Chapter 13
Enzo
I dialed Serena’s number for the seventh time that day. I needed to get in touch with her. I needed her to pick up the fucking phone. I knew what conclusion she was jumping to and I knew she would hold it over my head. But what she saw that night wasn’t what she thought she did, and she needed to give me the chance to explain.
“What?”
“Serena, finally. Give me a chance to explain,” I said.
“There’s nothing to explain. You found a loophole in my request of you and you used it. I can’t be upset over that.”
“What?” I asked. “Loophole?”
“I asked you to stay faithful to me while we were married. Obviously, we aren’t married yet. So, it would stand to reason you’d still go out while we were engaged.”
“You mean ‘are engaged’?” I asked. “And that’s not what happened. That’s not what you saw.”
“What I saw was a very busty woman putting her arms around you. And instead of pushing her away, you embraced her.”
“I don’t disrespect women like that.”
“Like you don’t toss them out after leaving them alone in your apartment?” she asked.
“That isn’t fair, Serena. You know I couldn’t-”
“I doesn’t matter what I do or do not know, Enzo. The point is I can’t marry a man who always looks for loopholes in what I ask of him so his life doesn’t have to change. You expected me to stay faithful to you, right?”
“Of course, yes. Why are you talking in past-?”
“So, if I had my arms around another man in a club, no matter what the reason for it, how would you react?”
I felt my hair on my arms bristle at the mere mentioning of another man with Serena. She was mine. Gifted to me by her family to take care of for the rest of my life.
“Exactly,” she said.
“Can I talk now?” I asked.
“No. You’ve had your chance to talk. Goodbye, Enzo.”
She hung up the phone and I threw mine across the room. That insolent, stubborn woman! Why the fuck wasn’t she giving me a chance to talk? She was jumping to conclusions and making up bullshit in her head and she wasn’t giving me a chance to explain myself.
I had to find a way to get her face to face again to talk. But first, I had to work.
I got into my car and drove out to the sanitation office. My father would know what to do with a scenario like this. Him and my mother had been through hell and back during some years of their marriage, and he always had advice for scenarios like this. I walked into the office with my suit smoothed and my coat buttoned, and I overheard a very interesting conversation taking place.
“This contract could be huge.”
“That family? Are you serious?”
“Twelve million dollars. It’s the biggest contract we’ve had.”
“It’s a massive cleanup.”
“Who do you think Luca will pick to head it up?”
A twelve million dollar contract? That was something I needed to get ahead of. If I could convince my father to let me take this contract, I could not only prove my worth and value to Serena, but I could forever cement my place as my father’s heir to his throne. I needed to be the one that was picked to oversee this project, no matter what it required of me. Taking on a contract like this was a massive step in the direction I wanted to go.
But when I walked into my father’s office, he didn’t look up from his paperwork.
“Dad?”
He kept writing, like he hadn’t heard me or something.
“I wanna talk to you about the latest contract you’ve apparently taken on,” I said.
And still, his hand kept writing.
“You need hearing aids or something?”
“No, but apparently my son needs restraint,” he said.
I felt the blood rush from my limbs as my father turned his face up to mine. Never in my life had I gotten this stare from him. I’d seen him give it to others. Men he killed when they betrayed the family and men who wouldn’t pay up their end of the bargain. But never had I gotten that look myself.
“Before you open your mouth to lie to me-”
“I would never do that,” I said. “Not with that look on your face.”
“I received a call from Gino. The wedding’s apparently been called off,” my father said.
That fucking woman. She was going to ruin everything.
“I can explain,” I said.
“I don’t give a damn about your explanation, Enzo. I gave you one job. One measly job. To be the man I raised you to be and take that woman’s hand in marriage to solidify our future. And you cocked it up.”
“It’s all a misunderstanding.”
“Is being in the club with another woman a misunderstanding?” he asked.
“It wasn’t like that. It wasn’t romantic. Gia was there and she put her arms around me.”
“Gia? Did you hug her back?” he asked.
“Why is everyone so concerned with that? Who cares if I hugged her back?”
“Because appearances are everything!”
He roared so loudly at me that my ears began to ring. He flew up from his chair and I actually took a step back. There weren’t many people in this world I was afraid of, but my father? With his temper?
He was terrifying, and I wasn’t so sure he wasn’t going to kill me for this.
“I’m not giving you my biggest contract because I can’t even trust you with a timid, quiet little girl! Now get the hell out of my office.”
“Dad, this isn’t-”
“You’ve got two choices, Enzo.”
I held my father’s gaze as he smoothed his hands out over his button-down shirt.
“You can either make this work with Serena or you can find yourself a different path.”
“What?” I asked.
“You heard me. You’ve shamed me and your mother. You’ve made very powerful people think we raised nothing but a mindless, spineless playboy. I raised you better than this, Enzo. Broke my back and took lives with my own two hands while your mother whipped you into shape. And you were not an easy child. Defiant. Loud. Had a mouth on you the size of fucking Sicily. But I fought your mother in beating it out of you. I fought her every step of the fucking way. That brazen attitude and that mouth would do you well on this seat. But never in my wildest dreams could I have ever thought you would’ve treated a woman this way. Ever.”
“Nothing happened with her,” I said.
“It doesn’t matter, Enzo!” my father said. “It doesn’t matter what did or did not happen! All that matters is what it looked like and how it made that girl feel. Do you not get that!?”
My father was panting, his hands clenched into fists as they dangled by his sides.
“Fix it like a man or you will be kicked out of this family.”
“But Dad-”
“You heard me, boy!”
I clenched my jaw and physically bit down on my tongue. I watched my father take a deep breath through his nose, then he sat back down into his chair. With a flick of his wrist he dismissed me, like some errand boy he was breaking in.
I walked out of his office with my head spinning as two men approached my sides.
“Seriously? My father’s having me escorted out?” I asked.
But all the men did was try to take me by my arms.
“My legs work,” I said as I shrugged them off.
Then I made my way back to my car, lost with what my next move was going to be.