking down at me for the first time since Enzo broke into the room, Luigi took a step toward me and grabbed me by the hair. I cried out as he started to lift me to my feet.
"I told you not to touch her again." The warning came right before his gun went off behind me.
I jumped and screamed, my eyes going to Luigi's face. There was a bullet hole in the center of his forehead. A second later, his grip on my hair loosened and he fell to the floor in front of me, his cell phone falling out of his pocket and sliding across the floor. Impulsively, I grabbed it.
The bedroom door handle rattled. "Boss! Boss! What's going on in there?"
"We need to go," Enzo told me quietly. A jacket was thrown over my shoulders and I was hauled to my feet. "We need to go now."
My feet tried to gain purchase on the floor as he dragged me back toward the broken window. "Let me go!" My mind spun with everything that had just happened. "Let me go!"
Ignoring my protests, he grabbed me around the waist and forced me over to the window. Lifting me easily, he sent me out feet first onto the roof, never letting go of me as he followed me out.
"Enzo! Stop!"
His hand slammed down over my mouth, and he held me in front of him as he took me over to the corner of the roofline where a tree grew over the house. "Hang on," he told me, using his strength and body weight to force me out onto a thick branch. I noticed for the first time that he was barefoot, and the hand that covered my mouth was slippery with blood. I didn't know if it was his or mine.
Once we were out on the branch, he scanned the yard below us. "You can hang onto me and keep your mouth shut," he said quietly in my ear, "or I'll throw you off this branch. Either way, you're coming with me to the ground. If you scream and bring Luigi's men over here, all you're going to do is get us both killed."
Grudgingly, I nodded. He wasn't leaving me much choice. Luigi's guards would shoot first and ask questions later. And I didn't want to die.
Enzo took his hand away from my mouth and turned me around, one hand hanging onto the branch above us. "Put your arms and legs around me and hang on."
I did as he said, wincing as my body screamed in protest where Luigi had beaten me. Enzo began to scale his way down the tree. Above us, I heard the bedroom door bust open.
Enzo froze, and his eyes met mine. A look of determination crossed his features. "Don't let go," he said quietly.
And then he jumped.