Page 44 of Enzo

“Tell me something,husband,” she continued in a bored tone. “Are you more like your papà or crazy like your mama?”

The temperature in the hallway took a dive as my hand wrapped around her neck. Not hard enough to hurt, but firm enough to make it clear the topic was off-limits.

“Don’t ever bring her up again,” I growled, tightening my grip. “I’ll be good to you, Penelope. Faithful. Doting even. But don’t mistake that for weakness and fuck with me.”

Her pulse thundered under my thumb. All she had to do was let out a scream and her papà would blow my brains out. But she didn’t. Instead, she studied me with her big blue eyes, her chest rising and falling with heavy breaths.

“Is this some fucked-up version of foreplay, you two?”

Our heads turned in unison to find Amadeo leaning against the doorway, his hands in his pockets. His lazy gaze was sizing up my wife before he turned to look at me.

I let go of my wife rougher than I should have, regret instantly filling me. I reached out to steady her.

“Or something,” Penelope answered coldly, slapping my hands away as she righted herself.

My mother was a sensitive subject, and that was undoubtedly my greatest flaw. I wondered how long it would take her to learn the rest.

“Well, whatever freaky shit you two are doing, you better stop it or Luca will kill my brother,” he stated, narrowing his eyes. “I don’t think he’s into glimpsing his daughter’s rough… proclivities.”

Penelope didn’t spare him a glance, instead turning to stare me down even though she was a foot shorter than me.

“Do that again, Enzo, and you won’t have to worry about my papà. I’ll kill you myself.”

Then she walked out with her head held high.

It wasn’t until she was well out of earshot that Amadeo turned to me. “Are you fucking suicidal,fratello?”

“Not particularly,” I replied flatly.

“If it’d been Luca who walked in on that scene, you’d already be buried in the dirt outside. What’s going on with you?” He stared at me with a worried expression. “This can’t be healthy.”

He wasn’t telling me anything new.

I let out a heavy sigh, then straightened the sleeves of my suit. “I lost my cool.”

“You don’t say,” he muttered dryly. “Why were you choking your new wife?”

Fuck, when he put it that way, it sounded bad.

“It was hardlychoking. I barely had a grip on her.”

“Well, that’s comforting,” he snickered. “Still doesn’t explain your stupidity.”

“She brought up Mother and it set me off,” I said, resigned, and pushed a hand through my hair. “She, like everyone else in our fucking world, heard about her mental instability.”

Silence ensued, deafening and condemning. It was so loud it hurt my fucking head.

“She wondered if I was like her,” I admitted.

“Well, we know you’re not,” he grumbled. “I’m not surprised she found out. You know how shit is in our world. You’d think these people would carry themselves like the brutal hitmen and mob wives they are, not gossip queens and soap opera wannabes.”

“Yeah, but if she learns the extent of it, she’ll leave me.” He nodded his understanding, but not even he knew the extent of our mother’s betrayal.

“Big brother, let me give you some advice,” Amadeo drawled, and judging by the smug grin on his face, I knew I wasn’t going to like it. “Forget the stalking and obsessing. Just fuck her into oblivion and make her addicted to your dick. She won’t leave you then.”

My fist collided with his jaw before he finished giving me his “advice.”

“Don’t ever talk about my wife like that again.”