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CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Enzo

Ivan Ratchekovsky pins me with his gaze, fury and resentment flashing in his eyes. For a moment, I’m so shocked I forget why we’re all here.

“You know him?” Rafael asks from somewhere behind me, bringing me back to the present. Ivan spits on the floor, and his buddy laughs, despite the fact that they both look like they’re three seconds away from hypothermia.

Shit. This is not good, not good at all. He’s got the upper hand with shock factor, and now I look weak and stupid.

I spin around and stride out of the room. Rafael storms out after me, Valentina hot on his heels. Alfonso shuts the door behind them after giving me the briefest nod.

Good. Let him take the first round because I’ll probably kill that fucker before he can speak a word.

“Enzo, what the hell is going on here?” Rafael growls, grabbing me by the shoulder. I can’t stop pacing the length of the warehouse, my mind moving a mile a minute.

“How do you know that guy?” Valentina pipes up, struggling to keep up with my long strides. I take pity on her and stop moving.

“We went to Yale together, same program,” I explain. “We weren’t friendly. In fact, I always got the feeling he didn’t like me, but we somehow ended up in the same circle of friends.”

“He’s a hacker?”

“Probably,” I scoff, shaking my head. “He’s good, Rafael. He’s damn good at what he does… or at least he was in school.”

“So, he’s our guy then?” Valentina muses. “But what about the redhead?”

“I have no idea anymore,” I confess. A scream echoes from the freezer, and we whip our heads around to see Alfonso slipping out the door, cracking his knuckles.

“The other guy wouldn’t talk,” he announces, fuming with rage. “But your buddy Ivan asked me to deliver a message to you. He says to tell you that she was never good enough for you anyway.”

I glance at Valentina, assuming he means her—but how does Ivan know Valentina? She stares at Alfonso, equally confused.

“Not you, apparently,” Alfonso clarifies. “He was talking about the redhead.”

“Who the fuck is the redhead?” I demand, storming back inside the freezer. Ivan’s buddy cowers on the pallets, blood oozing from his skull. He’s not laughing now, is he?

I march straight up to Ivan and get in his face. His nose has been dislocated, and it’s gushing bright red blood down the front of his jacket. His arm sits at an odd angle, and I admire the quick and tidy work Alfonso managed to do in such a short time.

“Who?” I demand, my voice dripping with venom. My entire being is consumed with so much rage and frustration it feels like I’m being boiled alive. I focus on my fingers, willing them to stop shaking.

Rafael quietly enters the room, catching my eye.

“You know who,” Ivan spits, blood gurgling through his busted teeth.

“Tell me again,” I grit through clenched teeth. “What’s her name?”

“You took her for granted.” He shakes his head, enraged over some slight I don’t even know about. “You didn’t deserve her then, and you don’t deserve her now. But I?—”

“What?” I laugh in his face. “You love her? Is that why you’re here, helping her destroy my life?”

I realize I hit a sore spot and grin triumphantly. That’s the winning ticket. This kid is in love with the redhead.

“Guess what, asshole?” I growl, laughing cruelly in his face. “She doesn’t want you. She wants me. That’s why you’re just a lowly thug on her payroll and I’m the one she’s desperate for.”

“Fuck you,” he grunts, trying to spit in my face but failing with his busted mouth. Valentina appears at my side, ready to play good cop like we planned.

“Enzo, you’re being cruel,” she whines. “Let the boy speak, will you?”

She slinks over to Ivan, getting entirely too close to him. I shift a few inches, ready to grab her if I need to. I trust her, but I don’t fucking trust him.

“Come on now, let’s get her name out in the open,” she cajoles him. “You want that, don’t you? You want everyone to know her name because she deserves the glory?”

Ivan’s eyebrow twitches, and his eyes dart back and forth between us as he tries to decide which card to play. For a second, I think he’s going to spill the truth, but then he goes rogue and grabs Valentina. Her body slams down onto the pallet beside him, as she yelps in shock.

I don’t think. I don’t exist. In fact, in that second, nothing exists. I raise my gun and shoot him square in the chest.

“Enzo!” someone yells behind me.

“Fuck,” Valentina growls, extricating herself from his grasp.

“Alexandra,” Ivan whispers, choking on his own blood. “You never deserved… Alexandra.”

Rafael pulls me out of the room as a second shot rings out. Alfonso leads a pissed-off Valentina out of the freezer, his gun dangling from his hand.

“Never,” Rafael growls, getting into my face, “let emotions control your actions in interrogation. We use our emotions to give us power, not to make decisions. Never again, do you hear me?”

I pull away from him and storm outside, desperate for some air. I know I shot him too soon, I know I did it because I lost my control, but what does it matter? We got the name—Alexandra.

“Eight!” I yell as everyone pours out of the warehouse in search of me. “Fucking eight!”

“Yes, yes, we know, The8,” Alfonso grumbles. “Calm down, Cavalli.”

“No, you don’t understand.” I stop pacing. Everyone stops as well, waiting for my revelation. I suck in a deep, slow breath and let it out. “We’ve had the answer the whole time. Eight. It sounds out the initials A.T.—Alexandra Tavinsky.”

“We need the long version of this story, stat,” Rafael announces, leading us to the car. We pile inside and he pulls out of the lot, leaving his men to deal with the bodies.

“I dated her in college.” I launch into the story as we merge onto the freeway. “Dated is a strong word, honestly. We hooked up for a few months, five or six, not sure exactly.”

“What happened?” Rafael asks, glancing over his shoulder at me.

“Nothing, really,” I confess. “At least, that’s how I felt about it. Things just fizzled out.”

I explain how I met Alexandra at a party the summer before my final year. We danced around our attraction for a few months, finally gave in, had some fun, and by Christmas, I’d broken up with her to focus on my last semester.

