Page 55 of Enzo

Mateo didn’t flinch either, moved like someone who’d done this dance before. Pulled a gun from beneath his jacket, pressed it against Rio’s gut.

“Where the fuck is the little asshole?” Rio snarled. “I’ll kill him slow—inch by fucking inch—and then I’ll come back here and gut you from belly to throat.”

Mateo smiled, teeth white, and cold. “Are you offering me a good time, fighter?”

I shoved my way between them, palms up, heart hammering. “Talk,” I snapped, eyes pinned on Mateo. “Now.”

“What do you want to know? You know I’m an open book?” The lies just fell from his lips.

“Vinnie.”

“Talked the talk, didn’t do the walk. Came out yesterday talked some shit about this missing link, how he had a line on a million dollar payoff. This person who knows passwords to some big crypto, ran off from his benefactors.” His mouth twisted on the word as if he knew there were no benefactors, just kidnapping abusers. “He swears to me he saw this guy with you.” He blinked all innocent. “You wanna comment?”

My blood turned to ice.

A million dollar payoff. Passwords. Missing link. A guy who’d run off?

Robbie.

My insides twisted up into knots of nausea and rage. My temper flared hard and fast, sharp enough to taste blood. Somehow, Vinnie had known who Robbie was. Or he’d seen something, and Mateo was pinning his hopes on the cash. And worse—he was smiling. That fake-innocent blink, the same one he’d used on teachers when we were kids right after he’d stolen something from their desk drawers. Except this wasn’t candy or test answers. This was about Robbie. My broken, healing, brave-as-fuck Robbie.

Mateo reached into a pocket, and Rio was on him. “Easy fighter, just going for my phone.” He pulled it out and thumbed through the screens. “Crypto’s a big world, Lor. Lotta people on the dark web want their wallets unlocked. Especially when they’re full of Bitcoin some dumbass stashed back in 2013. If you’ve got a line on the kid with the passwords, you’re sitting on a goldmine.” He passed me the phone, and I took it and turned it to see Robbie. Maybe fifteen or sixteen, untouched, blond hair, mismatched eyes, staring at the camera, but it was definitely him. “That kid is the key, and allegedly, if we track him down, it’s a fuck-ton of money from concerned former employers.”

“Traffickers, abusers,” I spat as I saw red. Not metaphorical. Actual red. Behind my eyes, at the edges of my vision. “Is that who you are now, Mateo? Taking victims back to their abusers for money?”

Mateo was silent, and then he tilted his head. “I didn’t say that.”

I thought about Robbie, the scars, the pain, the fact he was only just coming back to life. “Then what are you doing?”

“Nothing, I ordered him to back off,” Mateo said.

I stepped forward so fast that Rio flinched. “Who put this call out and offered this reward?”

Mateo shrugged. “Dark web, anon shit, how the fuck do I know?”

But I caught it—that fraction-of-a-second flicker across his face. A tiny hitch in the corner of his mouth, a faint shift behind his eyes. Most people wouldn’t see it. But I wasn’t most people. And I’d known Mateo since we were kids pulling cons for candy and cigarettes. I’d seen every version of his lies, and that twitch was the tell.

He knew more.

He might’ve built on his daddy’s empire and probably buried bodies since then, but some truths never got old. Mateo was holding something back. He folded his arms over his chest, his lips thin, that was him done for the day.

“You’re crossing a line with me, Matty,” I warned. My voice was quiet, deadly. “And if you come near me or mine again, I’ll make sure you burn.”

He huffed. “You can try.”

“If me doing five years for you means anything, then hear me now—give us Vinnie, or we’ll take him out and leave the pieces where you can find them.”

“Give you one of my men?” he asked, faking shock. “And what do I get in return?”

“Nothing. This isn’t a warning, it’s a final fucking courtesy.”

Mateo raised his hands in mock surrender, but the glint in his eyes was sharp. Too sharp. A million dollars. Crypto passwords. Someone who thought Robbie was some tool to be passed around and used. Like he hadn’t already been through hell. Mateo didn’t know it, but I would set the entire fucking world on fire to keep the man I loved safe.

“I’ll get him here for you,as a courtesy.” He threw the word back at me, then smirked. “I’ll call you, and you’ll owe me.”

“Fuck you.”

He grinned then and I wanted to punch him in the face. “Well, fuck you back, Lor.”

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