Chapter 42
Chapter Forty-Two
Leon
“Nico is going to be so upset he hasn’t been invited to your murder party.”
Despite the seriousness of our task today, I find myself laughing at Apollo’s dull joke.
Nico may not be here, but he once helped me brainstorm how I would do this when the time came.
He told me to let him know if I wanted to kill someone and I did—two someones in particular—but I was far from ready to execute that desire.
“He’ll get over it,” I claim, rolling my eyes as I look down at the table of weapons before us.
We’re suiting up before we head out to our destination, and I like to get a full visual of my options before I arm myself.
A hand gun, typically two, is always required.
But I like variety, especially when it comes to my knives. “Does he even know you’re here?”
“Not yet,” Apollo replies, rolling up his sleeves and reaching for a slim triangle blade knife to put in his shirt breast pocket.
“But he will. He always hears about death and destruction. I’m convinced he’s made Remo create some kind of alert for him whenever mentions of gruesome murders hit the internet. ”
“I wouldn’t put it past him,” I reply, shaking my head. “But I don’t need his specific brand of expertise tonight. I only need you to keep me from losing my mind in the act.”
The last thing I need to do is beat them to death with my bare hands and come home with broken knuckles and bloodstains on my skin that are too stubborn to be scrubbed out.
“Careful, I might start to think I’m your favorite brother now.”
He’s attempting to be sarcastic or teasing, but in a way, he’s right.
“You are,” I reply with a shrug, choosing not to deny it.
Apollo is visibly taken aback, eyebrows drawn in tight as his head moves back in an involuntary recoil. It’s not every day that someone shocks Apollo Moretti.
“It’s not like I categorize you all in a list or something,” I explain further, trying to sound casual about it.
“But we’ve spent the most time together in the past year or so.
Rayna is my friend and the boys favor the two of you so of course we’re around each other a lot.
You were here for me through all of the Cleo shit, too.
It’s just a natural progression. It’s not like we haven’t always been close. ”
“And Cassio?” he asks, tilting his head.
“Complicated.”
I’m not sure how else to explain it, but I attempt anyway.
“Cassio is a good brother, and we’ve always had a close bond.
But he loved his wife before she died. He lost a son, too.
Our lives are so different from each other, even now that he’s found happiness with Ana.
We don’t talk as much, and maybe that’s my fault, but I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing.
We’ve all had stretches of time where we grow closer to different siblings and when we need more time apart. ”
“Like how he spends more time with Armani and Colton these days,” Apollo fills in, sounding like he’s attempting to test how I feel about the fact.
Chuckling, I nod. “Those two latched on to Ana almost as soon as she became one of us, of course it brought them closer together. Armani is good for him. He’s lighthearted and joyful.
Cassio could use all the brightness he can get.
He had a rough few years after Isobel died so suddenly.
” My brother quite literally tried to take a bullet for Jade before he married Ana.
He was willing to die to end his misery, and knowing him, with the hope that dying would allow him to see his wife and son once more.
Angel lived for only a few minutes, and each of them were in Cassio’s arms. It’s not something anyone would want to remember, and he was plagued with the memories for years until he agreed to marry his now wife.
He volunteered to bring her into our family’s protection while her own was in shambles.
And it was a surprise to most of us how perfect they ended up being for each other.
They grieved together, each for different reasons, and in that grief, they healed one another too.
“I’m not jealous, if that’s what you’re trying to decipher, by the way.
I’m glad he’s happy now. He had me worried for a while.
” Between cursing my uncle for dying at the hands of the bullet he intended to take, and crying in my arms when the death of his son hit him all over again years later, I’ve done more than my fair share of checking in on Cassio out of concern.
Apollo seems pleased with my response to his pestering and grunts. “You ready for this, then?”
“Never been more ready,” I confirm, strapping a trench knife to my boot. “I want them to suffer, but I want this to be over more than I care about making it as painful as possible. I just want the past behind me so I can move on and live in fucking peace.”
“Or, as much peace as men like us can expect, hmm?”
