Page 52 of Enzo

“People like that deserve what’s coming to them,” Rio said, cold as winter steel. “We find him, and I swear to God, I’ll skin him.”

I blinked.

“I’ll drag him into the alley behind Carters,” Rio went on, calm and brutal. “Take his goddamn kneecaps out one at a time, and when he’s screaming, I’ll ask him what the fuck he was doing sniffing around Redcars and where this John guy is. Then I’ll bury him in a pothole so deep they’ll build a Starbucks on his grave and never know.”

“That’s enough, Rio—” Logan began. He glanced behind him as if he expected someone to be there—maybe Gray, who’d been hanging around a lot.

“He threatened Robbie, Logan,” Rio’s mouth twisted. “He came into our house, and I know that fucker. Slimy, out for the money, and he’s affiliated.”

“Affiliated to who?” Logan asked, stiffening.

Rio glanced at Enzo, lips thin, regret in his expression as if he’d said something he shouldn’t.

“Stone Cross,” Enzo murmured.

Logan shot him a glance. “Your old crew?”

“Yeah.”

I swallowed hard. Vinnie wasn’t one of the three who’d hurt me, well, not then, but what if he was now? Who was Stone Cross? Were they connected to John? I felt sick.

Jamie’s expression didn’t change, but he stepped closer to Rio as if he were bracing for something in case Rio snapped in the other direction. “We’ll find Vinnie. We’ll fix this,” he said.

“I want Vinnie gone,” Rio said, so quiet I almost missed it. “Not scared. Not warned off. I want to get the information from him, and away from my family.” He shot me a glance. “I want him off the face of the earth.”

Enzo looked up. His voice cracked like stone against stone. “Then we find him, we do this clean. No cops. No trail. We find him, and we end it.”

I didn’t need to ask what“end it”meant..

All I knew was that these men—these hard, broken, beautiful men—had somehow claimed me as their family. And if Vinnie came back, if that tattoo on his wrist meant what they said it did, if he’d come sniffing around for reasons none of us could name yet, some connection to John, he’d regret it. Then they’d find John.

And they would kill for me.

Enzo would protect me, kill for me.

That truth hit somewhere low in my gut, sharp and overwhelming. No one had ever chosen me, protected me, threatened violence for me. Not like this. Not with the full weight of history and fury behind it. It made something unravel inside me, something cold and tight I hadn’t even known was still coiled there. I was used to running, hiding, surviving. But this? This was war in my name. This was love wrapped in blood and vengeance.

It terrified me.

It made me feel safe.

As for Jamie and Rio?

They’d make it hurt first.

There was something terrifying and comforting in that too. In the way they closed ranks around me without question. Like I was worth it. Like I belonged here, at the heart of all that rage and loyalty. I wasn’t just some broken thing they’d taken pity on. I was family. I was theirs.

And maybe—for the first time in forever—I wanted to be.

EIGHTEEN

Enzo

It was onlyafter Jamie stated he wasn’t moving out of Redcars and leaving Robbie alone, a glint of madness in his eyes, and Logan said he’d stay to back him up, that I even thought of tracking down Mateo because if Vinnie was affiliated, and the man who’d hurt Robbie had actually been on Redcars property…

“What are we looking at with this Stone Cross shit?” Rio asked from the shotgun seat, turning his knife over in his hands and staring ahead with deadly focus. He hadn’t needed to come. I’d told him to stay back, to keep an eye on things at Redcars, to watch over Robbie. But Rio? He didn’t take orders like that. He just gave me this look—steady, certain—and said, “You’re not doing this without me.” That was who he was. Solid. Always there when I wished he’d stayed safe, stayed clear. I didn’t want him anywhere near the shadows I used to walk in. But Rio wasn’t going to let me face them alone. Not now. Not ever.

“Three generations-deep by the time I got close to it. Started small—boosted cars, corner deals, intimidation. My uncle ran with them back in the nineties, my cousin until he OD’d, and by the time I was old enough to be useful to them, they’d got a stranglehold on the district. Mid-sized gang by numbers, but they punched above their weight. Controlled the streets, even had a couple cops on payroll.”

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