His Virgin Stripper

25- Meeting Enzo

Sienna

The man stared at me, his eyes crinkling at the corners before he let out a low, gravelly curse. Then, he laughed.

An actual, deep chest laugh that echoed off the high walls of the room.

I couldn't believe him. I froze against the pillows, my heart hammering so hard against my ribs I was certain it would crack them.

My breath came in ragged, shallow stabs. I was suffocating, drowning in a thick, paralyzing wave of fear, and this bastard was sitting there treating it like a comedy show.

"You're really a piece of work, aren't you?" he said, shaking his head as the chuckles tapered off into a smirk.

I found that offensive. Beyond offensive. I was a human being who had just been hunted, shot at, and dragged unconscious into a strange bed, not some entertainment lined up for his amusement.

The nerve of him to mock my terror pricked at the edges of my panic, sparking a tiny flash of anger.

I swallowed hard, trying to steady the tremble in my jaw. "Who are you?"

He leaned back in the chair, crossing one leg over the other with an agonizing slowness. His smirk widened, eyes gleaming with pure mockery. "I'm your kidnapper, sweetheart."

A dramatic, involuntary gasp escaped my lips. My hand flew to my chest, my fingers digging into the thin fabric of my top. The words hit me like a bucket of water.

Kidnapper. It was one thing to suspect it, to feel the terror of the unknown, but hearing it dropped so casually out of his mouth made the room tilt all over again.

My mind went into overdrive, frantic and desperate for answers. Was he telling the truth? Did our attackers back at the rental actually get their hands on me? Did the guys in the car betray us?

I squeezed my eyes shut, forcing myself to look backward, trying to recall the exact moments before the blackness took me. I needed to remember the alleyway.

I needed to remember the faces of the men who forced us out of the car. I needed to remember if there was a struggle, if Roxy fought back, if anyone else was shot.

Nothing came to mind.

The harder I pushed against the wall in my memory, the more it resisted. It was just a blank, dark void. My brain refused to cooperate, fracturing into useless pieces.

Every single time I tried to visualize the narrow street, the sequence broke. The timeline was gone, swallowed by a heavy fog that left me stranded in my own head.

Instead of giving me a clear sequence of events, my mind just kept circling back to the exact same three memories, looping them like a broken record over and over again.

First, the memory of Marcello’s lips against mine, hot and desperate amidst the chaos, a contrast to the violence surrounding us. I could still feel the pressure of his lips, the bruising grip of his hands, the unspoken finality behind it. It now felt like a goodbye, a desperate anchor before everything fell apart.

Then, the shattering explosion of the gunshot hitting my car window—the tiny spray of glass and Roxy's scream. The sound echoed in my ears, a deafening crack that signaled the end of our safety. I could still see the spiderweb crack spreading through the glass, the blinding flash of the muzzle, and the panic in Roxy's eyes as she ducked for cover.

And finally, the inescapable weight of the ground rushing up to meet me when I fainted. The feeling of my knees becoming unstable, the cold air hitting my face, and the sudden, terrifying descent into nothingness.

Over and over. The kiss, the gunshot, the fall.

I couldn't break the cycle. Every loop brought a fresh wave of panic, a tightening in my chest that made it impossible to think clearly.

I was trapped in an internal maze, chasing shadows that refused to form into a coherent story. The frustration was a physical weight, pressing down on my lungs until I could barely breathe.

I opened my eyes, gripping my hair with both hands as the frustration mounted. I was so distraught, so consumed by the internal turmoil, that I felt like I was physically breaking apart. My chest heaved.

Tears of helplessness pricked the back of my eyes. I was trapped in a nightmare, blind to how I had gotten here, and the stakes were life or death. I didn't know where my best friend was, my life was in the hands of a stranger, and I didn't even know what city I was in.

And through all of it? This psychopath was still laughing his ass off.

He was practically doubled over now, a hand pressed to his stomach as he watched me spiral. Every gasp, every panicked movement I made just seemed to feed his amusement.

He didn't show an ounce of professional detachment or menacing gravity. He was just enjoying the show, watching my internal collapse as if it were a private theatrical performance.

"Are you done yet?" he gasped out between chuckles, wiping a tear from the corner of his eye. "Your facial expressions are killing me over here. Seriously, I should have brought popcorn."

I stared at him through my tears, my terror momentarily morphing into confusion. It made zero sense. I couldn't understand why a captor—someone who had allegedly stolen me from the teeth of a war—would behave like a malicious older brother playing a prank.

Where was the cruelty? Where was the interrogation? Why was he just sitting there laughing at my distress instead of tying me to a chair or demanding information from me?

If he wanted to hurt me, he would have done it by now. If he wanted to use me as leverage, he would be making demands, not sitting comfortably in a plush chair trading insults.

His demeanor was wrong for an enemy. It lacked the cold, calculated malice of the men who had shot at our car.

I watched the way he held himself, the ease in his posture, the lack of any real venom beneath the teasing.

He sat with his shoulders relaxed, his hands open, completely unbothered by my screaming or my frantic attempts to pull away.

There was an underlying familiarity in his arrogance, a specific brand of confidence that I had seen before in the men who surrounded Marcello.

Then, something clicked. A memory broke through the loop, sharp and sudden.

A conversation.

Marcello’s voice, hard and commanding, giving a specific directive to his men before the world went sideways.

He had explicitly ordered them to take me and Roxy to one specific person for protection.

Enzo.

My hands dropped from my hair as I stared at the handsome face of the man in the chair. The pieces fell into place so fast it left me breathless.

The laughter, the casual teasing, the lack of restraint—it wasn't the behavior of a kidnapper.

It was the behavior of a man who knew exactly who I was, who knew I was safe, and who found my dramatic panic ridiculous.