Page 43 of The Prices We Pay (Vittori Enterprises #1)

Enzo

“ S on of a bitch,” Sebastian snaps as he goes back to typing on his computer. “How did I not think of this?”

“Think about what?” Luca asks. Seb doesn’t answer. Immediately noticing the tension rising in Sebastian’s shoulders, Luca gently wraps his hand around the back of his neck and strokes the sensitive skin with his thumb. “Mio Re… think about what?”

Sebastian’s laptop dings, and he points at the screen aggressively. “That. That right there.”

Forgoing my blankets, I scoot across the sectional so I’m sitting next to them and can see what Sebastian’ s pointing at on his screen.

“Remember, like two months ago, we got hired for another job out in Brighton Beach? But we showed up to the target’s apartment, and he was gone?

I looked for him everywhere, but it’s like he never existed. ”

Do I remember? The entire thing was fucking weird.

I mean, if The Horsemen are coming for you, odds are you’re the type of person who isn’t well-liked by many.

So it wasn’t necessarily a surprise that the guy suddenly dipped.

However, what was a surprise was that everything Seb found on him was suddenly gone too and—“O hhhhhh, holy shit.”

“Yeah, holy shit,” Seb agrees.

“What? What am I missing?” Luca asks urgently.

“Baby, we tracked that guy for days. I watched his comings and goings on hundreds of cameras across the city. I had bank records. Phone records. All of it. And we showed up right where we were supposed to do the job, and he’s just…

poof. Gone. Everything I had on him disappeared from every database.

There’s no more camera footage. Nothing.

He vanished. People don’t just evaporate like that unless—”

Luca finally realizes what Sebastian’s getting at and finishes the sentence for him, “It was a fake job. They hired us.”

“And the hit requests come through on an encrypted server. I can’t trace back who hires us to do jobs unless they offer up the information.

” It really was smart on Seb’s part. It’s the whole reason people feel comfortable hiring The Horsemen for jobs.

And honestly, the less we know about the person who pays for the hit, the better.

Sebastian always does his due diligence to make sure everything is legit, but beyond that…

nothing else is important. All that’s important is that we know the person we’re after deserves things far worse than a prison cell, and we make that happen.

“After we found him missing, I looked for days,” Sebastian continues, shaking his head in astonishment.

“I traced the IP address and countless databases and reviewed hours of camera footage, but he was just gone. ”

Luca sighs heavily and says, “And when we tried to send the money back, the bank account it came from was closed.”

“My best guess is they chose some low-level Bratva member, created a fake life for the guy as far back as they could, ordered the hit, and had us show up to that fucking apartment under the knowledge the guy was a piece of shit. Then they got rid of him, got rid of his fake life just so they could watch us show up to the hit and confirm that we are The Horsemen,” I say.

“How did Andrei even figure out it was us?” Luca asks.

“The girl,” I remind him. There was a woman at the warehouse that night six months ago.

She was a pale-skinned woman with bright red hair.

The moment we came crashing through the door, the three of us could instantly tell that she wanted to be literally anywhere in the world but where she was.

She jumped off Aleksandr’s lap as quick as lightning, and you could see it in her eyes.

She wanted to run as far from him as she could.

So we made a snap decision and let her run .

Obviously, she didn’t run far enough.

“Fuck. We never should have let her go,” Luca snaps.

I clap him on the shoulder. “We did the right thing, Luca. She was afraid. That’s not who we are.”

His dark eyes—the ones I’ve known my entire life—soften. “You’re right.” A harsh sigh leaves his chest. “That’s not who we are.”

“Okay,” Seb adds, “but what is Novikov going to do with that information? And why the fuck is he messing with Joe? Let alone getting Joe’s dad out of prison.”

“If I had to guess, they’re counting on the fact that they don’t know that we know and are going to try to use it against us somehow. We just have to wait for the opportunity to present itself.”

“And about Joe?” he asks Luca.

“The morning Damien cornered her in the cafe, they were just trying to see how much she knew about the missing shipments. But when Damien saw her with Enz, he realized he had a different card to play. ”

“He saw that she was a weakness.” The thought of her being used as some sort of pawn in a sick game makes my fucking skin itch as I flip the pen around between my fingers. “And John?” I snarl.

“I don’t know. I have no idea why they’d bother with him.” Luca eyes me warily as I chew on the end of my pen, my leg now bouncing up and down at a rapid pace.

Wrapping his hand around my thigh, Sebastian stills my movement. My eyes meet his, and his expression matches that of my best friend. “We will figure it out, Enz.”

“She’s staying here,” I demand harshly.

Luca shakes his head. “She’s not going to like that. You said so yourself; she wants to be in her apartment. She—”

“I don’t give a fuck.” I can feel my anxiety growing rapidly by the second. I’m spiraling, and I have to get it together before I spiral. “Until we deal with the Russians and get a handle on John, she’s staying here. ”

It’s rare that I get so argumentative, but I can’t help it.

Not when it comes to Joe’s safety. Not when there are so many unknowns.

Not when everything feels out of control.

We were lucky to have been able to piece this much together.

We’ve been in the dark about this for too long.

Got too careless. Not anymore. Not when she’s involved. It won’t happen. It can’t happen.

My stare wanders to the bar cart against the window, and I chew harder on the end of my pen.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Sebastian and Luca look at each other before Sebastian closes his laptop, and Luca moves to crouch down in front of me. With his hands on my knees, he says, “Enz, look at me.”

I pull my eyes from the bar cart and look down at Luca in front of me. Sebastian rubs his hand along my back and asks, “Do I need to go dump all of that out?”

Shaking my head rapidly, I clear my throat. “No. No, I’m fine. I’ll go to a meeting in the morning. I just—”

“Nothing is going to happen to her, Enz,” Luca consoles. “We will figure it out. We will explain everything in the morning and ask her to stay here. She will understand. We can keep her safe.”

