Page 51 of Enzo (Legacy of Heathens #3)

ENZO

T he last week had been hard, but I’d experienced hard before.

However, this look in my wife’s eyes—the woman I loved—took the cake. She stared back at me like I was a stranger.

She didn’t say I was a monster. She didn’t have to. Because I already knew.

My mother had made me into one way before I could understand who or what they were.

They weren’t vampires and werewolves, nor were they the villains in fairy tales.

They were humans. Women who promised to take care of their children, but instead projected hate onto them and tried to kill them.

Men who made promises to sick little girls and failed to follow through.

I learned the truth too late. I killed the culprits too late. I was too fucking late.

“Enzo?” Penelope prompted.

I didn’t know where to start.

Pen sat, her knees touching mine under the round kitchen table, her hands shaking just slightly as they gripped the mug of coffee.

She was scared. Still here, but scared. And I didn’t blame her.

There was no mask left to wear, no version of myself I could point to and say, “ That’s who I really am .”

The only thing left was the truth.

So I gave it to her, every ugly, jagged piece.

“My mother was mentally unstable. As crazy as they come. She’d call Amadeo and me monsters,” I said quietly. “Even when I was little, before I knew or understood anything, she claimed I’d be a ‘Marchetti monster.’”

Pen’s face softened when she heard the emphasis—confused, but not daring to interrupt.

“Father had her put away shortly after Amadeo was born. He caught her dangling me off a balcony when I was a baby and he could no longer turn away or claim she was adjusting poorly to motherhood. So, she was committed to an institution, but every so often, she’d escape and come for us.

And every time, she’d try to finish us off while telling us in no uncertain terms that we should have never been born.

That God made a mistake. She made a mistake. ”

I paused, watching Pen’s eyes widen in horror.

“One night she snuck into my room and smothered me with a pillow. I woke up gasping and fighting for air and managed to wrestle out of her hold. She just stood there, hovering over me, a smile plastered on her face. As I was gasping for air, there was one thought that screamed in my mind. If she can’t love me, how could anyone else? ”

“I do,” she rasped.

I swallowed. “But you’re also scared.”

She shook her head, but then her brows furrowed as if trying to recall what she’d heard. “I thought your mom died at the same time as your uncle? An accident or something.”

Cazzo , if I was doing this, I might as well go all in.

“My mom survived, but my father—who’s actually my uncle, by the way—ensured she was dead to the world.” Pen put a hand to her mouth. “The father you met is actually my uncle Enzo. I just found out about it recently myself, shortly before we got married.”

“Jesus Christ.”

I waved my hand. “Yeah, that can be a story for another day.”

I dragged in a breath, sharp and cold.

“Anyhow, the seed was planted, and even though my mother was dead, her words fucked with my mind. I was a monster, and my commitment to life in the Omertà cemented that. You’ve experienced it, you know perfectly well. I’ve killed men who tried to date you—who does that?”

She didn’t speak, but I could see the wheels turning.

“But then came Amara. Tiny but fierce. Loyal. She said she’d kick my ass if I hurt you and yet treated me like I was her family.”

Her throat bobbed. “She liked you. She might’ve even loved you one day.”

“No child should suffer like that, least of all her. So when you spoke those words, it hit me like lightning. I would dismantle the organization, but first I would use it to procure an organ and save her.”

Understanding flashed in her eyes.

“I said that I wished those organ traffickers would snatch me,” she croaked.

“That’s right. I’d already learned that Atticus was involved, so I went after him.

Unfortunately, he had a vendetta against your papà and made it his mission to eliminate any potential match for Amara.

So, I tortured him into signing the organization over to me, along with all the names of the ones that worked with him.

Although, now I know he didn’t give me everything. ”

“You’ve been killing them?” she whispered. “One by one.”

“Yes.” There was no sense in lying. “I wanted to use every possible avenue to find a match. I’ve searched high and low for another liver match. Atticus said there were a total of five, but in his records, I only found four.”

I wouldn’t tell her I learned from Gvozden that Pen was the fifth one. Atticus Popov made sure that Penelope wasn’t viable and used Dr. Gvozden to do his bidding. That would hurt her beyond repair.

“And then she died. It wasn’t until the morning of the funeral that I learned of Dr. Gvozden’s treachery and connected him and the other guy to the organization. I was too late. I failed her.”

The words nearly broke me.

I found names. Money trails. Surgical records with no patient history. Stolen organs sold to people who never waited a day. Why couldn’t I have made that happen for Amara?

“Gvozden,” I whispered. The name burned on my tongue. “He might as well have killed her, because his inaction led to her death.”

“H-how do you know? Do you have proof that Dr. Gvozden worked with Atticus?”

I nodded and reached for the duffle bag, then dug out the envelope I’d found among Dr. Gvozden’s possessions. When his name appeared among pages and pages of files, I had a bad feeling and followed up. It led me to a dark place.

I handed it to my wife, and she opened it with shaky hands. It was a photo of Amara during one of her chemo treatments. Over her liver and heart, there was red ink with two perfect surgical Xs. Extract the heart , the note attached read.

The photo trembled between Pen’s fingers while she stared at it for a long time, her throat working. “Did they take her heart?”

“Yes.” One word that came down like a hammer, crunching against human bones. “Fuck, I failed her,” I rasped, a part of me dying. “I stood with my gun pointed at him and the other doctor, and all I could think of was Amara’s blood, now on my hands. And then the look in your eyes?—”

“What look?” Pen asked, her voice almost a whisper.

“My mother was right. I’m a monster. She knew it all along.”

Pen was quiet for a long time. I didn’t expect her to say anything. I didn’t even expect her to stay.

But when she did speak, her voice didn’t tremble.

“You’re wrong.”

I blinked. “About what?”

“That I looked at you and thought of you as a monster. I didn’t. I don’t .” She shook her head. “I looked at the man I love, covered in blood, and I was scared. Of what you did. Of what it means. But I wasn’t afraid of you . I was afraid you were already gone.”

I stared at her.

“You’re not crazy, and you’re certainly not a monster,” she said fiercely. “I have never seen a monster when I looked at you, Enzo. Not once. Not even now.”

“I don’t know if I can come back from this, mia anima, ” I said.

“Then don’t come back,” Pen whispered. “Build something new.”

She reached for my hand, blood stains still lining my fingers.

And she held it anyway.