Enamoured (The Enslaved Duet 2)

He hesitated, looking out the door, up at Ottavio, and then back at me as if we presented a terrible conundrum. I patted the uncomfortable metal chair beside me and offered a small smile of encouragement.

“I’ve been trying to get in touch with you for ages,” he told me as he took the seat.

I winced. “I know. I’ve been a bad friend to you the past two months, but believe me, I had good reason. Now, grab a fork before I eat all this goodness and fill me in on whatever has been going on. Did you meet someone?”

It was Mason’s turn to wince, and he didn’t reach for a fork, instead grasping for one of my hands to clamp between two of his clammy ones.

“Listen, Cosi, I don’t know how it got to this point, I really don’t. At first, it was so simple, you know? They just wanted me to be involved in your life, this innocuous spy. It was easy because, well, you know, you’re you, and you are beautiful.” He licked a pearl of sweat off his upper lip and then wiped his damp cheek against his suited shoulder. “I mean, I started to love you, and I got why they asked me to watch you. You are dangerous because you’re a flame to the moth of men. Really, you have to believe me, it didn’t seem like I was betraying you in doing what I was. It was just reporting to them, making sure you stayed away from the Order and from the Earl of Thornton in particular…”

There was a strange ringing in my ears, as if I’d been hit upside the head and my brain clanged between my ears. I wondered if words could concuss someone because those sentences spilling out of Mason’s familiar mouth felt brutishly weaponized.

“Your mother’s family?” I asked even though I already knew the answer.

The uncle he always spoke of, the one who hated homosexuality so Mason had to hide who he was, the one who ran the family with an iron fist.

Mason’s chin dropped to his chest; a dead weight filled with shame. “Yes. Uncle G.”

Uncle G.

Uncle Giuseppe di Carlo.

There was a series of clicks as everything slotted into place. Noel had clearly sponsored di Carlo for entry into the Order, gifting his old slave Yana to the new Master in exchange for a simple favour. Keep an eye on his eldest son’s runaway bride and make sure she stays away.

But I hadn’t stayed away and now…

My head snapped up, the back of my neck tingling as the door’s chimes sounded again. I looked to the right, but I already knew instinctively with the well-honed sensed of much hunted prey who would stand in the doorway.

“Di Carlo,” I greeted mildly because perception was power, and I didn’t want him to know how utterly disconcerted I was by this reveal, by my friend’s years-long betrayal. “What brings you out into the light?”

His flesh face parted with a slick lipped grin as he rounded the table and took the seat perpendicular to me. He wore what I guessed to be his customary suit, a pinstriped dark grey with broad shoulders that harkened make to what I was sure he thought were the “good ole days” of the late 19th century when the mafia was in its heyday. There was a gold chain at his throat, nestled in the hairy hollow between his collarbones and three thick gold rings on his fingers that gleamed in the artificial yellow lights. He seemed like a caricature of a mobster, virile but past his prime, expensive but with cheap taste.

I knew better than to take the front for granted. He was danger wrapped up in a tawdry package, but dangerous all the same.

“My nephew speaks so highly of you, Miss Lombardi,” he spoke through his smile, but his eyes were black, wet and mean. “Or should I call you, slave Davenport.”

“You can call me whatever you wish,” I told him graciously even as I frantically tried to find a way out of the situation. “Just don’t expect me to answer to it.”

Giuseppe laughed, a throaty, phlegm-filled sound that made me want to gag. “The duke told me you were a spitfire, but fuck, no fear in the face of the most powerful man in New York City is pretty fuckin’ admirable or pretty fuckin’ stupid.”

“Trust me, I’ve met men much more powerful and much crueler than you.”

Mason made a noise of protest, and I noticed in my periphery—because there was no way in hell I would be stupid enough to take my eyes of Giuseppe—that he was wringing his hands together.

I wouldn’t do as Mason silently begged me to. I’d been docile and caged up for too long in my life, and some smug crime boss wasn’t going to make me cower. My chin lifted, and I looked down at him over my nose.