Ranger - Jericho's Boys #4 - ch. 13 - Enzo (Patreon)

Here you go, unedited, unbeta'd, uneverything'd.

“What do we do first?” Seven asked as they entered Enzo’s office. “Discovery is gonna take weeks. What do we do in the meantime?” 

Enzo closed his door, then hung up his coat before addressing Seven. “Well, for starters, we’re not waiting on discovery. I’ll have Drucilla start drafting the motion, but we might as well get a headstart.” 

Seven’s brows went up, eyeing him suspiciously. “What does that mean?” Enzo fell into his office chair, hitting the button on the remote, watching as his blinds began to close. Seven snorted. “That doesn’t look sus at all. The two of us in here alone with the blinds shut and the door closed?” 

Enzo grinned at him. “I don’t care what it looks like. I closed the door for your comfort, not mine. Come here.” 

Seven frowned, but floated closer, gasping when Enzo’s arms went around him, pulling him into the chair until he straddled his hips. His hands instantly fell to his ass like there were magnets attached, squeezing appreciatively. Seven lightly slapped at his arm, wiggling in his grasp. Enzo laughed. 

“Stop squirming or this is going to get much more scandalous than intended,” Enzo warned. 

Seven went limp in his arms with a huff. “It’s always scandalous with you,” he muttered. 

Before Enzo could say anything to counter the claim, Seven dropped his head to Enzo’s shoulder, burrowing his face into his neck before inhaling deeply. 

“Whacha doin’?” Enzo asked, hands soothing up and down Seven’s back. 

“Sniffing you,” Seven said, voice muffled against his skin. 

Enzo chuckled softly. “Why is that, exactly?” 

“Makes me feel better,” Seven replied. 

It was such a casual statement but it made Enzo feel like he’d been hit in the chest with a sledgehammer. His arms tightened around the boy, tilting his head to rest against Seven’s. His ability to disarm Enzo with a single sentence was dangerous but so incredibly addicting. He’d never thought it was possible to feel this deeply about another person. 

He loved his family, he’d kill or die for them. But, for Seven, he’d cut out his own beating heart and hand it to him. Seven had threatened to eat that heart in front of him if he betrayed him ever again, but Enzo was already in way too deep. Seven owned him, body and soul. He could get Enzo to do just about anything if it made him happy. All Enzo cared about was keeping Seven happy. 

Seven gave another deep sigh. 

Enzo’s fingertips slipped beneath Seven’s sweater, tracing the knobs of his spine. “Are you okay, baby?” 

He felt Seven shrug. “I’m not gonna, like, swan dive off the roof or anything.” 

Enzo laughed softly. “That’s a pretty low bar, brat.” 

Seven didn’t answer, just pressed a chaste kiss over Enzo’s pulse point. It was an oddly intimate gesture. But Enzo supposed it all was. When Seven didn’t continue their talk, Enzo just held him, his hands learning the geography of Seven’s body, noting how soft his skin was. 

“Can I ask you a weird question,” Seven asked after a while. 

Enzo frowned, unsure where the conversation was going. “You can always ask.” 

“Do you feel like a grown up?” 

The question was so far from Enzo’s expectations that he laughed, earning a poke in the ribs that made him grunt. “I’m sorry. I just wasn’t expecting…that.” 

It was his use of the word grown up versus adult that had Enzo chuckling. It made him sound even younger than usual. 

When Enzo didn’t answer fast enough, Seven prodded. “Well?”  

Enzo frowned. “I’m thinking, bossy britches. Give me a second to gather my thoughts.” 

“Well, hurry up,” Seven mumbled. 

It wasn’t exactly an easy question to answer. Enzo had never really contemplated what it meant to be ‘a grown up’. “Sometimes?” 

“Sometimes?” Seven said, voice flat. “That’s your answer?” 

Enzo huffed another quiet laugh. “You’re so demanding.” 

When Seven lifted his head to glower at him, Enzo held up his hands in surrender. “Okay, okay. I give up. Don’t look at me like that, it makes me want to bend you over my desk and remind you who you belong to.” 

Seven’s pupils blew wide. He trapped his full bottom lip between snowy white teeth, his breaths coming a little faster. When Enzo continued to study him, he buried his face back in Enzo’s neck. 

