danger like an alarm. I wouldn’t ignore that, even if I couldn’t feel it for myself. Enzo’s grip came down on my wrist, stopping my retreat and leaving me with no choice but to spin and face him. “Are you going somewhere, Baby Girl?” he asked. His face remained expressionless, trapped beneath the blank mask of cold fury that gave me nothing.
I wanted the slightly mysterious Enzo back. The one who was sarcastic and made jokes about murder. The one who held me while I cried.
“I need to shower,” I answered, touching a hesitant hand to the top of his. The heat of his skin branded me, his grip a searing stranglehold when he refused to release me.
“After,” he said, tugging at my wrist. He strode for the back of the house, his bedroom door ominous as it loomed closer, and I struggled to keep up with his stride. It left me with just one question, my heart racing in my chest as I considered the possibilities.
After what?
Enzo should have been my safety in the Bellandi family. The one with the conscience who wouldn’t cross certain boundaries that the others seemed to ignore. But something rattled at the cage, begging to be set free from the confines of his control.
I had a feeling the beast was hungry, and that I was meant to be dinner.
“Enzo,” I whispered my protest. Anything louder would have felt like too much in the quiet space as we stepped into the dark bedroom.
Only the light from the floor to ceiling window to the left of the bed gave us any light, the waxing moon shining against his hardwood floors. “Take off your clothes and get on the bed,” he ordered coldly.
I swallowed back my curse, choosing a slightly less antagonistic way of defying him. “No,” I said, tearing my wrist from his grip. I hurried back out the bedroom door, determined to make it to my bedroom with a lock on the door so I could wait out whatever had come over him.
His arms wrapped around my waist, lifting my feet from the floor as he carried me back in. He positioned himself between me and the door and closed it behind him, leaving me to glance around for an escape that didn’t exist.
Short of throwing myself out the window, there was nowhere to go.
Even with Enzo scaring me half to death, I knew that was slightly extreme.
“I will only tell you once more, Carina. Get on the fucking bed.” I shook my head, staring back at him and hoping the curse, the frustration of it, was a slight hint of Enzo beating back the rage to see how close he came to crossing a line. His lips twisted into a snarl as a growl clawed its way up his throat, and he stepped closer to me. There was nowhere to go but further into the room, backing away until he trapped me in the corner.
Clasping me around the backs of my elbows with a harsh grip, he lifted me from my feet and tossed me to the bed. I scrambled to sit up, scooting to the edge of the bed as he jerked open a drawer in his nightstand. Filled with weapons, I hurried to the other side of the bed at the sight of glinting blades, loaded guns, and coarse rope from just a single peek inside.
Hands grasped my ankles, tugging me back until my stomach collided with the bed. Enzo’s weight leaned over me, rolling me to my back and shoving me to the center. Straddling my waist, I stared up at him in horror. Tearing the rope from where he’d held it clenched between his teeth, he fed it through the slats in his charcoal grey headboard and pulled it out the other side while I swatted at his chest and shoved. “What kind of fucking pervert keeps rope in his nightstand?” I screamed in his face.
“The kind who sleeps with a gun and is fully prepared to kill anyone who sneaks in here while I sleep,” he grunted, snatching my right hand off his chest as I dug my short nails in to mark him.
Angry red welts raised, the brutality of them shining against his skin and threatening to bring tears to my eyes as the rope wrapped around my wrist tightly.
Without a doubt, I’d have marks of my own by the time he finished with me. “This isn’t you,” I said, trying to appeal to the man I knew