drained from his face. “Please tell me there were no body parts.”
“Gino’s blood encrusted gold chain.”
“Fuck.”
“Yeah. I’ll be right back.” I stormed past him, but Matteo caught my arm.
“Are you sure this is a good idea?”
“She needs to know.”
And I needed her here, where I could keep my eye on her.
“She’s going to be pissed.” Matt grimaced.
“I can handle it.” But as I said the words, I wasn’t sure of anything anymore.
I was supposed to want to be out there, hunting him. Not resting until he was six feet under with a bullet hole through his skull. But all I could think about was getting Nora out of Luca’s apartment and away from here, to somewhere safe. Somewhere the fucker couldn’t walk right up to the door and leave her little packages.
“It’s your death sentence,” Matteo mumbled as I walked away. It was almost one in the morning. They would be sleeping, hopefully not together because I wasn’t ready to see that. It was bad enough collecting her from his apartment as it was.
I rapped my knuckles on the door and waited. When no one answered, I added a little force behind it.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Luca grimaced at the sight of me.
“I need to speak to Nora.”
“She’s sleeping. It’s the middle of the fucking night.”
“It’s an emergency.”
“An emergency? What kind of emergency?” He had the gall to stare me down. “Because from where I’m standing it looks like the guy who continually hurts her wants to hurt her again. Well, I got—”
“Enzo?”
Relief slammed into me, but then I saw what she was wearing and all the anger and jealousy I felt hit me like a tsunami.
“There’s something we need to deal with,” I said, barely able to look at her. Her long smooth legs peeking out from under a t-shirt.
His fucking t-shirt. Unless all of a sudden, she wore a man’s size.
“I’ll be across the hall,” I said, spinning on my heel.
Luca started trying to comfort her, insisting she didn’t need to follow my orders all the time. But I didn’t stick around to hear the rest. Visions of her in his clothes were seared into the backs of my eyes.
And I hated it.
I hated it so fucking much.
But it wasn’t the hatred that caught me off guard. It was the regret. Thick, sludgy regret that slithered through me like a poisonous snake, coiling around my heart and threatening to squeeze the life right out of it.
I stormed back into her apartment and waited. Matteo didn’t say a word, scrolling his phone, no doubt keeping Nicco in the loop.
A minute later, I felt her enter the room.
“What is it, what’s wrong?” she asked.
“We’ve got a problem.” I didn’t meet her eyes.
“Enzo, look at me.” I was powerless against her soft command, turning around to look at her. She was dressed, at least. “What. Happened?”
“Whoever is doing this… he knows you’re here.”
“What?”
“I’ll just be…” Matteo left us alone.
“He must have been watching me, watching us.” The words were like sandpaper against my throat. “He sent something to you… something for me.”
“Oh my God.” She wrapped her arms around herself and shivered. “H-he was here?”
“He didn’t get inside the building, but he left the package at the front door.”
“What was in it?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“What was in it, Enzo?” She bit out, and I flinched.
“Gino’s gold chain. The guy I was working with in Providence… the guy he… killed.”
“Jesus,” she breathed, and before I knew what was happening, she marched toward me and threw her arms around me. “I’m so sorry this is happening to you.”
I stood there dumbfounded. I’d expected her to be angry, to scream and yell and blame me… I hadn’t expected this.
“You can hug me back, you know,” she chuckled softly, and I gingerly wrapped my arms around her, burying my face in the crook of her neck.
God, she felt good pressed up against me, holding me. I wanted to stay there forever, secreted away from all the shit circling me. But all too soon, she pulled away, tucking her wild curls behind her ear.
“Sorry,” a slow blush spread up her neck and into her cheeks, “I just—”
“It’s okay.”
Something flashed in her eyes, but there was a knock at the door, and Maurice came inside. “We pulled the security footage.”
“And?”
He grimaced. “You should probably come and take a look at it.”
“Okay. Stay here with Nora. I need to call Nicco and Uncle Toni.”
“Already handled.”
“Thank you.”
“The boss is sending more guys. We’ll double security on both exits