Page 62 of Enforcer's Obsession

“You didn’t tie me up,” she said in a quiet voice.

“Don’t need to,” I responded.

She didn’t ask why, and if I were the type who prayed, I would have given a prayer of thanks in that moment.

She was lying next to me, her body stiff, and she was awake.

I could practically hear the thoughts rushing through her head.

“Nico?” she finally said, her voice quiet.

“Yeah?”

“Your…job. Why do you do it?”

“What do you know about myjob, Hope?” I asked, my voice ice cold.

She heard that, but she paid no attention.

“I know that it requires you to kill people. And throw people like me into trunks,” she said.

There was no judgment in her tone, only curiosity.

Against my better judgment, I started to answer her. “It’s not a job. It’s the family business. I was born into it. Just like my father was. And his father before him. And I’ll die in it. Just like my father did. And his father before him.”

“That’s not the only reason you do it,” she said with such certainty that it stunned me.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

I was lying close enough that I could touch her. Even though I made no move toward her, her arm lay against mine. It was barely any contact, but I felt more intimately connected with her than I ever had with anyone else.

“Those are the circumstances you were born into, but not your reason. Why do you do what you do?” she asked.

I wanted to lash out at her, ask her what a fucking right she had to question me.

But I didn’t.

I answered.

“Because it’s the only way I can protect people,” I said.

I splayed a hand on her stomach, felt her sharp inhaled breath. “And now, that includes you.”

EIGHTEEN

Hope

“You want another waffle, Sebastian?”I asked.

“Yeah,” he said.

“No,” Nico said.

Sebastian laughed, and I smiled.

“Well, if you change your mind,” I said, gesturing toward the batter left in the bowl. Then I looked at Nico. “I’m going to go to the backyard.”

He nodded, but didn’t look up, and Sebastian and Enzo said nothing, and I made my way down to the garage and outside.

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