Cute. 

Finally, Enzo said, “I mean, I pay bills like an adult. I renovated the top two floors of my building like an adult. I work for one of the most prestigious law firms in the country. In another ten years, I’ll probably qualify for senior discounts at restaurants. So in that respect, sure. I’m a grown up.” 

“But…” 

“But as soon as I’m with my mother and step-father, I feel like a kid again. When my brothers and I are in a room, and we’re hurling insults at each other like nuclear weapons, I feel like a kid. When my mom is lecturing me about putting too much basil in her sauce, I feel like a kid again.” Pain stabbed through his chest, knife sharp, his voice wavering a bit when he said, “When my Nona died, I literally crawled into bed with my mom and just hugged her because I didn’t want to be alone. I was a fully grown adult but I didn’t feel like it that day. Is that weird?” 

Seven shook his head from his hiding spot, his cheek brushing Enzo’s shoulder as he did. “No, it's sweet.” 

“I’ve never told another living soul that,” Enzo confided, a little surprised that it had slipped from him so easily. “Not even my brothers know.” 

They sat in silence for a few minutes, a heaviness hanging between them. 

Finally, Seven said, “I used to have sleep paralysis as a kid. I would just lay there, frozen, feeling like I was dying, like there was something sitting on my chest watching me sleep. My mom took me to so many doctors who all just chalked it up to stress. Eventually the sleep paralysis stopped, but then it became night terrors. I would wake up screaming, thrashing, convinced I was fighting for my life. It got so bad I started to sleep in my mom’s bed with her.” 

That sounded awful. “That’s a pretty normal thing for kids to do.” 

“I did it until I was sixteen,” Seven murmured. “If my friends knew that, they’d probably never let me live it down. I was already helping Jericho patrol the streets but I would still crawl into bed with my mom just from a nightmare. Is that weird?” 

“I don’t think wanting your mom to comfort you is weird. I don’t think wanting to be near your mom during a crisis is weird. I think having a crisis and not thinking about your mom is…not weird but…sad. My brothers and sisters call my mom so often I have no idea how she manages to run a restaurant and a borderline criminal enterprise,” he teased. 

“You’re mom’s amazing,” Seven said wistfully. 

Enzo smiled against Seven’s hair. “Your mom is, too. We’re both lucky in that respect.” 

“Unless my mom goes to prison,” Seven said, words thick with pent-up emotion. 

Enzo sighed, coaxing Seven from his hiding space under his chin. He cupped his face with both hands, forcing him to meet his gaze. “Listen, I’ll say this as many times as you need to hear it. I’m never gonna let that happen. When we get married, your mom will be there sobbing, probably as loudly as mine.” 

Tears welled in Seven’s eyes, but he rapidly blinked them away, clearing his throat and gently knocking Enzo’s hands away. “I can’t believe you told Lourdes we were engaged.” 

“It was either that or go to jail cause if she called you my sugar baby or boy toy one more time I was gonna reconsider my stance on not hitting women,” Enzo promised. 

Seven’s laugh unknotted something in Enzo. “Don’t let her hear  you say that or we’re gonna have to watch that stupid workplace harassment video again.” 

Enzo grinned even as he worried about Seven. He hated seeing him like this. For all of Seven’s trauma with his father and some of the horrors he’d seen working for Jericho, he was shockingly well adjusted. But this situation had started to show the cracks in his foundation and he was trusting Enzo to get him through this. A responsibility Enzo would have run screaming from just eight months ago. If anyone tried to wrestle that honor away from him now, he’d be the one needing an attorney. Seven was his. In every conceivable way. 

“You know you’re still gonna have to propose, right? And get me a ring. I’m not letting you off the hook for that stuff. And it better be good,” Seven said, nestling his face into his neck once more. “You owe me.” 

Enzo did owe him. For the rest of his life. “I’ll make it good. I promise.” 

Seven’s phone chimed, letting him know he had a notification. He pulled it free without lifting his head, unlocking it from muscle memory, then thrusting it an inch from Enzo’s face. “What’s it say?” 

Enzo had to crane his head back to see the message. “Arsen texted to ask if you’re playing with the rest of the guild tonight,” he read. “The guild? Is this what Jericho was talking about at the police station?” 

