Hexed (Never After #6)

40. Enzo

FORTY

ENZO

I’ve got a headache.

It’s pulsing to the beat of my heart while I sit behind my fancy desk in my skyscraper, with my assistant, Jessica, outside the door.

Just knowing Venesa is in my city has me walking around with pep in my step. Despite the situation I’m facing in every other aspect of my life, I’m in a great mood and nothing can bring it down. She’s mine.

I’ve had her, she’s here, and I’m never letting her go again.

My head pulses and I groan, rubbing my temples. This is why I don’t drink much anymore. Not only because my body doesn’t recover the same way it did when I was twenty-one, but because things grow fuzzy. Memories become hazy, and part of me is worried I’m misremembering last night, forgetting things, when I want to have our first time together branded on my fucking skin and in my soul for eternity.

Not to have to struggle to remember each breath and every moan.

My office door opens, a pair of heels clicking softly on the carpeted floor.

Jessica’s holding out a bottle of Tylenol and a black coffee. One of her blond eyebrows is arched, and she gives me a knowing grin.

Behind her, Gio slips through the door, maneuvering around her, taking both items from her hands and haphazardly placing them on my desk before dropping into one of the seats.

Jessica frowns and glares at him before looking back at me. “Anything else, Mr. Marino?”

I wave her off, smirking at Gio instead as she leaves the room. “What, no water?”

Gio smirks, his long legs stretching out in front of him. He pulls out a phone and tosses that on the desk, too.

Right.

“It’s tomorrow,” he says as a reply. “Your phone got fucked with by your bitch ex, so here’s a new one.”

Sighing, I scrub a hand down my face. With everything else that happened, I had forgotten about this. Picking up the new phone, I give him a questioning look. “This one’s good to go?”

“Same number, contacts all transferred over and everything.”

I nod and rub my fingers beneath my chin, placing it back down.

Did Venesa know about Aria tapping my phone and working with her uncle? About her not saving me?

My stomach knots up from the possibility.

“What are you thinking about?” Gio asks.

“About how I should kill Trent Kingston before he tries to come for me.”

“You could always hire out.”

I snap forward in my seat, a light bulb going off in my brain. “What did you just say?”

Gio runs his fingers over his scruff and then picks a piece of lint off his pant leg. “I said you could contract it out. Pain in the ass, but I’m with you if you think it’s the right call.”

My brain is going a mile a minute, jumping from Peppino’s death to my attempted one and back again, trying to piece together a puzzle I don’t have a full version of.

“I actually asked Pops once if he thought someone was contracted to take out Peppino and me. He said it wasn’t worth looking into, brushed it off almost entirely.” I pause, giving Gio a pointed look. “Don’t you find that weird?”

“What, like he contracted out to kill his own sons?” Gio shrugs. “Your pops has gotten increasingly overconfident and sloppy as hell, so it wouldn’t surprise me. You really think he’d try to take out his own flesh and blood like that though?”

“Who knows with him these days.” I nod again, rubbing my hand underneath my chin. He’s probably right. “And you still can’t find anything on Jersey or the Frankie Bianchi and Trent connection?”

Gio’s brows draw in. “I can find you Frankie, E…but there ain’t no paper trail that ties him to the Kingstons. And you always know the De Lucas in Jersey are willing to sit down and talk. You want me to set up a meeting?”

I shake my head. “Not yet. But if you can find Frankie, then we don’t need a paper trail. Bring him to me.”

Gio shoots finger guns at me, making pew-pew sounds like a douchebag, and stands up. “You got it, Lover Boy. Hey, who was that chick last night at the fight?”

My heart pounds with impatience, knowing I’ve got Scotty on his way to pick up Venesa from the Marino and bring her to me as we speak, and I can’t help the smile that breaks across my face.

“I don’t know who you mean.” I play nonchalant.

Gio laughs and slaps his leg. “Oh! You’ve got jokes. Tits like Madonn’ and that sparkly white hair you just know looks good wrapped around a fist?—”

He makes a thrusting motion with his hips, and I’m out of my seat faster than lightning, my hand wrapped around his throat in the next second. “Watch your fucking mouth.”

Gio’s eyes widen as I release him, and he reaches up to rub at the red marks on his neck, chuckling. “Oh, fuck. It’s like that, huh?”

I drop into the chair next to him, annoyed at my lack of control. “Yeah, it’s like that.”

A grin spreads across his face.

Before I can respond, my office door swings open wide.

“Christ, does anyone work out there?” I yell to Jessica. “What the hell do I pay you for?”

I see a flash of her through the opening, and she gives me a wide-eyed look that screams, What do you want me to do?

It’s a second later I realize why. My father waltzes into my office as though he owns it, a small black cane in his left hand that he doesn’t need and doesn’t use, just brings along to have an extra weapon at his side.

“Pops,” I say, clearing my throat.

The hammer inside my head smashes against my skull, and I wince.

He takes a seat behind my desk.

“You look like shit,” he says.

“I’m fine.” I brush off his comment.

“Leave us,” he commands Gio.

Gio hesitates, his brows shooting to his hairline as he looks at me. I give him a subtle nod.

My father leans forward in the chair after he’s gone. “Can we speak freely?”

I know he’s asking if there’s a chance the office is bugged, but it gets swept every morning before I come in. “Yeah, everything’s good.”

“Good,” he repeats.

I hesitate. “But it wasn’t in South Carolina.”

Despite Pops’s old age, he has an air of power around him that can’t be mistaken. His is the one I first learned to emulate.

“Someone tapped my phone.” I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Not someone. Aria .”

Pops leans back, and an affable grin crawls over his face. “How is that possible, figlio mio ?” He cocks his head to the side.

“Because I trusted her.” I run a hand through my hair. “I never thought…I know you never thought about it either.” My eyes track his reaction, watching. Testing. Seeing if he shows any sign of knowing more than he should.

There’s something in my gut telling me I need to be careful around my father. That I don’t have the full picture of what’s been going down for the past three years. Maybe even before that.

“Tell me what happened,” he says.

“I texted Gio to check out Frankie Bianchi, that little creep from New Jersey who used to make waves when he got picked up for loan sharking and spent five years in the pen. You know him?”

My father waves me off. “I know who Frankie is. He’s worthless. Nothing. Inconsequential. Looking for him is a waste of time.”

“Did you know he’s Aria’s uncle?” Again, I watch him closely.

His nostrils flare, but he’s otherwise calm. Steady.

Almost too steady. Too practiced.

“I did not.” His words are simple and to the point.

And just like that, my entire world tilts like tectonic plates shifting.

My heart kicks against my chest cavity, and I’m anxious about making sure I give nothing away now. “Well, fuck. I was kind of hoping you would have known.”

“Why would I have known that?”

“Because you’re you,” I say. “I thought you knew everything.”

Pops takes his cane off the top of my desk, placing it in his lap. “I’m disappointed to hear about this turn of events with Aria. Seems like your fiancée isn’t who we thought she was at all. Tapping phones, keeping familial ties from you. It’s good we’re done with her and her family, no?”

“Yeah.”

My stomach is rolling, trying to see where he’s taking this. I don’t know much about my father’s state of mind, but I know when he’s lying.

And he’s been lying straight to my face this entire time.