Chapter 37: Past isn't past.

Chapter 37: Past isn't past.
The silence inside Enzo's penthouse was deceptive. It wasn't peace. It was the moment before a warhead detonated.
Sherry stood in the centre of the living room, the USB drive still clutched in her hand. Her fingers had long since gone numb. The second video had played in her head on a loop the entire ride home from the hospital.
Enzo's father.
Her father.
And Victoria, the shadow in every frame.
They had all been part of something she hadn't just inherited...
She had been born for it.
She was never a civilian in this war.
She was the collateral.
Now she knew it.
And Enzo...
He sat in his armchair like a king returned from the dead, pale but upright, a bandage still pressed under his open shirt. His glass of bourbon sat untouched.
"You saw the second file," he said without looking at her.
"Yes."
"And?"
Sherry's voice cracked as she crossed the room. "How long did you know?"
He didn't blink. "I suspected. I didn't know Victoria was that deep in it. I didn't want to believe your father was."
"But he was." She laughed softly, bitter, broken. "So was yours. So now what? We just pretend it doesn't matter that my blood was part of what destroyed your family?"
"You think this is about blood?"
She turned on him. "Isn't it?"
He stood. Wincing slightly, but towering over her still. "My bloodline built this empire. Your bloodline tried to gut it. And now we're here, standing in the ruins, trying to decide if we rebuild it or burn it down."
Sherry's eyes shimmered. "Say it."
"Say what?"
"Say you don't trust me."
He flinched.
"I want to hear it from your mouth, Enzo. After everything we have survived, the contracts, the secrets, the fucking bullets, you still don't trust me, do you?"
He stared at her for a long, brutal moment.
Then he whispered,
"I don't know how."
It was a confession.
Not a weapon.
And it tore through her more than if he had screamed.
Sherry's jaw clenched. Her breath shook.
She walked toward him, slow and deliberate.
"Then let me teach you."
She slid her hands down his chest, carefully over the gauze, until her fingertips rested at the waistband of his pants.
His jaw tightened. His eyes darkened.
She leaned up, brushing her mouth against his. "If I'm the enemy, make me pay."
"Don't."
"Why not?"
"Because I will break you."
She slipped his belt free. "Then break me."
His hands grabbed her wrists, not to push her away, but to anchor himself.
She dropped to her knees.
And the world stopped.
Enzo's body trembled as she worshipped him not out of lust, but fury. Love. War. She kissed every scar. Traced every bruise. Took him deep until he was cursing her name and gripping the back of her head like a drowning man clinging to a lifeline.
When she rose again, lips swollen, eyes fierce, he looked like he wanted to fall apart in her arms.
But she didn't let him.
Instead, she pushed him back into the chair, climbed over him, and held his face with both hands.
"No contracts. No past. Just us. Right now."
He nodded once.
And when he sank inside her honey pot, it was a collision of grief and possession.
She rode him slowly, deliberately, tears slipping down her face, his hands bruising her hips, his mouth pressed to her collarbone like a prayer.
He whispered her name over and over.
And when he came, he cried.
Silent. Broken. Trembling.
And she held him until the war in his chest stopped screaming.
They didn't speak again for hours.
Not until Ethan barged into the room, phone in hand, breath ragged.
"You need to see this."
Sherry pulled the blanket tighter around herself as Enzo sat up, his voice rough. "What now?"
Ethan tossed the phone on the table. A bank transfer notification glowed on-screen.
Twelve million dollars.
Moved to an offshore account.
From a Blackwood corporate vault.
And the authorization?
Sherry Hart's digital signature.
Her face drained of colour. "That's not mine. I didn't sign that."
Enzo's expression changed not into rage, but something worse.
Silence.
Distance.
"Enzo," she whispered. "Look at me. That's not me. Someone forged my clearance."
He didn't move. Just stared at the screen.
Ethan looked between them. "Victoria's gone underground. Her phone's off. Her penthouse is empty. But we found traces of her access codes inside your old apartment's Wi-Fi, Sherry. The signature came from there."
Sherry's stomach flipped.
"I haven't been back there in months."
Enzo stood slowly. Every movement is precise. Dangerous.
"I need air."
"Enzo, don't-"
"I just need air."
He walked out onto the terrace and closed the door behind him.
Sherry stood frozen.
This was the punishment.
Not silence.
Not distance.
Doubt.
She followed him a minute later.
He stood shirtless under the moonlight, hands gripping the balcony rail, wind brushing his still-healing body.
She stopped beside him.
"I don't know what you need right now," she said softly. "But if it's someone to blame, then do it. I will take it."
He didn't speak.
"I just need you to remember who I am to you."
He turned slowly.
His eyes were red.
And empty.
But then he reached out and pulled her into him, rough and desperate.
Not to punish her.
But to stay sane.
"I want to believe you," he said against her neck. "But every time I start to, the ground breaks open."
"Then don't look down," she whispered. "Look at me."
He kissed her with a savage, pleading kiss.
And when they pulled apart, he said,
"If she forged your name, we're not just at war. We are being rewritten."
An hour later, Ethan knocked and entered with something wrapped in a black silk handkerchief.
"Found this in your mail drop. No return address."
Enzo unwrapped it.
Inside: a silver necklace.
Sherry's mother.
But she had buried that necklace with her years ago.
Beneath it, a card in delicate red ink:
"You were never the only daughter.
Let's talk while he is still alive."