Seven nodded. “Yeah, it's…nothing.” 

It didn’t sound like nothing. “Tell me about it?” 

Seven readjusted a bit, making Enzo painfully aware of just how close their dicks were and how little cloth separated them. 

At first, he thought Seven wasn’t going to answer, but finally, he said, “It’s just this stupid thing we started as kids when the game—Paladin—first launched. We loved D&D and it was a D&D based video game so, of course, we were obsessed. And we were kids, so we made it our whole personality. We called ourselves the Knights of the Kids Table and, as you can imagine, seven queer kids running their own guild caught some people’s attention for a minute.” 

Enzo couldn’t imagine that. It wasn’t like he hadn’t played video games. He’d grown up playing GTA and Mortal Kombat with his brothers. Hell, he still played things like Madden and even Call of Duty when he had time, but he never talked about it like Seven was. To Enzo, it was just a game. Seven talked about it like it was a lifeline. 

The idea of a baby Seven playing this game with such fervor that the world noticed was so adorable Enzo wanted to squeeze him until he popped. 

“If it’s like D&D, does that mean you create your own characters? Storylines? Stuff like that?” he asked, drawing on what little he remembered of the game. 

Seven leaned back, screwing up his face like he was deep in thought. Finally, he said, “Imagine a video game where you're dropped into a high-fantasy world full of knights, dragons, magic, monsters…moral choices. You can build your hero from the ground up, just like in any D & D game.” Life was starting to return to Seven’s voice, his words coming a little faster. “But there’s set players too, like a cast you can interact with. You can even play as those characters if you want.”

“Which did you choose?” 

Seven’s gaze floated away from Enzo’s almost like he was embarrassed. “I play as an origin character—Rowan Vale. He's one of the pre-made mains. The devs wrote this whole backstory for him. He's a ranger from the cursed Greenwood, his dad's a knight who abandoned him, and he’s got this whole brooding 'hero-who-never-asked-for-this' vibe.” 

“Dad who abandoned him, huh? Sounds familiar,” Enzo said softly. 

Seven gave a humorless laugh. “Yeah, he spoke to me as a kid. We both had daddy issues.” 

“You didn’t change anything?” 

“Not the core stuff. His race, his voice, his past. You can change his class or stats if you want, but his story stays the same. It’s nice to…live inside someone else’s emotional trauma for a while.” 

“And you’ve kept him all this time?” Enzo asked.

“The fans…our watchers,” Seven mumbled. “They kind of ship me with another origin character.”

“Ship?” 

Seven nodded. “There’s a…romance thing that plays out in our adventures.” 

Enzo felt his face fall. “A romance? With another player?” 

Seven rolled his eyes. “Not another player, another origin character. Ser Thalos. They like watching our interactions.” 

“Are you cheating on me with a fictional character?” Enzo teased. 

Seven snorted. “Shut up.” 

“Did the others make up their own characters?” Enzo asked, genuinely curious about the inner workings of Seven’s friend group. 

Seven shrugged. “It varies. Weirdly, we all fall back to a specific class. Arsen is almost always a paladin, Levi a rogue, Nico sometimes switches it up, but is usually a barbarian. We’ve just been playing this game for so long, we’re all kind of set in our ways, I guess. We always follow the same pattern.” 

“Like you falling in love with this…Ser Thalos every time?” 

He could always tell when Seven was embarrassed or horny, because the tips of his ears turned bright red like a beacon. Like now. 

Enzo didn’t understand any of this but he found himself mildly irritated that he was competing against Seven’s fictional game love interest. Still, it was clear this game meant a lot to him. “I want to watch you play sometime.” 

Seven’s eyes went wide. “You do?” 

“Yeah? Why? Can I not? Do you not want your fictional boyfriend to know about your real one?” Enzo teased. 

“You sound so jealous right now,” Seven shot back, a smile playing at his lips. 

“Oh, I am,” Enzo promised. “But it seems important to you.” 

Seven nodded. “It is. We were trying to get tickets to see the voice actors play D&D live on stage, but it sold out in seconds.” 

Enzo’s eyes went wide. “Seconds? Really?” 

