Page 42 of That Time I Accidentally Took Over the Mafia

The gasp that escapes my lips feels like it echoes through the room. My hands fly to my mouth as the weight of his words hits me like a freight train.

“She just happened to have hair a lot like yours,” he continues, his voice steady but lined with grief. “Similar build. She was sitting at your desk because I asked her to.” He shakes his head, his hands falling to his sides as if the memory still haunts him. “Luca ran into the building like a lunatic only a minute later.”

“Why would Luca be there?” I ask, my voice shaky as my brain struggles to process this revelation.

“Of course, Luca was there. Haven’t you figured it out yet?” Enzo’s gaze hardens, though his voice remains steady. “Luca has kept you hidden all these years. Delaney Caputo’s digital footprint is so confusing, no one even knows what you look like or where you’ve gone. Hell, some people even think you’re dead.”

My brow furrows as I try to piece this together. “I don’t understand.”

“He walked away from you first,” Enzo says, stepping closer. “But he never left.”

The pieces start clicking together, Jax’s earlier story interweaving with this new revelation. Jax had asked Luca to keep an eye on me, but…

“He’s done so much to keep you safe, Delaney. Because he loves you. Jax loves you. I fucking love you.”

The words hang heavy in the air between us as Enzo reaches for me, cupping my face with his hands. His lips claim mine in a kiss so full of passion and desperation it steals the breath from my lungs.

“We’ve poured everything we have into keeping you alive,” he says against my lips, his forehead pressed to mine. “Luca tracks every job that’s been put out on you. We make sure they never fucking touch you.”

He points toward somewhere beyond the club. “These mines—those fucking mines are a mass grave for the assassins who signed their death warrants the moment they took a job on your life.”

“What the fuck…” I whisper, my voice trembling.

“How come there was nothing on the news?”

“You don’t know how good our boy is, do you?” Enzo’s pride for Luca is evident, his smirk tinged with admiration. “Luca put out news reports of a local gas leak and evacuated the entire block. I had the window repaired, and we took care of the body. Then we used a cadaver to make her a fatality of the gas leak.” He shakes his head, regret flickering in his expression. “She got thirty seconds of airtime on the news, and then she was forgotten forever.”

The enormity of it all feels suffocating. “Why would you all do this?”

The question seems to break something in him. Enzo wraps his arms around me, lifting me to sit on the counter and pullingme into his chest. The warmth of his embrace feels like a lifeline as I bury myself against him, inhaling his scent.

“If you think we wouldn’t rip this world apart for you, Delaney, you’re fucking crazy.”

A startled laugh bursts from me, breaking the tension. Maybe I am crazy. Maybe we all are.

I grab the lapels of his jacket and pull him toward me, the confusing emotions coursing through me demanding release. My lips crash into his, and his approving growl vibrates through me as his hands tighten around my waist.

Enzo pulls back just enough to rest his forehead against mine. “Luca and I agreed we need to work together to keep you safe. Jax too, even from inside prison. We knew we would die to protect you. But we didn’t want to leave you with the guilt of our deaths.”

He pauses, his voice thick with emotion. “It was better to make you hate us. To hope you’d one day forget about us.” His hand cups my cheek, his thumb brushing against my skin. “But I can’t do it anymore, Delaney. I can’t take another breath if I have to stay away from you again.”

He claims me with a bruising kiss.

I’m drowning in the weight of his words, the confessions that tore apart the foundation of my anger and replaced it with something far more terrifying—understanding. Everything he’s done, everything they’ve done, wasn’t out of cruelty but out of desperation to protect me. And yet, the scars remain, jagged and raw, etched into the parts of me that still ache for them.

They’ve carried my burdens in shadows, buried bodies in my name, and orchestrated a lie so elaborate that it kept me hidden even from myself. I should feel suffocated by the enormity of it all, but as Enzo’s embrace holds me, I feel something else—a flicker of hope, a fragile thread that maybe, just maybe, we will survive the chaos they’ve unleashed—us, together.

The thought terrifies me as much as it comforts me, but in this moment, with his hands framing my face and his lips married with mine, I can taste the regret on his tongue, and I choose to let myself believe it.

Atear runs down my cheek as I kiss him back. My fingers thread through his hair, and I circle his hips with my legs, grinding against him. “I don’t want to make a mess on your pants,” I say in a low tone, my mouth so close to his that my lips brush against him as I speak.

“I don’t fucking care, Delaney. Soak me.” He thrusts against me, and I smile, biting my lip. He knows instantly what this look means, and he stops. It’s the look that says: I have a secret.

“I swear to God, Delaney.” He takes half a step back, placing his hands on either side of me. Eye level with me, the tempest raging in the gray storm clouds of his eyes makes my smile widen.

He glances between my legs, then back at my eyes. He runs his finger down my lips, slowly tracing down my chin and chest. “If I reach between your legs and find out you let those cocksuckers dance with you—put their fucking hands on you—when you had no panties on...” He clenches his jaw, biting down as I push my chest out for him.

He lowers the top of my dress, freeing a breast and taking my nipple hard, making me cry out. The path his finger takes feels like the longest trip of my life. He pulls his mouth away from my breast to look into my eyes when his hand finally slides between my legs.

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