Page 64 of The Enforcer

26Alfonso

Zoeand I leave the pool as soon as I come. It seems prudent. She also thinks that it adds to our cover that we slink away back to our room when a large group of tourists descends on the pool. She puts on her dark sunglasses and looks away from the crowd with a smile.

I think she’s enjoying this just a little too much, but if it makes her happy, I’ll go along with the ruse for her sake. I shield her from the crowd, grab her hand, and rush her back to our bungalow. She doubles over in laughter as soon as I unlock the door.

“This is great. I haven’t had this much fun in years,” she says.

“I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself.”

“Well, if I’m going to be kidnapped…”

“For the last time, I haven’t kidnapped you,” I say, which reminds me that I need to check my mobile. I, of course, told Giulio that I was taking Zoe away from Positano. I expected that he would object, but he hadn’t responded before we climbed onto Nicola’s boat, and the message I see when we get back to the hotel room is unexpected.

“Be careful. Zahra says to show her sister a good time.”

I gulp down that message, and my thigh twinges in a delicious reverberation from the scrapes on my leg straight up to my dick. I’d argue that Zoe’s been the one showing me a good time, but I don’t think this is what Zahra or Giulio had in mind.

“Sit.”

I fall into the desk chair before I even understand what she’s asking or why.

“Hold this.” She hands me a first aid kit and then grabs the other chair across the room. She places it in front of me and then sits. She opens the small box and rummages around until she finds what she’s looking for.

“This shouldn’t sting,” she says, pouring some liquid onto a cotton pad.

“I don’t mind that.”

She looks at me with a small smile on her face. “Tell me just in case you do.”

I nod. It does sting, but I’m used to the sharp pain of alcohol on a wound. This isn’t even the worst I’ve ever felt. This is barely a mosquito bite. But I like the contrast of that sting and the soft way Zoe touches around the deep welts she’s left in my skin.

“So, you never realized that the pain got you off?” she asks, her head bent over me.

I take a deep breath and give this some thought; thought I should have given it before. “When I was little, my mother used to tell everyone that I had a death wish or that I was sent here to scare her into an early grave.”

Zoe looks up at me with big, worried eyes.

I smile. “She said I didn’t understand fear or pain. I believed her until I was a teenager.”

“What happened then?”

I shrug. My smile deepens.

“Nicola and I used to go to Naples on the weekends with our friends. One night, we stumbled into a fight club of sorts. It was mostly just delinquent kids with nothing to do, betting a few euros on the winner. But a few euros was more than I had in my pockets at the time, and I was good at it. Some boys got hit once and were done. Some could take anything but face hits. But I could take it all.”

“Because you didn’t feel it?”

I shake my head. “I felt it all. Every hit. Every scrape. Every split lip. None of it stopped me; it spurred me on. I liked it. Soon enough, I was the best bet no matter who I was facing, and then I got scouted.”

Zoe sits up in her chair and grabs the first aid kit from me again. She pulls out a tube of some kind of medicine. “Scouted for what?” She squeezes some of the cream onto her index finger and then bends over my leg again.

“Amateur boxing.”

“That makes sense.”

“I thought it did, but the gloves and the padding…”

“Oh,” she says, nodding as she dabs the cream onto my wounds. “Not enough stimulation. Got it.”

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