Page 149 of Phantom Mine

I watch her walk back to the bar for the start of her shift, completely captivated.

Enzo watches me watch her. We stand there silently for a couple of minutes. I could stay like this for hours, just watching her float from one end of the bar to the other, longing burning low and potent in my gut.

This is her last shift. Now that I know who she is, there’s no reason for her to continue the ruse that brought her through the doors ofFirenzein the first place.

I’m going to miss being able to look across the room and knowing I’d find her there. I’m going to miss having her close, accessible whenever I need.

I’m going to missher.

“What are you going to do,cugino?” Enzo asks, correctly guessing my train of thought. “Marchesani is demanding we set up a meeting with Marina this week.”

His words close like a noose around my neck.

“I need a favor,” I rasp, my throat desperately dry.

He answers instantly. “Anything.”

The easy lift at the corner of his lips falters, his mouth settling into a serious line when he sees the look in my eye.

“Marry the Marchesani girl on my behalf.” My gaze goes back to Valentina, my eyes only capable of looking elsewhere for a few seconds at a time. I stare at the woman I really want. The one I’m afraid will start to slip through my fingers after her last shift. The one I can’t bring myself to give up even though I’ve always known I would have to. “Please.”

The only person who could ever understand the impossible impasse that lies before me is Enzo. Something sharp and heavy flashes through his gaze, something that reflects the same weight I carry in my eyes, in my very soul.

He claps my shoulder and shakes his head slowly. “You know I’d do anything for you, Matteo, including this. But Emiliano will never accept it. It doesn’t matter how much power I hold as your second in command. You’re theDon. He won’t settle for anything less than that title for his daughter.”

“But you would do it if he accepted the change?”

“Of course,” he replies instantly. He sighs, running an exhausted hand over his face. “I knew we would be standing here having this exact conversation one day. I really hoped that I’d be able to help you find a way out when we did, but I have nothing. You have to marry Marina.”

I turn to face him, my chest squeezing at the top of my ribcage. “What do you mean, you knew?”

Enzo gives me a look that can only be described as being profoundly unimpressed. “I listened to you talk about yourpavonafor a year and a half,cugino. Every fucking day for well over five hundred days. I don’t think you realize how often you talked about her—at one point, I literally got down on my knees, knit my hands together, and sent an actual prayer straight up to God himself asking that he send her back to you so I could finally get some peace and quiet. Must have prayed a little too hard, because I got exactly what I asked for.”

Enzo runs a hand over his jaw to hide his smile.

“I can fuck who I want, marry who I want, butyou?” He emphasizes the word intentionally, as if telling me I need a reminder of exactly who I am. “We always knew you’d need to marry strategically. I never doubted your commitment to that, never thought that anything could make you waver or blink, even when you were talking about her like you had a daily word quota you needed to hit, simply because I knew no other emotion could ever come close to the hate that drove you.”

“Then you found each other again and I saw the way you looked at her.” He pauses, inhaling a long, slow breath as he rakes his hand through his hair. “That’s when I knew we were in trouble. You stare at her with a restless, unyielding sort of hunger, as if just the sight of her replenishes your soul.” He blows out an aggrieved breath now. “You know you’re not supposed to look directly at the sun, right? They taught us that in kindergarten, but you must have been out sick that day because you stand there looking right into the equivalent of your sun with the dopiest, most lovesick grin on your face, uncaring that you’re getting your metaphorical corneas absolutely scorched to a crisp in the process. Look at you, you’re doing it right fucking now,” he says, waving at my face exaggeratingly. “You can’t look away. It would be adorable if you were staring at the right woman.” A conflicted expression crosses his features. He hesitates for a moment, then adds, “I’ve never seen you look at anyone like that, romantically or otherwise, mostly because Ithought if Rocco succeeded at one thing in his miserable life, it was killing that part of you.”

“So when you ask how I knew this conversation would happen, my answer is because this was never going to be just fun, no matter your assurances to the contrary,” he continues. “Why do you think I’ve been so against this from the beginning? I had a front row seat to watching you fall deeper and deeper, knowing your journey together would be short, the destination inevitable and painful. I warned Valentina too. I told her this would end terribly for her, but she was as willfully blind to reality as you were, even when she knew her own family would be another barrier. And now we’re here, with you asking me for a favor you know is impossible and me having to tell you the world’s most long winded ‘I told you so’ instead.”

Anger surges through me in defense of Valentina, catching me completely unawares.

One second we’re standing facing each other, the next I’m gripping him by the collar and ramming him into a nearby wall.

“You warned her away from me?” I snarl.

Enzo glares up at me.

“No, I tried toprotecther, Matteo. To protectyou, as I have always done,” he grits through a clenched jaw. “If you weren’t completely devoid of all subjectivity on the topic, you’d be able to see that I was right to do so.” He shoves me violently off him with both hands. I stumble back two steps, my chest rising and falling with every angry breath. “Starting a relationship in your situation was selfish, and you fucking know it. This is going to end the only way it was ever going to end—with you breaking her heart.” Enzo straightens his collar and tugs at his sleeves until both are perfect once more. Then he looks at me. “And yet, even knowing how you’re going to hurt her, it’s somehow your position I envy the least.”

I scowl, glaring at him. “Why?”

Enzo gives me a pitying look, one that reaches far inside my chest and twists at my insides.

“You’re going to sacrifice the woman you love for the future you’ve spent your entire adult life working towards, and it’s going to shatter your own heart in the process. That’s not something I look forward to having to witness you go through.”

I freeze. For a moment, it’s as if his words have physically struck me. “Who said I love her?”

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