Seven snickered. “You really don’t understand anything about fandom culture. I really wanted to go. I mean, we all did. But I…” he trailed off, his ears darkening to scarlet once more. “Nevermind.” 

“Oh, no. No way. You…what?” Enzo prodded, dying to know what it was that had Seven looking so embarrassed. 

Once more Seven’s gaze drifted from his. “When I was like…twelve, I wrote a letter to the actor who voices Ser Thalos and he wrote me back. I kind of hoped I could meet him, to show it to him, to see if he remembered me. It’s…stupid.” 

“That’s…so cute,” Enzo said begrudgingly. “So you’re gonna play tonight?” 

Seven sighed heavily. “You know I can’t.” 

Enzo frowned. “I do? Why can’t you play?” 

Seven gave him a pained look. “How would I? My laptop can’t run a game like Paladin. The lag would get us killed. I need my PC and since Jericho and Freckles couldn’t even get close enough to my place to get my clothes, I doubt they’ll be able to snag my whole setup. Besides, I wouldn’t ask them to go to that kind of trouble.” 

Enzo frowned. “Aren't there computers just for gaming? Like pre-made ones?” 

“Mines custom, but yeah. You just have to have power, the right graphics card, stuff like that. We stream for extra money so our setups are a little more elaborate but you could walk into any electronics store and buy a decent system in a pinch. Why? You gonna start gaming again?” 

Enzo poked him in the belly. “Are you saying I’m too old to game?” 

This time it was Seven who cupped Enzo’s face, leaning in to ghost his lips over Enzo’s. “I think you’ve played enough games.” 

 “Yeah?” Enzo’s tongue traced the seam of Seven’s lips, until he opened for him. 

Seven sighed into the kiss, tongue sliding over his. “Mm,” he said between kisses. “You’re benched. Or whatever sports metaphor you prefer. You’re all mine. No more games.” 

The buzzing of Enzo’s landline had them both jumping back guiltily, then laughing when they made eye contact. Enzo wrapped an arm around Seven so he didn’t fall from his lap as he reached forward and pressed the speaker button. 

“Morning, Sunshine,” he said, by way of greeting, already knowing who lay at the other end of the conversation. 

Drucilla ignored him. “I booked out the meeting room for ten o’clock. I’m assuming pastries are fine?” 

“Yeah, as long as they're from the Italian bakery on the corner. You know how picky my mother is.” 

Your mother? Seven mouthed. Enzo held up a finger, letting him know he’d explain in a moment. 

“Yeah, she’s almost as big a pain in the ass as you are,” Drucilla said, voice completely devoid of emotion. 

“Oh, while I have you. I need you to draft a discovery motion for the case I forwarded you last night.” 

“You want me to push aside everything else for this?” she asked. 

Talking to her was like talking to a slightly less life-like chatbot. “Yes. This case is priority one.” 

“‘Kay,” she said, then hung up. 

“She’s definitely going to poison your coffee later,” Seven commented, tone conversational. 

“That’s one of the many reasons I wouldn’t ask her—or anyone, for that matter—to make me coffee,” Enzo said. “I’m not making an assassination attempt that easy on anyone.” 

“Why is your mother coming?” Seven asked. 

“Our mothers are coming. I need to have a little fact-finding session with your mother and, of course, my mother is coming along as her muscle so I remember exactly what’s at stake.” Enzo’s gaze dropped to Seven’s lips, before he dragged him in for another slow, thorough kiss. “As if I need reminding,” he said when they parted. 

Seven sighed dreamily, eyelids slightly heavier and cock half-hard against Enzo’s. When he stood, Enzo started to protest but he simply turned around before returning to Enzo’s lap. He watched Seven type in his password, brows shooting up in surprise. “How do you know my password?” 

Seven snorted, giving him a look like he was stupid. “Cause you stuck it to the inside of your desk drawer on a sticky note, genius. I go in there every day to return your cup.” 

Enzo’s face grew hot. He’d forgotten about that. “Oh, right.” 

Seven reached for the mouse, navigating to the search engine. 

Enzo frowned. “What are you doing?” 

“Just being nosey,” Seven said. “My mom had to fire someone a while ago, before she was promoted. Maybe they decided to get even?” 

