Page 47 of Power
I’ve had her and there’s no going back.
Now, on to what’s been gnawing at me all night.
Why the hell would a husband send his men after his kidnapped wife— and not to save her?
***
I don’t believe in coincidences. Every move is calculated. Every lie is deliberate. Every betrayal is premeditated.
Enzo made his choice the moment he sent men after me that night, and I intend to return the favor tenfold. But before I burn his world down, I need to understand why he did it. Why would he risk everything—not just his business, but his own wife? The woman he paraded around like a prize, like she was the only thing in the world that mattered to him.
And yet, he threw her to the wolves.
I don’t buy it. People don’t betray what they love unless that love was never real to begin with.
That’s why I’m here, digging into Vittoria’s past. I had one of my guys in the department pull what he could. Official records, sealed reports, anything with her name on it. I had all of this done before I decided I wanted it deeper, down to the fucking name of her first-grade teacher. If she ever owned a goldfish, I wanted to know how long it lived and where it was buried. Nothing was too small, no detail insignificant. If she sneezed in a classroom when she was seven, I wanted to know who handed her the tissue.
What I got in return wasn’t just a file—it was a goddamn revelation.
A different life. One I never saw coming.
I flip through the documents again, reading over the details. Vittoria Falco. Daughter of a mid-level diplomat, orphaned young, raised in elite boarding schools under the watchful eye of so-called guardians who, from what I can tell, didn’t guard much of anything. Then Enzo came into the picture. Young, ambitious, already playing the part of the golden son. He courted her publicly, but privately? He isolated her. Controlled her. It’s all there, hidden between the lines. A pattern of grooming so insidious it makes my skin crawl.
I know this because I know the kind of sick father he had. The type of man who warps everything he touches. Of course, that depravity ran in the family. Psychotic tendencies, the need to own, to bend and break—Enzo was cut from the same diseased cloth.
It explains why she still talks about him like he walks on air. Like his name alone doesn’t leave a bitter taste in her mouth. Like him tearing through hell and earth to get her back doesn’t shake her to her core.
How could I not see this?
“Jesus Christ.” I exhale sharply, tossing the file onto my desk. Rafa is leaning against the wall, arms crossed and watching me with that look—the one that says he’s waiting for me to make sense of it all.
“She never had a chance,” I say, dragging a hand down my face.
Rafa snorts. “Most people don’t when they get tangled up with men like Enzo.”
“She wasn’t just tangled up. He built her world from the ground up, made sure she had no one but him.” I tap the file. “This isn’t just manipulation. It’s ownership.”
Rafa pushes off the wall and takes a seat across from me. “So what does that mean for us?”
Us. He means me. He means this thing I refuse to name, the way I’ve been keeping her close, watching her too carefully and the way I can’t seem to let her go. I don’t answer. Not yet. Because the real question isn’t what this means for us—it’s what I’m willing to do about it.
I reach for Vittoria’s phone again. We took it the same day we took her. Since the hack on Enzo’s house and personal line—and her kidnapping—he’s been careful, saying little, but something tells me he’s waiting for the right moment to strike. I scroll through their messages, looking for anything I might’ve missed. Then I see it. The messages my hacker was able to recover.
The last message.
I stare at the screen, reading her words, feeling them settle in my chest like a slow, spreading burn. The conversation is short, but it says everything.
Vittoria: Sergio just did it. I’ll be out soon. I’ll find out what I can.
Enzo’s reply is just as damning.
Enzo: Good. Delete this before you sleep. When the time comes, you know what to do.
I exhale slowly, jaw tight. My thumb hovers over the screen, the weight of those words pressing down like a vice.
She wasn’t just a prisoner in my house. She was a goddamn spy.
From the start.
