Those words would have horrified a normal person. But the reality is a normal person would have had a loving relationship with their father. My father isn’t normal. The way he sees me isn’t normal. I’d been terrified of the man and what he would do to me when I was still playing with dolls. Enzo's words don’t elicit rage or fear at the idea of losing a loving father. They bring relief at the idea of finally being rid of my tormentor. Everything that man has done to me isn’t what tips me towards cheering for his death. It is what he’s done to the man I love so much that in a short time he’s become the blood that pumps in my veins and the ache that fuels my heart.
After Enzo told me his story and my father’s hand in it, all I wanted to do was blow my father’s brains out on the floor and watch as the blood drained from his body.
I rub the tattoo on my hip and close my eyes, hoping to shut out the memory of all the vicious scars on Enzo’s body. The horror of flames licking his skin, eating his sensitive flesh. He was a fuckin’ boy, a child, and my father and his fucked-up friends had no issues taking his innocence away and using him until there was nothing left but the monster. Shouldn’t shock me. The fucker has a thing about taking innocence. He’d tried to take mine. That night after the sex club, I didn't got back home. That was the night I finally found my voice and left. Enzo had saved me that night, and there is no fuckin’ way I am letting him face my father alone.
I stop just outside the living room. Enzo, Ciaran, Vance, and Finn have their heads together, their voices low.
“You sure you can trust her?” Vance asks.
“You sure you can trust Clarissa?” Enzo spits out.
“She’s my wife, motherfucker. Of course I trust her.”
“Don’t pull your shit with me, Vance. She was a random girl you saw at the club one night, and that was it. You claimed her as yours and didn’t care how insane you became because of it. I was there when you chopped off a dude’s finger ’cause he touched her elbow. One look at her, and you’d claim her as your ride or die. Reese is mine. None of you fuckers are to scare or intimidate her. You give her the same level of respect you give me. Got it?”
The three of them exchange tense looks. I don’t want Enzo to lose his family because of me.
“If you say she’s in, then she’s in,” Ciaran says. “I’ll always have your back.”
The other two nod, which seems to satisfy Enzo.
“So who’s watching him at the warehouse?” Enzo asks.
“Tony and Hawkley,” Vance says.
I barge into the conversation. “I’m coming with you.”
Enzo glares at me. “The fuck you are.”
That man has done so many horrific things, and Enzo has suffered the worst of it, but I want to look in his eyes before he dies. I want to see him suffer like he’s made others suffer. I want to know that the nightmare is over. “Enzo, please. I know how to use a gun. I learned from my uncle Paulie when I was a kid. I’m not helpless. I don’t want to be this pathetic woman who waits around like my mother. If you want me like you say you do, then you want a partner. So let me be one, a partner in everything.”
“Principessa,” Enzo snarls. I’m not sure if it’s a warning or a plea. “It’s fuckin’ dangerous. I can’t concentrate when you’re around, and no matter what a piece of shit he is, the man is your father.”
I pull down my pants slightly and lift my shirt.
Enzo snarls, practically jumping in front of me to hide my body from the other guys. “What the fuck are you doing?”
“This tattoo, the snake? It’s a brand, Enzo. I was ten years old when he fuckin’ put this on me. You know who he puts this on?”
Enzo rubs at a tattoo on the inside of his wrist. “Yes. It’s the label he puts on his whores.”
I nod, barely able to get the next words out because of the lump in my throat. “That night, when I came to the club… I went there because I wanted to have a say about how and to whom I lost my virginity. That man was going to rip everything away from me. The only reason he wasn’t able to sell me out sooner was because of my uncle. He protected me, kept me safe. I’m pretty sure that protection cost him his life.”
“I’m gonna gut him like a fish before I burn the fucker to a crisp,” Enzo spits.