Page 7 of Lethal Bliss

I stand in the middle of the room and watch as the man, Enzo pulls off his shirt. It’s the same shade of black as his eyes. He flings it carelessly away and turns his attention to the Kevlar vest.

I stand rooted to the spot, a few yards away, undecided about whether to help out or not.

He groans as the vest comes off and flings it away, too. Now his upper body is bare. It’s a finely chiseled perfection overlaid with smooth olive skin that is unbecoming of this beast of a man. I’m almost tempted to move closer, to trace the outlines of the taut muscles rippling across his abdomen until I notice the blemish on his chest: two ugly bruises barely inches apart.

“Are those...” I take a few steps to reach him. The faint hint of his cologne teases my nose.

“Yes, they are,” he replies to my unfinished question. There’s the faintest hint of amusement on his face as I take a closer look at them. It’s as if he doesn’t even understand what those bruises mean.

“They could have been actual bullet wounds,” I say, “not just contusions. And at least one could have hit your heart. You could have died.”

He shrugs. “But I didn't.”

“If the bullets had hit just a few inches higher, theycouldhave gotten you,” I point out.

“But they didn't,” he insists.

I shake my head, not certain he’s grabbed the implication of my words. “If you hadn't been there, if you hadn't made me stay behind you, the bullets would have gotten me instead,” I explain. The realization hits me as I utter those words. “I could have died back there... like Richard Wells.” It's insane how, one moment, I was talking to the man, and the next he was falling to the ground, dead.

“Yet, here you are,” Enzo says and winks at me.

My eyes cloud up, and the tears blur out his face. I blink hard to hold them back. “Thank you,” I murmur.

“It's nothing.”

“It's something,” I insist, “I could have died tonight.” The thought is so terrifying that it makes my heart skip a beat. Suddenly, my legs feel wobbly. I hold on to Enzo and start to bawl out my eyes.

“Hey, hey, hey...” Enzo puts an arm around me. “There's no reason for that, now, is there?” His voice is mellow, a shocking contrast to the harsh vocal assault he had visited on Richard Wells and I back at the motel.

Contrary to his expectations, it wrings out more tears from my eyes. There's something about the way he speaks that coaxes me to let my guard down, to give in to the emotional turbulence that threatens to wreck me right now, to pour it all out at his feet… in his arms.

I fight it with everything I have and lose. The tears keep coming, like they have a mind of their own.

Enzo pulls me into a complete hug. His hands encircle me properly as he holds me against his body. His skin is warm, and his frame is a pillar against which I can rest. I put my head on his chest and close my eyes. My efforts at quieting down and suppressing my crying fail woefully.

“Flora, you’re safe now,” he declares. “No one's going to kill you here, not under my watch.”

It’s weird how this assurance from a man who is an associate of a known mafia enforcer makes me feel safer than I have ever felt in years. Franklin Benetti is credited with close to half of the most insane murders that have rocked the city in the last decade. Yet here I am, hinging my salvation on his godson.

Still, his promise to protect me floods me with relief. It's so much relief it wrings fresh tears from my eyes. I don’t even attempt to hold them back this time. It would be like using a picket fence to try to stop the water from a broken dam.

After a while, I feel his hold slackening, and I cling tightly to his body, suddenly afraid he'd let go or change his mind.

“Flora,” he says. “Look at me.”

I have a lot of misgivings about letting him see my tear-stained mess of a face, so I hesitate.

“Flora?” He pulls away, just to make enough space to reach for my chin and raise it.

It’s impossible to hide from him this time.

There's concern in the eyes that meet mine when I finally look up. The dangerous glitter in them is gone. Now all I can see is a surprising softness and my reflection in them.

However, that doesn't hold my attention for long. The nose beneath his eyes is perfectly sculpted, almost aquiline, but a good fit for the lips below it. It’s startling to finally grasp just how handsome he is.

There’s something that danger does to you. It blinds you to everything that isn’t related to your safety. It’s only when you're out of it that you start to notice things, as I am now. Like how the scar above Enzo's right eyebrow is just long enough to add a certain degree of ruggedness to his handsomeness and short enough not to get ugly, how his lips are just the right shade of pink, how they’re the kind of shape you want to feel on yours.

“I'm going to protect you until this whole thing blows over,” he says. “You don't have to worry about it, okay?”