“Do you know why she fired him?” 

“Kind of? He only got the job as a favor to a donor. He was the son of one of his employees or something. A friend of a friend of a friend kind of thing Something like that. Mom didn’t want to hire him because he was cocky. She said he just gave her the ick.” 

“The ick?” Enzo echoed. 

“Yeah, she said he was slimy. My mom already feels uncomfortable with men working for the program in any capacity. She says there’s just too much room for someone to take advantage of women who are already in a vulnerable position. But the executive director out-voted her. He only lasted a few months because, just like she thought, he was a creep and was trying to harass the women in the program.” 

“Do you remember his name?”

“Mason? Marcus? Marco? Something like that. I’m hoping maybe they never updated the staff section of the website once he left? They’ve been having trouble keeping IT guys,” Seven said, distractedly. 

Enzo rolled the chair closer to the desk. Seven laughed as he crushed him against it to peek over his shoulder. This time it was Enzo who couldn’t stop himself from running his nose along the soft skin of Seven’s throat. Seven’s shoulders came up with a giggle. “Stop, that tickles. I can’t concentrate.” 

“Sorry,” Enzo murmured, switching from lips to teeth, biting down, dragging a filthy moan from Seven, before he clamped his lips shut. 

Seven craned his head around to glare over his shoulder. Enzo gave him his most innocent expression. “What?” 

Seven huffed in exasperation, then turned back to the website. “Shit. Figures, the one time they were actually on top of things. He’s not listed.” 

“Try the wayback machine,” Enzo said. “If he was employed there a year ago, look at the site from back then.” 

Seven turned to beam at him. “Good idea.” 

Enzo’s heart did a complicated tap dance behind his ribs. “I have my moments,” he said. 

He leaned back in his chair, staring at Seven’s narrow shoulders, his hands falling to his hips, unable to stop himself from holding him in place so he could grind up against him, letting him feel how hard he was. Seven—the little tease—made a show of circling his hips as he pretended to readjust himself in the seat. 

Enzo hissed as something between pleasure and pain shot through him, leaning forward to bite Seven again in retaliation. 

“Ow,” Seven yelped, pinching Enzo’s thigh viciously. “Find something useful to do.” 

“I was trying,” Enzo muttered, pulling his cell phone from his pocket and toggling to WhatsApp. 

He found the number he was looking for, then hit the button on his cell phone, keeping it on speaker. Seven glowered at him as the sound of ringing split the otherwise quiet office. Enzo pressed at the lines between his brows. “Keep making that face and you’re gonna have wrinkles before you’re thirty.” 

Seven stuck his tongue out just as Lucky said, “What?” 

Enzo let himself ponder what might happen if he put Lucky and Drucilla in a room together, just once. Neither of them had a shred of humor or personality. 

“I need a favor.” 

Lucky snorted. “Does this have to do with your boyfriend’s mother? Ma already called me last night. I’ll tell you what I told her. They claim they have a thumb drive with proof on it. That they found it on her person at the time of her arrest, so there’s no doubt who it belongs to. But even without the thumb drive, they had plenty of evidence. I’ll shoot you a copy of the probable cause affidavit and the arrest warrant if you want, but it's above board.” 

Enzo could feel Seven stiffen in his arms. He gave his waist a squeeze as he said, “You know what I’m gonna ask for next, right?” 

“You want me to get my hands on that thumb drive,” he said. 

It wasn’t a question. This wasn’t the first time Enzo had done an end run around the law. It wasn’t even the first time this month. But every time he asked his brother for a favor, he acted as if that wasn’t his whole reason for being a cop in the first place. 

“They only arrested her yesterday. It's gonna take weeks for discovery. There’s no way they’ve had time to get the drive to forensics yet. We might be able to get the jump on them, find something they haven’t.” 

“If I can get my hands on this drive, then what? You want me to clone it?” Lucky asked. 

“No. Don’t touch anything. Replace it with a dummy drive then get it to the twins so they can clone it. Then you swap them back,” Enzo said. 

“Oh, can I?” Lucky said, voice dripping with sarcasm. 

He couldn’t afford to have Lucky clone the drive and risk corrupting any metadata that could lead to someone else. He wasn’t exactly inept with technology but he wasn’t as qualified as the twins. Whether he wanted to admit it or not. 

