Page 63 of The Silent Night Stalker
“I thought Alfonzo agreed to let us go. I gave him an ultimatum, but he failed. He must have sent someone to hurt you while I was headed home. Fucking bastard. He’s going to pay for this.”
Enzo gently takes my hand and leads me to his bathroom. And once again, I end up sitting on his toilet lid as he gets ready to heal me.
“I’m sorry they hurt you, baby,” he says as he takes my hand and cleans up the cuts and blood on my knuckles. Then he checks for breaks. “We’ll ice this once I have you all cleaned up.”
I simply nod, struggling to find words.
Enzo takes my chin and makes me look at him. “Precious. You’re precious to me. I just killed for the first time for you, and I’d do it again. That’s a promise.”
My eyes water, not from the earlier fear and adrenaline crash, but from love. “I will always protect you, too.”
Enzo leans down and presses a soft kiss to my lips. It fills my heart with such goodness. It doesn’t take away all the pain and trauma, but it’s a kiss of promise—a promise of a better life, one filled with love and happiness.
“This has been the craziest fucking Christmas ever,” he says when he pulls away. “I still hurt for Enrique, but he can rest in peace now, and I can live knowing that, at the end of the day, I found revenge for him. All that is thanks to you. I may never have known what happened to him, and they may have killed me for it. But you gave me the most precious gift. Thank you.”
My face blooms, and I smile shyly as I wipe my wet face. “You’re welcome.”
“Now, let’s deal with the body, then we need to get packed and get the fuck out of here. Do you have any money stashed at your place?”
“Yeah, I have some, but not tons.”
“Anything will help. I have a bit saved that will tie us over for a while. I’ll put my house on the market, and when it sells, we’ll have some extra funds. First, I need to have another word with Alfonzo.”
My stomach jolts from fear again. “No!”
“Yes. I refuse to be afraid of him. He sent someone to kill you, and he needs to know that he will never be safe.”
Enzo pulls out his phone, leans against the bathroom counter, and calls Alfonzo.
“I warned you. Be prepared to watch over your shoulder for years to come. You’ll never know when I’ll come for you,” he says as soon as Alfonzo answers.
Enzo appears relaxed except for the white-knuckled grip of his phone.
“You did know! You and Mario talked about killing me off. If he sent that bastard before we killed him, it was onyourorder! You back off now because not only will I hunt you when you least expect it, I will let the entire family know of your deal with the Da Costas and your betrayal. No one will trust you.”
Alfonzo must say something else as Enzo listens before he scoffs. “Psh… I have evidence. I have the letters, recorded confessions, and Constantine was a witness. Hmm, I wonder if Carmen would be willing to come forward. She must be distraught by all this.”
Enzo nods, even though Alfonzo can’t see him. “Yes. Okay. And I want to remind you to leave us alone to live our lives, and maybe, just maybe, you’ll live to a ripe old age, and no one will learn what you did to Enrique and me. Oh, and pick up the body in the lake by your warehouse… or don’t. The bastard can rot with the fish for all I care.”
He hangs up and puts the phone back into his pocket. “We’ll see if he sticks to the agreement. He probably will, since he’s got less to lose with me living my life with you. Are you ready to start our new lives?”
I smile broadly, stand, and pull him into a hug. “I’m so ready.”
It’stakenusallday to pack, clean, and get rid of the body. It isn’t easy being in a neighborhood, even if it being dark outside. We have to move the body through the backyard to Enzo’s garage, where we dump it into the trunk of his car. Then we have to clean up all the blood on his kitchen floor. But there’s nothing we can do about the bullet holes that exited the man’s head. Enzo says he knows someone who can fix the floor without asking questions.
When we’re done, we drive off toward the warehouses where I’d originally followed Enzo to find Mario.
It’s late by the time we toss the corpse into the lake. It’ill be up to Alfonzo if he wants to retrieve it.
“Let’s get to your place to grab what you need,” he says as we stare at the lapping water against the concrete barriers. “Then we can leave here, taking both of our cars. We’ll also have to switch out license plates while we’re on the road, just in case.”
“I’d rather drive with you. Let’s just sell mine. It’s not worth much, but we’ll get a few thousand from it.”
“Sounds good.” Enzo wraps an arm across my shoulders and pulls me close to him. “A lot of cash is stashed at my place, but I have some in my bank account. I’ll clear that out, too.” He looks down at me and kisses my head. “Where would you like to go? Have you dreamed of a particular city or town you’d like to live in?”
“Not really. While living with Steve and my mom, I just wanted to get out of there. I didn’t care where I went. After they died, I just went through the motions of living. I never really had big dreams, goals, or a purpose until I met Emma.”
“The first person you… helped?”
