Chapter 82: Keep you

Chapter 82: Chapter 82: Keep you

"Ahhh-"

Amelia screamed.

The top she had been holding never made it onto her body. Instinct took over instead—she yanked the fabric up against her chest, clutching it there like a shield, too panicked to realize she could have simply put it on.

"What are you doing here?!"

Enzo’s gaze stayed fixed somewhere past her shoulder.

"You told me to come in."

Which was true. Entirely her mistake. And this was the first time he had ever stepped into her room like this.

The only previous time any of the brothers had entered had been when Reid and Dean forced that poison down her throat. The memory surfaced at the worst possible moment.

Enzo looked away fully. "Hurry up. I don’t have time to waste. And your body isn’t exactly something so alluring that I’d stand here staring at it."

The nerve.

Amelia’s face burned hotter as she finally dragged the top on properly, muttering under her breath.

"Arrogant, emotionally constipated ice block."

Childish insults does nothing to him. Hers, somehow, pulled a short scoff of laughter out of him before he could stop it. He swallowed the sound almost immediately, but it had already escaped.

"I’m done," Amelia muttered, still mortified.

Only then did he turn back to face her.

She stood there looking distinctly sheepish, embarrassment written across every line of her posture. Inside, her thoughts raced.

Did he see everything? Did he hear what I was saying about reincarnations and all that nonsense? I’m in so much trouble.

She forced her voice into something closer to steady. "You could have just ordered your maids to bring me to your office like you always do."

"I can do whatever I want."

Which was also true. This was his house.

He stepped closer, the usual cold composure sliding back into place—or at least an imitation of it.

"I came to ask how your school is faring."

Amelia stared at him.

What?

Even Enzo looked faintly stunned by his own words, as if he hadn’t expected them either. Whatever original reason had brought him to her door had completely abandoned him. He was no longer certain there had ever been one.

Amelia recovered first, if only barely. "Everything is fine."

Enzo cleared his throat once.

"The actual reason I came," he calmly remarked, "is because I need to speak with... your other self. There have been discussions between us. I need answers."

Amelia’s brows lifted slightly. "You could have just waited until night. That’s when she shows up."

"Can’t she appear this evening?"

"She only comes out when I take a sleeping pill." Amelia glanced toward the nearly empty bottle on the side table. "And those have run out."

"I’ll get you another bottle then."

"Okay."

Silence settled between them afterward—awkward in a way that felt strangely weird, as if neither of them quite knew how to end the moment or push it further. Enzo searched for something to say. Amelia, for her part, found the lack of sharp edges almost unsettling.

Then he remembered.

"You mentioned something earlier," he said, eyes narrowing a bit. "About evil reincarnations. What were you talking about?"

Relief flickered through her. He hadn’t heard everything—somehow the most dangerous parts had slipped past him. The problem was that she had never been particularly skilled at lying.

"Someone claimed you and your brothers are evil reincarnations," she said carefully. "I find it hard to believe."

Enzo studied her. "Why? It sounds easy enough to believe."

"There are a lot of factors that go into calling someone evil."

He listed them without hesitation.

"We’ve taken lives. Manipulated people—including you. Forced others to do our bidding—also you. Threatened lives whenever it suited us."

Amelia cut in before the list could grow any longer.

"Yeah, yeah. Also me. I got it." She met his eyes more directly. "But my instincts still tell me something different."

Enzo’s gaze didn’t soften. "Those same instincts told you your fiancé was going to save you from me and my brothers."

Embarrassment and a sharp flare of offense rose at the same time, heating her face.

"That’s an entirely different thing," she shot back. "Love makes people think irrationally."

"Yes," Enzo said. "And you’re the obvious lesson in that."

Amelia scoffed, folding her arms. "How would you even understand? You’ve never experienced love at all—not even the one-sided kind."

"Love is overrated." he replied flatly. "People use it as an excuse to make catastrophic decisions. It blinds judgment, invents loyalty where none exists, and turns perfectly functional adults into emotional liabilities. Attachment creates weakness. Weakness gets exploited."

The points were solid. She hated that she couldn’t immediately tear them apart.

What neither of them voiced was the quieter contradiction settling under Enzo’s own words. Some of the things he had just dismissed so cleanly—irrational concern, unwanted focus, the stubborn pull of attention toward someone he should have remained indifferent to—were already beginning to look uncomfortably familiar.

Amelia straightened, ready to end it. "This discussion is over. Surely you have other things to do."

"Are you ordering me around in my own house?"

Her composure slipped at once.

"N-no."

He walked toward her.

Amelia stepped back without thinking. Another step. Then another—until her back met the wall with a soft, final thud. There was nowhere left to go.

Enzo stopped in front of her. One hand rose, fingers finding the white streak in her hair. He twirled the pale strand slowly around his finger, studying it as if it held answers the rest of her refused to give.

"If you take the sleeping pills now," he asked quietly, "will your other self appear?"

Amelia’s pulse hammered against her throat. "It... it could still be possible. As long as I take them."

His grey eyes lifted to hers. The usual cold distance was still there, but something restless moved beneath it.

"There are too many unknown things about you. Things that bother me—because I don’t know them. I don’t understand the kind of woman I have in my home."

He leaned closer. The space between them narrowed until she could feel the faint heat of his breath.

"It irks me that I still know so little. That you hold knowledge I can’t reach on my own. Things about me. About us. Things we didn’t even know about ourselves." His voice dropped lower. "It should feel dangerous. Instead it feels... thrilling."

Amelia’s knees threatened to give out. She didn’t understand half of what he was saying—only that the intensity in his gaze made the wall behind her feel like the only thing keeping her upright.

Enzo leaned back to study her face more clearly.

"I could already guess what we were to each other in those previous lives. And instead of wanting to get rid of you for it..." His eyes held hers without mercy or distance. "Do you know what my heart is saying instead?"

Amelia swallowed hard. This was the first time she had ever looked this deeply into those grey eyes—and they felt like they were pulling her under.

"It’s saying that I want to keep you close enough that whatever i remember... i remember it with you."