Chapter 21 Eleanor
Eleanor
Il Lusso rises before me, all sleek and exclusive. I enter alone, if you don’t count the half dozen of his men flanking me as I walk through the doors.
Inside, the club smells of expensive liquor.
At this late hour, it’s loud, the music thumping like a collective pulse.
Eyes turn to me. A woman walks past, her dress so tight I wonder if she can breathe.
I wear my black silk blouse and leopard print pants, my armor, dark red lipstick my only concession to Leonardo’s demands that I make myself pretty.
I hear him in my head: Come to Il Lusso. Don’t make me ask twice.
This is my first time here, and I must admit I’m curious. Marble floors and dim lights, everything gold and indulgent. I pass the bar, men in suits laughing, women draped over them. One guard sticks to my side like glue, the others drop back a few paces.
Across the room, I spot Leonardo sitting with a bunch of men I don’t recognize. I move toward them, uninvited. Unstoppable.
There’s a moment of silence as I approach. Some of the men don’t know what to make of me. Is she here to watch? To help? To make sure her father’s deal sticks? I ignore their looks, and then I’m standing at the table, at Leonardo’s side, looking him dead in the eye.
I’m the first to speak. “Room for one more?” I take the chair before they have time to answer, a bold move that unsettles them, makes it clear I’m not afraid. If Leonardo expects me here, I expect to be heard. I am more than just my lipstick.
The talk resumes. Drugs. Payments. No one holds back on my account. One man leans back, his voice low, deliberate. “With the police commissioner out of the picture, the next handoff should be smooth.”
Leonardo watches them, watches me, eyes alive and sparking. He raises his drink and speaks over the noise. “The Irish backed off. The Russians too. Nobody wants to test us right now, not with the Albanians sniffing around.”
“And what about Price?” one of the men asks. “Is he still in play?”
Leonardo’s gaze snaps to mine. “Eleanor’s father isn’t a problem,” he says, too calm. “Our arrangement still stands.”
He doesn’t say it out loud, but I hear him just the same: You’re the collateral.
They all look at me now, studying, wondering.
I meet each gaze until they turn away. Leonardo watches this, watches me claim a space they don’t think I deserve.
They probably think I’m too soft, but what they don’t see is the blood underneath my nails.
My father’s, my own. I never wanted any of this, but I will survive it.
I have to, if I want the Rosettis’ help rescuing Juliet.
An hour passes, maybe more. The tension eases but never leaves.
Raffaele shows up, late, his black gloves flashing as he claps Leonardo on the back.
Rafe is the sibling I know the least, but it’s still nice to have another familiar face around the table.
Leonardo gives his brother a hard look. I’ve learned this language already. He’s displeased. “How was Jersey?”
Raffaele shrugs. “They know who runs the ports now.”
Leonardo closes the meeting, no more questions, no room for doubt. His men disperse, Raffaele saunters over to the bar, and it’s just the two of us now.
He stands, nods toward the back of the club, a place I haven’t been yet. “Come on.”
I follow him past the dance floor, through the crowd.
People move out of his way. The bass vibrates up through the soles of my boots, into my bones, shaking something loose.
I feel like a ghost, untethered from my body, floating after him as the lights flash and the music pounds.
His hand is on my wrist, guiding me, but the grip is gentle, almost as if he cares.
We reach a glass-walled room, a stark, soundproof cocoon.
The rest of the club swirls around us, but we’re separate, inside our own world.
He shuts the door behind me, and I feel the silence like a punch to the chest. There’s a long couch and a low table.
A single chair, its back to the glass. He gestures for me to sit, but I don’t. I’m not here to obey.
“I thought you’d make more of a scene,” he says, watching me as he pours two drinks. Whiskey, the good stuff. It smells like my father’s study.
“I tried my very best to,” I tease. “Next time I’ll make a suggestion on who to sell guns to. I know a few people with big bankrolls.”
He sits in the chair and crosses one leg over the other. For now, he’s in control, but there’s a tension in his posture, a wariness in the set of his jaw.
“You don’t belong in the world of crime, Eleanor.”
I walk to the small bar, pour myself a drink and lean against the glass wall, watching the club spin and surge beneath us. The music is distant, underwater. Leonardo takes a long pull from his glass, his eyes never leaving mine.
The words sting. They remind me of who I was supposed to be. A good girl with a good education who did good things. Not a criminal. “Neither did you, once.”
The drink freezes halfway to his lips. I’ve struck a nerve. Good. His voice is rough. “You think you know me?”
“I know you’re drinking more than usual.”
He swirls the amber liquid, watching it rise and fall. “Didn’t know you cared.”
“I don’t,” I say, but he sees through it. I see it in the way his gaze lingers on me, searching, challenging.
He gets up, moves close, closer than I expected. I can see the pulse in his throat, the heat in his eyes. My own pulse quickens, betrays me, but I keep my voice steady. “You look at me like I’m fragile,” I say. “You’re wrong.”
“Prove it.”
I push off the wall, set the drink on the table.
I’m not afraid of him, but there’s a fierceness to him now, a hunger, that makes me pause.
I search for a distraction and find one.
A white scar cuts across the back of his hand, and I touch it, run my fingers along its length. “This,” I ask, “from being careless?”
He’s silent. Then: “Something like that.”
It’s the first thing he hasn’t told me, the first wall. I can’t let it stand. “And?”
He takes a deep breath, and when he lets it out, the story comes with it. “Got it in school,” he says, like it’s nothing. “I used to be weak.”
I don’t believe him. I can’t. I picture him as a child, small, vulnerable. It doesn’t fit. I try to put the pieces together. “You were bullied?”
He shrugs, and it says more than words. He won’t admit it, but he doesn’t deny it either. “Runt of the family. That plus the family name, made me an easy target.”
“The great Leonardo Rosetti,” I say, half-joking, half-not. “Who’d have guessed.”
“Not so great back then.” His jaw tightens, and there’s anger there, old and brittle, like a bone that never healed. “It got me this,” he says, gesturing to the scar, “and worse. One day, a group of boys jumped me in the locker room. Beat me so bad I thought I’d die.”
I pause, frozen at the horrific image. “What did your father do?”
His laugh is dry, humorless. “Told me if I was weak, I didn’t deserve the Rosetti name.”
I picture it. A smaller, younger version of Leonardo, battered and bruised, lying on a locker room floor. Old Sal doing nothing to help him. My surprise turns sour. It’s not pity, not quite. “But you made yourself strong.”
“Made myself untouchable,” he corrects, his voice sharp, echoing off the glass. “Trained like a fucking prize fighter. So no one could try it again.”
I look at him, really look at him, and I don’t see a man made of iron and rage. I see the boy who thought he’d die in that locker room. I see him flinch, once, then steel himself, waiting for me to say something cruel. Waiting for me to walk away. But I’m still here.
“Even now,” I say, soft but sure, “you’re still fighting.”
Something in him cracks. He closes the distance between us and grips my shoulders, pulls me to him. There’s an urgency to it, a need I haven’t seen before. “Don’t try to fix me, Eleanor.”
I hold his gaze, match his intensity. “Maybe you’re not broken.”
The words hang in the air between us, solid as stone.
He cups my jaw, his thumb brushing my cheek, and the touch is possessive, grounding, more real than anything.
When he kisses me, it’s not soft. It’s bruising, hungry, like he’s trying to take back control.
Like he’s trying to prove something to himself.
I can’t help it. I devour his kiss and his pain and jealousy, and it just stokes the fire within me.