Once I graduated, I moved out to California right away, and then I met Valentina. I never even thought about Alexandra after things ended.

“What was she like back then?” Valentina asks, her brow creased in confusion. “I mean, was she this insane?”

“Hell no.” I almost laugh. “She was totally normal. I mean, okay, no one’s totally normal, right? She had some interesting quirks, and she was kind of… what do you call it? Intense, I guess.”

“Intense?”

“Yeah,” I say slowly, suddenly seeing red flags I never noticed before. “Things with her seemed somewhat premeditated, as if she’d secretly planned every accidental encounter, and?—”

“She stalked you?” Rafael clarifies.

“Okay, now that we’re talking about it, maybe,” I admit. “At the time, it seemed kind of accidental and fated. Like she’d run into me at a coffee shop holding the same book I was reading, and we’d get to talking, but that kind of stuff happened way too often to be a coincidence.”

“Was she a redhead?” Alfonso asks dryly. “Because if she was and you forgot, I’m going to have to kill you.”

“Nah, she was a brunette,” I say confidently. “Wait, at least I think she was.”

“Enzo,” the entire car groans.

“Wanna check out the orange orchard?” I ask, trying to steal Lenny away from the group after dinner.

“I think it’s called a grove,” Lux chimes in.

No time for your nonsense right now, Lux. “Whatever,” I snort. “Lenny?”

I need her so bad right now. I haven’t been able to stop looking at her all afternoon—no, wanting her, desiring her, obsessing over her. Having Lenny in my life again is dangerous.

“Fine.” She shrugs, putting her plate away and pulling on her coat. “Just don’t get us lost, okay? I’m not made to survive in the woods.”

“Noted.” I grin, tugging on my own jacket. We step outside into the frosty February air, and I inhale deeply. “The snow smells so crunchy, don’t you think?”

She laughs in confusion, eyeing me like I’m an alien or something, but I don’t even care. I grab her hand and pull her down the steps and into the snowbanks.

We giggle like little kids as we run and trip through the snow, throwing snowballs at each other and slipping on ice.

By the time we make it to the orange grove, we’re both breathless and flushed, gasping for air. I spin her around and press her back up against the wooden fence. She arches completely, leaning back to look at the night sky, and I follow her lead.

“The stars are dizzying,” she announces in wonder. “There are so many! You never see this in the city.”

“Fine,” I grumble. “I’ll admit it’s the one good thing about country living.”

“Don’t be such a city mouse, Enzo.” She laughs, beaming at me and taking my breath away. Here, under the inky night sky filled with millions of stars, she’s the most beautiful version of herself—carefree, glowing, and happy.

“Come on,” I gasp, pulling her under the fence and daring her to race me through the grove.

Running through such tall snowbanks is a grueling ordeal, even for someone like me who swims laps every day. We collapse onto a mound of snow under a scraggly orange tree, gasping for air.

“You’re… insane,” Lenny pants out, clutching her chest.

“Yep,” I breathe before rolling over and pinning her down. Her mouth is open, hot puffs of air coming hard and fast. I kiss her flushed cheeks lightly and then her lips. She moans into my kiss, pulling me closer.

I want to feel her, to touch and lick and kiss every single inch of her, but the snow is making things difficult. It’s seeping through our clothes, weighing us down, and probably causing pneumonia. I break away, and she whines, pouting at me.

“The snow, baby,” I say, scooping her up and glancing around. We’re surrounded by orange trees and snow—nothing else.

I press her up against the tree nearest to us, urging her to wrap her legs around me. She’s kissing me feverishly, like nothing else in the world matters at this moment.

I slip my hands under her ass to support her while she moves her hands between us, desperately trying to shift our clothes aside enough to feel me.

“We’re going to have to move fast.” I grin, eyeing her half-lidded eyes and rosy cheeks. “I personally don’t want frostbite on my balls.”

“No, we definitely don’t want that,” she purrs, trapping my mouth with another kiss. I let go and lean fully into the kiss, feeling every single brush of her tongue on mine, tasting the wine on her lips, drowning in the warmth of her.

I gasp when I feel her ice-cold fingers circle around my cock. She gives it one stroke but takes pity on me and guides it inside her.

As soon as I sink in, my head spins. What a heady feeling it is—sliding into a warm, wet pussy in sub-zero temperatures under a blanket of sparkling stars.

We start off nice and slow but quickly realize we’ll have to adjust to a much more aggressive rhythm. This is why people have sex on the beach, not in the snow .

The cold seeps in through my jacket, creating an intoxicating combination of goosebumps mixed with Lenny’s hot breath on my face.

“Yes, yes, yes,” she urges me as I thrust deeper and harder with each movement. “I’m so close, Enzo, don’t stop.”

“Good girl,” I encourage her. “Get your pleasure.”

She grinds her hips into me, meeting me at every thrust, and the added sensation sends both of us over the edge. I throw my head back, spinning in a world of stars, while my body is firmly lost in Lenny’s touch.

She screams my name, biting down on my neck, and it pushes me to climax.

We lean into each other, trying to get our ragged breathing under control. When I pull out, I feel the rush of cold air against me and gasp.

We quickly adjust our clothing and wander back through the grove hand in hand.

“I wish we could do this every day,” Lenny says dreamily as we approach the house.

“I don’t think the frostbite on my ass agrees.”

“So that was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, then?”

I nod vehemently, pulling her into the main house and toward the fireplace. I mean, it was fun and hot and new, but I prefer the comfort of the indoors.

“I want a lifetime of once-in-a-lifetime experiences with you,” she whispers, pulling me against her.

I couldn’t agree more.