“Dad is angry. Enzo beat his face in. We’re all angry. So…”
“So what?”
“So, Dad came back to Enzo’s house, with me, and we took Enzo. You weren’t there. Thankfully.”
“I was only gone a few hours.”
“It was long enough.”
“You have Enzo now? Where? Is he…”
“He’s alive,” Maksim says with a sigh. “But it’s taking everything out of Nikolai to keep him alive. Dad wants him dead no matter what.”
“And you? What do you want?”
“I wanted him dead after he shot me in the back. It doesn’t matter to me. But what does matter is that you’re safe and I believe keeping Enzo alive will help with that. But Dad never listens to me. You know that. I’m sorry.”
“Where are you?” I ask through gritted teeth.
“Kira.”
“Where are you?”
“We’re at Dad’s house.”
I hang up and rush right over there. My dad is crazy if he thinks I’m going to let Enzo die. No one is doing this for my actual safety. They’re fighting over me like I’m property and this has to end.
I make it to my dad’s house within twenty minutes. Using my old key, I let myself inside. The house is eerily quiet. Until I hear a male scream come from the basement.
The basement that I was never allowed in to growing up. The basement that my father used for his business. Now I see what it’s used for.
The door isn’t locked, giving me the chance to run down the stairs. I stop when I reach the bottom to see Enzo strapped to a table and my dad hovering over him with a knife. Maksim and Nikolai are here. Both of them are trying to reason with my dad but he’s not listening.
Enzo’s shirt is ripped open and blood covers his chest.
He’s going to die if I don’t do something.
Taking a deep breath, I scream, “Stop!”
Chapter Nineteen
Kira
All the men in the room turn to me in shock.
“Kira?” my father asks. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“You kidnapped my husband and are torturing him. Of course I have the right to be here.” I storm forward and grab the knife from my father’s hand. “Stop this right now. You don’t have the right to kill Enzo.”
“He cannot keep you safe.”
“And yet, you married me to him to keep the peace and now you’re going to throw that all away? Killing Enzo doesn’t achieve anything. It only makes things worse and you know it. You’ve been trying to control me all my life and when you realized you couldn’t, you iced me out. And now you want to come back into my life and be a protective father? Dad, I’ll always love you. When I used to sneak out and go to parties, it was never to hurt you. It was just me figuring out how to live my life. That’s all. And now you’re going to hurt me if you kill Enzo. Not when I feel like I’m finally getting to live a life I’ve always wanted. Not when I love him.”
Shock ripples through the air.
“You… love him?” Gregor asks.
“He’s my husband. He saved my life. What did you think was going to happen? That I was going to hate him forever? It’s a good thing I have feelings for Enzo. It will help keep the peace. But killing him is not the answer. Let him go, Dad. Daddy. Please.”