Once there, he locked the french doors and closed the floor-to-ceiling curtains. Annnd we probably should’ve done that earlier when I was on his lap having him finger me into orgasming.
“Where are you going?” I asked again, hoping for an answer this time as I sat at the edge of his bed, willing my nerves to dial down. But it’d been a long day. The two glasses of Chianti were doing nothing to extinguish the anxiety coiled tight in my stomach, chest, and pretty much every part of my body.
He locked the bedroom door next, then stood before me. “Jesse located the man who should know who really killed Bianca. And we need to go to Syracuse tonight,” he finally shared, and that was a good thing, right? “The thing is, he’s in the CIA’s custody, which means we have to break him out. We won’t hurt anyone. Rubber bullets.”
I would’ve fallen onto my ass had I not already been seated. “But you could get hurt? Arrested?” A million other horrific things, too. And now my heart was racing ten times faster, and I could feel my pulse pumping all the way into my ears.
“I won’t. This isn’t my first time doing something like this.”
“First time breaking someone out of a secure location, or first time going up against the Central freaking Intelligence Agency?” My voice squeaked. High-pitched panic that I was incapable of hiding had my hands turning to nervous balls at my sides. I was going to visit this man in a morgue or prison, wasn’t I?
“Hey, it’s okay.” Enzo dropped to his knees before me. He snatched my fists as if they were fragile pieces of glass and covered them with his hands.
“Nothing about this is okay,” I cried, the shudder in my chest escaping through my voice. “Please don’t go.”
“Maria, I promise I’ll be fine, and I won’t hurt anyone.”
“But you plan to torture this man you’re kidnapping from the CIA, right?” I couldn’t even swipe at the tears because he had such a hold on my hands, and I didn’t have the energy to pull away.
His quiet nod had my stomach turning. “You’re not just good with a knife in the kitchen,” I blurted, my irrational fears washing over me and coming true before my eyes.
He lowered his gaze to my lap, where he kept hold of my hands. “I’m good with my hands in multiple ways, I guess,” he said in a solemn tone. “I’d rather cook, though.”
Then slice and dice a man? Oh jeez. There went my stomach again. Tip-tilt-twirling around. “The middle of your story. Just tell me now. Please. Rip off the Band-Aid and get it over with, because I’m pretty sure I’ve already filled in the blanks myself anyway.” My gaze climbed up the ink on his exposed forearm, the one with the rosary inked there.
“How detailed do you want it?” he asked, an uneasy expression crossing his face.
“I, um, don’t need to know exactly how you killed that man. I’m guessing you made him suffer, though.” At his nod, my pulse climbed. “Just tell me what you think I need to know.”
“I can do that.” He looked up for a moment, as if searching for the courage to reveal his past.
I could feel his fear that I’d hate him afterward in the squeeze of my hands. See the guilt vividly in the lines of his face when our eyes once again met.
“The deal my brothers and I were offered to avoid prison time was with the US government,” he finally began. “I don’t even know the name of the group we worked for, but they weren’t CIA or FBI. Not the NSA or Homeland Security. And it doesn’t matter anymore, they were disbanded three years ago, and our contract was voided early.” He paused for a breath. “Those years after Bianca’s death, my brothers and I were basically unpaid mercenaries for the government. We were sent on ops around the world a few times a year but without backup or support. We were on our own if caught. My path also crossed with Jesse’s on occasion during that time.”
Well, that didn’t sound horrible. I could handle that.
“The thing is, we were really good at what we did. Really fucking good. And it was hard for us to look away when we saw injustices happening all around us. People going unpunished for crimes they committed because of legal bullshit. And as long as we did what we were told by the government, they didn’t seem to care if we went off on our own from time to time.”
“What do you mean? Like what your dad did in Italy?”
He offered only a tight nod, letting me know there were details I didn’t need to hear, and I wouldn’t want to, either.