Which isn’t anything out of the ordinary by any means, but this time is different. He’s angry on my behalf.
“Lead him to me,” he says, his voice hushed and deep with malice. The request is similar to his declaration earlier, and even in my drunk-addled mind, I remember him claiming me as his. My heart stops, then restarts, stuttering and tripping over itself in a syncopated rhythm. Butterflies sprout in my stomach, and I decide they’re fucking drunk, too.
“Why would you want to hurt him?”
He faces me and lightly brushes his fingers through my curls, eliciting a shiver that racks through my entire body. The feel of his skin brushing against my temple has my lashes fluttering, a blaze of fire left in his wake. It's anything but a sweet and tender moment, though. Rather, it feels like a predator playing with its food before taking a massive bite out of it.
“He’s forced you to strip people of their identities, so I will do the same to him,” he murmurs darkly. I swallow, the saliva lodging in my throat as his implication settles.
Enzo wouldn’t be stealing the identity of a cop. He’d be snuffing it instead.
And God help me, but the thought impels a deep throb between my legs. I clench my thighs tight in an effort to abate the need, but it’s hopeless when his fingers trail into my hair again, getting lost in the waves as his precious boat did. And for a moment, I wonder if someone a hundred years from now will happen across his vessel, deeming it another tragedy that succumbed to nature's most unforgiving creation.
“Why would you do that for me?” I whisper, suppressing another shudder when his hand tightens, fisting my hair until the strands hold taut. I hiss between my teeth as sharp pinpricks bloom across my scalp.
He lifts up, resting on his forearm as he crowds over me, the heat of his body pressing into my front. I struggle to hold on to a coherent thought while my heart rate elevates dangerously.
His breath fans across the shell of my ear, and I both want to shrink away from him and notch my jaw up toward him, daring him to come closer.
“Because I want to be the only thing that keeps you up at night, bella ladra,” he growls. “And if anyone is going to hurt you, it’s going to be me.”
I shake my head, uncaring of the way it tugs painfully at my hair.
More than anything, I want him to. And that scares me. Enzo can’t save me from my fate, and I will never ask him to. Whatever this is, it will never work. We’ve caused each other too much pain, and even still, I know he’s struggling to forgive me. Another thing I could never ask of him.
The familiar bone-deep urge to run arises. I have nowhere to go, so the only thing I can think to do is make him go.
“I will survive you, Enzo, just as I have survived him. And I will do no different than I’ve done before.” He’s silent as I exhale slowly, then whisper, “I will do what I must.”
He releases me but doesn’t retreat. Ice so cold descends over us, and I know I’ve accomplished what I set out to do.
And that’s just heartbreaking.
“I never found my mother,” he tells me quietly. “I did search for her, but I didn’t search for long. You know why?”
There’s a foreboding feeling replacing the electricity crackling in the air.
“Why?” I ask, though I don’t think I want to know.
“Because she let her sadness transform her into a miserable human being, capable of hurting others just to save herself. She wasn’t worthy of my forgiveness.”
Just like you.
He doesn’t say it, but the words slither over my skin and needle beneath like tiny little parasites. I bite my tongue while he pulls away.
I asked for that, but it doesn’t make it any easier to swallow.
“Bring him to me, Sawyer. I’ll take care of him. I won’t let you get away as she did.”
I shake my head, frustrated that this man can’t let me go.
“She was lucky then,” I whisper, hoping my words were as sharp as his. He doesn’t deign to give me a response, but he does turn away, and I know they were. I can feel it.
Did that hurt, baby?
Chapter 19
Sawyer
There’s a boat outside.
It emerged from the dense fog surrounding the island as if it came from an entirely different dimension.
I stare out at the large ship, slowly drifting by, a longing feeling that sorrowfully bleeds into hopelessness.
They’ll never see us from there. Not with this fog that seems to drench this tiny little pocket of earth floating in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.