Page 25 of Enzo

I never saw a pool, or a garden, and I was so young when the real bad stuff started.

I shoved the memory down.

I had to trust someone soon outside of the hugs I got from Enzo. And this—this felt small enough. Safe enough. Hence the note I’d left Logan this morning. Still, when he stared at me now, as if I’d revealed I had X-ray vision, I regretted opening my mouth.

“Good catch,” Logan said. “How do you know the serial number? You memorize that kind of thing?”

Fuck. I swallowed hard. “I… I just see it. I don’t mean to. I remember things. Not always useful things. Just… stuff.”

I didn’t want to explain. Didn’t want to have to be that again. The freak. The walking memory bank. The thing people poked until it bled facts, and when it couldn’t bleed any more, they used it in other ways.

“I didn’t mean—just forget it.”

He blinked at me. “Well, okay then. I’ll make a note, and we can, uh… well, you can file that one in the garbage, I guess.”

I shook my head. “We should keep these duplicates until all the invoices are paid.”

Logan nodded, scratching something down on the pad he always carried. “Smart.”

He meant it as a compliment. I knew that. But I still felt sick all the way through the afternoon and going right up to dinner.

I was getting better at spending time here on my own. The garage was locked up, the space eerily quiet now that Jamie and Rio had left and after Enzo had stepped outside to talk to Logan. I knew they took some conversations away from me—probably discussing why I was still here, or what to do next, or fuck… maybe they would talk about what I could do and how they could use it.

I trusted them and I was getting to be a pro at forcing back my fears. The terror they’d throw me out or send me back was always there, but sometimes, if I focused hard enough, I could ignore it all. I wasn’t going to be that person anymore. I refused to curl up in a corner and let John win. Not here. Not now.

Since that day I’d found Redcars by accident, I hadn’t left. I didn’t know if John or the other two were searching for me; or if he thought maybe I’d crawled into a corner and died along with everything I knew, but it was quiet, and nothing had hit the news. There was no one coming into the garage for me, and I was feeling a little more confident each day hidden with this new persona. Enzo hadn’t left, sleeping in the apartment upstairs, just him and a go bag in case he needed to leave for someone who might have to move in, but he’d spent every night here, watching over me. And the alarms were insane. Camera, motion detectors in the yard, entry codes, lockdown doors. No chance of John getting in should he find out where I was. He wanted Roman Lowe, a skinny malnourished long-haired blond with two different eye colors. I was Robbie Elwood, with dark eyes, and black hair, something I was still getting used to despite all these months of being this new me.

I’d started to feel as if Logan and the rest might let me stay. Tudor spent enough time telling me I was safe here, and Logan fell all over himself to tell me he’d be lost without me. Now I was hopeful they wouldn’t ask me to leave, and determined to at least try to make myself indispensable. It started with the filing, and with my eidetic memory, I knew every detail of orders and invoices and what matched and what didn’t. Last month alone, I worked out there were over nine hundred dollars in outstanding payments, and Logan liked that a lot.

Today I’d asked him for more responsibility—maybe booking in clients.

That felt huge. Like stepping onto a stage with the lights too bright.

But I meant it. I wanted to try.

I mean, I didn’t look like Roman anymore. That shell felt a thousand miles behind me. My face was rounder now, not so hollow. I was filling out in ways I hadn’t expected—healthy and a little stronger. I wore clothes Enzo had helped me order from an online store—fitted pants jeans, my Redcars shirt, sleeves rolled up like I had somewhere to be.

No one who came in would recognize me. More importantly, no oneherewould let them near me if they tried.

Not even John and the two men he worked for would know it was me, and they’d been obsessed with how far they could push the pain without breaking my brain when I’d stopped helping them. They knew every inch of my body and where it hurt most.

Stop thinking. Stop.

I could act confident. I’d been watching Logan for weeks—how he spoke to clients, how he walked around as though everything was under control. I’d studied it, written down half his phrases word-for-word. Enzo had smiled when he’d caught me muttering my way through my scripts in the mirror, but it wasn’t cruel. He got it.

Now I picked up my notebook—one of many I kept close like a lifeline—and flipped through to the page I’d written and rewritten a dozen times.

Good morning. Welcome to Redcars. Do you have an appointment, or are you dropping off today?

I had a whole speech in there. Options. Backup lines. Little arrows reminding me to smile and make eye contact if I could.

Logan had agreed that tomorrow would be a good day to start. First thing in the morning. Nothing too full-on. Just checking a car in.

I could do that.

At least—I was going to try.

And maybe, just maybe, I’d get to see that expression on Enzo’s face again. The one where he didn’t sayI’m proud of you,but I could feel it like sunlight on my skin, because I was getting better. Stronger. Smarter. And I could stop looking over my shoulder long enough to believe that I belonged here. I wasn’t only surviving.

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