“Yeah,” I agree in a huff. “But I’d say we’re doing a pretty good job of keeping the peace flowing. Our families are happy, aren’t they? It’s about the most we can ask for.”
“They’re happy,” he agrees, allowing a rare bit of fondness in his tone.
“Then let’s get this shit over with so we can go home and be happy with them too.”
Apollo claps me on the back, signaling his agreement.
We met halfway to our intended location, rather than having Apollo meet me at my house only to leave as soon as he arrived. So the drive to Cleo’s family home isn’t long. A good thing, since my blood has been uncharacteristically boiling since this morning.
It’s only been two days since my date with Katya, a date that ended with me licking the remnants of chocolate cake off her mouth.
We had to pause our hot and heavy moment at the table from escalating until after we got home and made sure the kids were asleep.
Dad spent the night and left early in the morning, but I didn’t let him being in the house keep me from ravishing my wife.
A first date should rarely end in a kiss, let alone a hot fuck. But when the first date is with your wife, there are no rules as far as I’m concerned.
Still, the romance and good time we had was eventually fizzled out by scheduling the demise of Ezio and Sara Sala.
My father pushing me to end them sooner relit the fire under my ass where they were concerned, and I decided I was done planning.
It was time to take out the trash, even if I wish I could have made them more paranoid first.
Since discovering it was them who originated the rumors, I’d been doing small acts to strike up the fear that they’re being watched.
I had men lurk around their property, leave pictures of them sleeping in their mail, and move things in their house into slightly different positions.
From what’s been reported back to me, the married couple have been fighting more and more, and looking over their shoulders more often.
I didn’t technically have to get permission to end them, but Apollo and our father secured it for us anyway.
They defrauded us when they entered Cleo into our marriage contract, knowing she had a fatal condition that would not only kill her, but could spread to our children and kill them too.
That alone would be enough reason to kill them, and no retribution would be sought by the people they work for.
Still, doing things the professional way has never been a bad idea.
This way, we don’t curry any bad favors that we may need in the future.
Our Outfit is a powerful organization—the most powerful, depending on who you ask.
But part of how we remain that way is by keeping good relationships wherever we can.
And some crimes can’t be forgiven.
Ezio and Sara are already tied up when Apollo and I arrive, a task I outsourced to Gino and two of my other men.
If I were the one to pull them out of their beds and drag them downstairs to my killing arena, I might accidentally inflict some kind of blunt force trauma by throwing them down the stairs or kicking them too hard.
I’d rather they remain alive long enough to look me in the eyes and answer for their crimes before they pay for them with their lives.
Bound, gagged, and secured into two metal chairs, the two of them immediately start struggling to escape when they see Apollo and I emerge from the night.
Their living room has been covered in thick plastic sheets, laying atop all their tacky furniture.
Bright standing lights like you’d keep in a garage to work on cars have been placed in all four corners around them, giving me a perfect view of my victims.
Clicking my tongue, I approach them with a casual stride. “Sara, Ezio. I’m almost offended. You don’t look happy to see me at all. Weren’t we family once? What’s with the hostility?”
Ezio grunts into his gag, trying to talk back.
Lifting a hand to Gino, I silently give him permission to let their mouths free. As much as I’d rather not hear either of them ever speak again, it’s a vital part of my plan to converse before ending them.
Cleo’s father hisses as the tape keeping his gag in place is ripped off, and her mother cries out when the same treatment is shown to her.
“You were saying?” I drawl, looking down at Ezio.
“I was saying,” he growls, “that if anyone is being hostile, it’s the person who had us ripped out of bed and tied up like captives in the middle of the night.”
“Guilty,” Gino snarks, snickering at himself.
“Not a fan of your accommodations?” I tsk, tilting my head. “How sad.”
“What’s this about?” he snaps, looking around the room like he’s attempting to suss out his odds.
“Don’t play the fool,” I scoff, refusing to allow him to act ignorant. “You know exactly why we’re here, Ezio. I think you should be surprised that we haven’t come sooner after everything you’ve done.”