Panting, Enzo stilled. “I should have killed you when you were on your knees just then.”
“One knee,” said Levi, sounding remarkably calm. “And yes, you should’ve. Not that you would have managed it. If I hadn’t taken you out, Knox or Larkin would have.”
Enzo barked a laugh. “Not even three of you could kill me while working as a team.”
Levi, Knox, and the other two sentinels exchanged looks, and then all four were chuckling.
Enzo scowled. “What the fuck is so fucking funny?”
Smiling, Keenan scratched his temple. “You really have no idea what you were up against just now, do you? If they wanted you dead, you’d be dead.”
“You didn’t see how hard they struggled to get a few licks in,” said Enzo. “I had them chasing their own asses.”
“No, they were taking care not to kill you,” said Keenan. “See, we all agreed it would be more enjoyable to make you suffer for many months on end—hell, maybe even years. Centuries would be my choice.”
Piper’s demon all but cackled as the blood drained from Enzo’s face.
“It should have occurred to you before,” Levi told him. “Or had you honestly convinced yourself that you had a real shot at defeating us?”
“I ran rings around you,” Enzo snarled.
“Oh, you fought pretty well. Using gifts you purchased, so that doesn’t make you powerful. If you hadn’t been able to repel what came at you or moved at what appeared to be supersonic speed, you wouldn’t have lasted anywhere near as long as you did. And if it hadn’t been for that other ability you bought, you wouldn’t have gotten past me.”
“You couldn’t even hold Piper captive without help,” Larkin taunted. “You weren’t prepared to hurt her unless she was powerless to retaliate.” The harpy let out a sound of pure disgust. “You’re nothing.”
“You’re also wrong about Gian,” Levi told him. “He killed your father in cold blood, not self-defense. Which I would have thought you already knew, given you have access to the lair’s reports.”
Enzo’s face flushed. “It was a cover-up. My brother—”
“Wasn’t right in the goddamn head,” Levi finished. “Not even as a small kid. Your mother was scared of him. You claim you were his protector, but it wasn’t really your father you saw as the main threat to Gian. No, you wanted to protect your brother from himself. You knew he could easily do something that would land him in the Chamber. I’ll bet you even suspected he’d kill your father if given the chance.”
His lips clamped shut, Enzo shook his head wildly.
“You want to blame me for his downfall because you either can’t handle or simply refuse to face the truth of who and what Gian was. The reality is that you never could have helped him. No one could have.”
“He was a kid!”
“He was twenty-four years old. He took pictures of teenage girls,” Levi added, his voice growing colder. “He used to hang around outside their school. He kept offering them rides in his car.”
“And you twisted all that to make him seem like a sexual predator in the making.”
To Piper, it sounded like that was exactly what Gian was.
“He tried to pin your father’s murder on you,” said Levi.
Enzo froze.
“Gian claimed you telepathically talked him into it all the way from your cell in the Chamber,” Levi went on. “He said you threatened him; that he feared you; that he only went near those girls because he’d seen you follow them around and that he was ‘looking out’ for them.”
“You lie,” Enzo ground out.
“No, no lies. I never told you before now because I didn’t see the sense when it would only hurt you. Now, well, I couldn’t give a whisper of a fuck if you’re hurting. In fact, the thought does nothing but please me.”
Did Gian really do that? Piper asked, unsure if her mate was just dishing out some emotional torture.
Oh, he did it. Levi began to circle Enzo. “I knew he was bullshitting me, of course. For one thing, he wouldn’t have heard a single telepathic word you spoke while you were chained up. For another thing, I examined the death scene, I felt what he felt as he killed your father. There was no fear or panic. There wasn’t much of anything. A little excitement. A little triumph. Mostly curiosity. As if he wanted to know how it’d feel to take a life.”
Swallowing, Enzo again shook his head. “Gian wasn’t like that.”
“Sure he was. Your father’s soul only confirmed all I suspected—Gian struck while he was sleeping. Your brother didn’t kill himself because I wouldn’t listen to him. He simply didn’t want to face punishment. He smiled at me before he slit his own throat, Enzo. In his mind, he was outwitting me.”
“You’re lying! It’s all fucking lies!”
Keenan looked close to rolling his eyes. “No wonder he and what’s-his-name came together and made a deal. They’re so alike with their insistence on only seeing what they want to see.” He glanced down at Enzo. “Well, the pair of you went and fucked up.”