Sebastian asks, “What do you need, Enz?”

I huff out a sarcastic laugh. “Neither of you can give me what I need right now.”

The two of them stare at each other again, except this time it seems as if they share an entire conversation with just one look.

Sebastian nods, and Luca takes a breath of relief before rubbing his hands against the tops of my thighs.

“We can’t give you what’s in that bottle, Amico, but we can give you something else you might need. ”

What the fuck is happening?

Running his hand down my arm, Sebastian takes the pen from between my fingers and tosses it onto the coffee table. “Let us help you.”

There’s no fucking way.

“Guys, shouldn’t we be trying to figure out—”

“No,” Luca cuts me off, shaking his head. “The only thing that needs to happen right now is getting that look off of your face. Because I’ve seen it before, and I promised myself I’d never let what happens next happen again. ”

No. No way. No, this cannot happen like this.

“I don’t want you both to feel like you have to do this. I’m really fine. I just—”

“Oh, would you just shut the fuck up?” The last word is barely out of his mouth before he stands from his crouched position and crashes his lips into mine.

Luca Vittori is kissing me—Enzo Santoro. My best friend, the person who knows me better than I know myself, is kissing me while his boyfriend is sitting next to me, watching the entire thing happen.

My body doesn’t have time to react before Luca pulls away. He’s standing between my legs, panting for breath as he looks down at me.

Fuck, he didn’t like it. I knew this was a bad idea.

“Luca, we don’t have to do this. We can pretend like it never happened. We can stay best friends and—”

He fists the front of my shirt and pulls me off the couch.

Colliding into him, we’re now standing chest-to-chest. He stands barely an inch taller than me, so I can feel his ragged breath on my lips when he says, “I thought I told you to shut up.” His mouth meets mine with the same heat and passion as it did the first time, but this time, he doesn’t pull away.

This time… he’s not just testing the waters.

He’s staying… tasting… taking. Luca wraps one arm around my lower back and pulls my hips against him.

And even behind his briefs and joggers, I can already feel how much he’s enjoying this.

I sink into him as he deepens the kiss, tasting every corner of my mouth with his.

And when I groan into him, he practically swallows the sound.

“We’re so not pretending this never happened,” he mumbles against my lips.

Suddenly, Sebastian’s voice commands the two of us from his spot at the bottom of the stairs. When did he even get over there? “Upstairs. Now.”

Without waiting to see if we’ll follow, he turns around and makes his way up the steps and toward his bedroom. A wanton groan spills from Luca’s mouth as he takes my hand in his. “Come on.”

My feet don’t move. “Luca, wait.”

“Enz…” he groans .

“No, just listen. Promise me that this won’t change anything. Promise me that no matter what happens upstairs, it won’t change who the three of us are. Because I want this. I really fucking want this, but not if it’s going to change us.”

Luca holds my face in his hands, and his eyes search mine in a way they never have before.

“I can’t promise you that, Enz.” My breath heaves in disappointment.

“I can’t promise you that because this is going to change everything.

Just like how Joe has changed everything.

We might not have ever thought we would end up here, but I think this was where we were meant to be.

Don’t get me wrong; you’re still going to piss me the fuck off from time to time.

” I roll my eyes and laugh, but it’s quickly cut off when Luca cups my hard dick through my sweatpants.

“But now, instead of just telling you to shut up, I’ll just shove my cock down your throat, and you’ll actually do it. ”

“Holy fuck.” A shiver of pleasure runs through my body.

Luca grins. “Now, come on. You’re going to like this. ”

“Please, please tell me I’m about to witness Daddy Seb.”

Luca barks out a laugh, and it does wonders to calm my frazzled nerves. But the moment we enter Sebastian’s room to find him in nothing but his briefs, Luca’s entire demeanor changes.

But Seb doesn’t pay Luca any mind. His intense stare is locked on me. His eyes dart from mine to the armchair that is sitting in the middle of the room, facing the bed. He nods his head toward the chair and commands, “Sit, Enzo.”

I pad across the room and sit in the chair. When I see him grab two small bundles of nylon rope from the dresser, my body comes alive all over again.

Just like that night with Josephine, I can’t help but wonder how I got here.

Sitting in a chair in front of two of my hot-as-fuck best friends.

Getting ready to do god knows what. But just like that night with Joe, I know that there isn’t a thing the two of them could ask for right now that I wouldn’t want to or be willing to do.

With my arms resting on the arm of the chair, Sebastian stands between my spread legs, bends over, and places his hands on my wrists, effectively pinning my arms in place.

The intensity of his stare sends a shiver down my spine.

“Here’s the thing, Enz. I know what you want.

I know what you need. I know what you deserve .

And we’re going to give it to you. So for now”—he makes quick work of tying my arms to the chair—“you’re going to sit here and watch me fuck him.

You’re going to sit here and watch me fuck him until the only thing you can think about is how badly you want to be between us. Do you understand?”

Looking back over my shoulder, my eyes lock with Luca’s. He hasn’t moved from his spot, but his chest is heaving in anticipation as he clearly waits for Sebastian’s instructions. “Fuck, I see why you like this so much, Amico.”

Seb grabs my jaw with his hand, refocusing my attention on him. “From here on out, you answer me when I ask you a fucking question. Now,” Sebastian demands, inhaling as he leans forward, getting so close that his lips brush against mine. “Do you understand? ”

Inhaling a shaky breath, I answer, “Yes. I understand.”

Taking my pursed bottom lip between his teeth, Seb bites down. My cock becomes impossibly hard beneath my sweats as a droplet of blood coats my tongue, and he releases my lip and says, “Good boy.”