“You want me to steal evidence?” Lucky said, lowering his voice to a dramatic stage whisper. 

“Why are you acting so scandalized?” Enzo countered. “It’s hardly the first time.” 

“Yeah, it's one thing to steal evidence when it's our family, but now we’re…broadening the circle? That’s when things start to get messy.” 

“Seven is family. So is his mother. If there’s anything on that drive that will exonerate Neith, we’ll need it in pristine condition. I’m not risking you fucking up the digital footprint.” 

“Your faith in me is heartwarming,” Lucky muttered. 

“Look, some people handle things with delicacy, others brute force. Both have their uses, but for this I need surgical precision, not your ham-handed overkill.” 

Enzo could practically hear Lucky rolling his eyes as he said, “Yeah, yeah. It might take a day or two.” 

“Just get it done as quick as you can without getting caught,” Enzo said, shifting Seven’s weight so he was leaning heavily against him. 

“Stop barking orders at me,” Lucky grunted. 

“You want I should call ma?” Enzo asked. 

“No,” Lucky replied grumpily. 

Enzo scoffed. “That’s what I thought.” 

Once they disconnected, Seven turned to look at him anxiously. “You’re giving the drive to the twins? Aren’t they in high school?” 

Enzo grinned. “They might look like punks, but they use their powers for good instead of evil. You want the best? That’s them.”

“Really?” Seven said again, dubious. “I’ve never seen either of them without a phone in their hands, usually playing video games.” 

Enzo dug his fingers into Seven’s side until he gave another involuntary giggle. “What have you got against video games? You have a guild with an entire backstory…complete with a digital boyfriend.” 

“You really aren’t gonna let that go, are you?” Seven taunted. “I’m just saying, aren’t they a little young to be doing forensic accounting?” 

“How old were you the first time Jericho asked you to take someone out?” Enzo countered, threading their fingers together. 

“He never asked us to do it. It just sort of…happened that way.” 

“How old,” Enzo asked again, softer this time. 

“Seventeen.” 

“The twins aren’t that much younger. Think about it. Every member of my family has a career that, in some way, serves the family. Even the twins. Hell, especially the twins. They started bankrupting corrupt corporations for fun before they were in their teens.” 

“Isn’t that dangerous?” Seven asked. 

“I doubt it's more dangerous than dropping bodies like you and your friends. Besides, it's only dangerous if you’re not careful. The twins have got a whole underground setup—server racks in their bedroom, a VPN chain that runs through four continents, a botnet of hacked vending machines in Taiwan…” 

Seven’s eyes bulged. “You’re joking?” 

“I’m not. You want to know who set your mother up? The twins will find out. This is the shit they do for fun.” 

Seven sagged against him. “So we just wait for the twins to solve this mystery for us?” 

“Of course not. We’re going to follow up on your lead and look into anyone who had a grudge against your mom. We’ll have a better idea of who may have set her up once I interview her.” 

Seven gave him one last anxious look before he returned to tracking down his mother’s possibly vengeful ex-employee. Once his attention was back on the monitor, Enzo texted Ansel and Elios, letting them know he had evidence incoming. They responded with a thumbs up. 

Enzo took one last peek at Seven to make sure he wasn’t paying attention, before he shot the next text. 

Enzo: I need a big favor. 

Ansel: Bigger than us handling stolen evidence? 

Enzo: I need you to go shopping for me. 

Elios: What do we look like, your personal stylists? No. 

Enzo: Not clothes. Electronics. I’ll give you the black card and let you buy whatever you want as long as you get me what I need. It’s nerd stuff. You’ll love it.

Ansel: Anything we want?

Enzo: As long as you get me what I ask for, yeah. But it has to be today and it has to be set up before I get home from work. 

Elios: Anything else, your majesty?

Enzo: Yeah, say nothing to nobody. This is top secret. 

Ansel: For access to your black card? Our lips are 🤐 

Enzo locked his phone and set it face down, once more draping himself around Seven, peeking over his shoulder. 

Seven gave him a curious look. “All good?” 

Enzo kissed just behind his ear. “Yeah, baby. All good.”