Page 39 of Enzo

“Do you know him? Know Vinnie?”

“He wasn’t one of the three. He wasn’t…” He stopped, buried his face against my neck, his fists tangled in my hoodie.

“I’ve got this, Robbie, okay?”

I didn’t have this at all. Had Vinnie recognized Robbie? What even was he doing here with that bastardized car? Why did we suggest it was a good idea for Robbie to be up front, where he could be recognized? This wasn’t a game when I had Robbie trembling in my arms.

“You got cookies?” Jamie’s voice broke through, chipper and innocent as anything.

Robbie stirred in my arms. “In the container,” he rasped.

Jamie made a noise of delight and took off, and Robbie—God—he actually smiled. Small, fleeting, but it lit something in me that hadn’t felt warmth in weeks. “Which one?” Jamie asked, and after a pause, Robbie slid off my lap and headed over. That was when I clocked Rio. Just standing there, still as stone. He didn’t speak. Just a tilt of his head. No urgency, no drama—but I knew that look.

Jamie and the cookies had been a ruse. “Be right back, okay?”

Robbie nodded, eyes following Jamie and I followed Rio instead.

Rio was already moving, leading me around the side of the garage, behind the stack of rusted-out car doors we kept meaning to haul to scrap. No one came here unless they wanted to be invisible. The gravel crunched under our boots. I didn’t ask what this was about.

I already knew it wasn’t good.

Rio didn’t waste time. “Vinnie’s marked.”

The words hit like a gut punch. “You’re sure?” I asked, already fearing the answer.

“He’s got a tattoo,” Rio went on, eyes locked on mine. “Ink. Inside of his wrist. Stylized cross like a grave.”

My world went white. A stone cross?

“… the kind you only get if you’re owned. Flashed it because he wanted me to see it. He brought that car for a reason. He was showing us. Notjustdoing business—branding it. Branding himself.”

“I didn’t see,” I muttered. Fuck, I wanted to see.

My focus had been all on Robbie. Too busy watching the shadows behind his eyes to catch the one that walked into our space.

“I missed it,” I said.

“I didn’t,” Rio snapped. “I never miss Vinnie, and he was staring at Robbie.”

I knew there was more behind what Rio said—more than a grudge. There was blood in that voice, and betrayal. Rio never said much about the fights or the man he’d killed, but Vinnie? That name cracked something raw in him. I saw this wasn’t only business. This was old rot rising to the surface, and it was going to explode. Maybe not now. But soon.

There it was. The edge in his voice. The history bleeding through.

“There’s something else,” he murmured, and tilted his head for me to follow him through yard, which was littered with rusted-out engine parts, half-finished projects, and the smell of oil and burnt toast from next door.

He didn’t say anything as we ducked into the narrow alley that led from Redcars to Carters Bakery. The air was cooler there, the shadows deeper. He stopped halfway down and pointed to the brick wall on the right.

“It’s the same as what Vinnie had on his hand, and there was paint on his jacket. It was him.

Graffiti. A slanted cross, spray-painted in deep black with white parts. The moment I saw it, something ancient and ugly uncurled in my gut. I blinked, but the world didn’t blur—it sharpened. Too much. The red of the bricks. The oily stink from Carters back vent. The way the paint still glistened in the morning light, tacky and fresh. And in my head, I was a kid again. Blood on my knuckles. The slip of a blade in my palm as it carved into flesh. The last time I’d seen this symbol, there’d been a fight—no, not a fight. A fucking maelstrom when my life had changed forever.

I’d seen too many of those slanted crosses in my time, back when I was younger and dumber and spent more nights on the street than in a bed. Hell, I’d had one on my back now covered in crude prison tattoos blocking out any kind of loyalty to a gang I’d once been prepared to die for. It was territorial. A warning. A claim. My brother had a similar mark inked into my skin when I was too young and angry to understand what permanence meant. This symbol, this close to my place, was a message. A reminder for me? Why? I’d made a deal, sacrificed five years behind bars to get away from that life, and I hated how seeing this shook me.

“You see that?” Rio said, voice low. “This fucks me off.”

Rio didn’t know my backstory—my connection with the people who wore this mark, but this was evidence of gang activity edging closer. Encroaching. What with fires over on the mobile home park where I had a place, where Tudor and Logan lived, I was about done with this shit. And now we had Robbie.

“Gang sign for Stone Cross, my old neighborhood.”

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