Chapter 8 #2
“One mistake in an otherwise flawless kidnapping,” he counters, and I can’t tell if he’s joking or not. “I’ll try to do better next time.”
“There better not be a next time,” I mutter but then change the subject. “What kind of architecture?” I’m genuinely curious despite myself and want to move past the weird moment where I almost found Leo’s stalking charming.
“Sustainable design.” There’s a wistfulness in his voice that makes me think he actually cared about it.
“Buildings that work with their environment instead of against it. I wanted to design structures that would last, that would be beautiful and functional and not destroy the planet in the process.”
I blink. Well, that wasn’t what I expected. “That’s…” I search for the right word. “Actually noble. And kind of unexpected for someone in your line of work.”
“What, mobsters can’t care about the environment?” Leo raises an eyebrow, and there’s definitely amusement in his eyes now. “We have to live on this planet too.”
“I just meant—” I fumble for words, my ears warming. What is the matter with me? “You’re what, thirty-three? I think? And you wanted to be an eco-friendly architect. That’s a pretty big shift to running a criminal empire.”
“Thirty-five,” he confirms, his gaze lingering on me in a way that makes my skin feel warm. “And you’re twenty-four. Which means when I was studying sustainable architecture at NYU, you were probably still in middle school wearing braces and worrying about your first dance.”
My cheeks flush. “I never had braces, actually. And I was more worried about my art portfolio than school dances.”
“Of course you were.” There’s something in his tone that’s definitely not mocking but might be…fond? “The serious artistic type. Too focused on charcoal drawings to care about boys.”
“I cared about boys,” I defend, even though he’s not entirely wrong. “I just also cared about my art. For the record, I still am serious about it. Or I was, before someone kidnapped me and ruined my life,” I finish pointedly.
“You’re drawing every day,” Leo points out. “You’re still serious about it.”
The reminder that he watches me through cameras makes my stomach flip. “That’s because I’m bored and have literally nothing else to do,” I counter.
“Sure.” But he doesn’t sound convinced. “Nothing to do with the fact that you filled an entire sketchpad in a week.”
We fall into conversation after that, and it becomes a pattern.
Dinners where we talk about books and art and everything except the big elephant in the room which is my presence.
Leo is well-read and cultured, nothing like the monster I expected when he first kidnapped me.
He quotes Dante, not just the cliché lines everyone knows, and discusses philosophy with the kind of depth that suggests he actually read those texts instead of just skimming SparkNotes.
He knows about contemporary art and classic literature and has opinions on whether Hemingway is overrated—he agrees with me that he is, which is validating.
And I hate how much I don’t hate these conversations.
I hate that I look forward to dinner, that I find myself thinking of things to discuss with him during the day, that when he quotes something interesting I want to debate it with him just to see how he’ll respond.
One night, he catches me staring at the scar through his eyebrow and raises an eyebrow—the non-scarred one—in challenge.
“You keep looking at it,” he says, his voice amused. “Just ask.”
“I wasn’t—” I start, but I’ve been caught and I hate it. My cheeks warm and I blow out a breath. “Oh, fine. How did you actually get it?” I brandish my spoon at him. “And don’t say knife fight again. That’s too cliché.”
“But it was a knife fight,” Leo insists, and his eyes are dancing with mischief. “Sorry to disappoint your expectations for originality.”
“Knife fight with who?” I press, leaning forward slightly without meaning to. “When?”
“I was twenty-two.” Leo settles back in his chair like he’s preparing to tell a story. “There was this guy—Dmitri something, Russian mob—who decided he didn’t like the way our families had divided territory in Brighton Beach. He challenged me to settle it the old way.”
“The old way being knives?” I ask incredulously. This is seriously out of a movie. “That’s nuts.”
“That’s business,” Leo corrects with a shrug. “I won, obviously. He got the worse end of the deal.” He taps his nose. “I broke his nose, dislocated his shoulder, and he walked away with a lot more scars than just one through his eyebrow.”
“And you got that.” I gesture to his face before I can stop myself. “Doesn’t it bother you? Having a permanent reminder of—”
“Of proving I could hold my own?” Leo finishes, his gaze intense on mine. “No. It bothers me that I had to do it at all. But the scar itself? I’ve made peace with it. It adds character, according to my mother.”
“It’s very mob boss,” I say before I can think better of it. “Very ‘don’t mess with me or I’ll stab you too.’”
“Is that what you think when you look at it?” There’s something in his voice that makes my breath catch. “That I’m going to stab you?”
“No,” I admit quietly, realizing it’s true. I haven’t thought it in a few days now. “I think…” I scowl, not sure how to organize my disjointed thoughts. “I don’t know what I think. It’s just part of your face now. I barely notice it anymore.”
Something shifts in Leo’s expression, something I can’t quite name. “You barely notice it,” he repeats slowly. “After two weeks of being forced to look at me every day.”
“I’m not forced to look at you,” I shoot back then realize how that sounds. “I mean—I am, technically, since you keep coming to my room and inviting yourself to dinner. But it’s not like—” Fuck me, I’m making this worse. Just end me now. “You’re not horrible to look at. Objectively speaking.”
The moment the words come out of my mouth I instantly regret them. Seriously, just end me.
Leo’s lips curve into a smile that’s genuinely amused, with no mockery in it. “Objectively speaking, I’m not horrible to look at. I’ll add that to my list of compliments from Emma Brennan, right under ‘asshole’ and ‘cock-juggling thundercunt.’”
“Don’t forget ‘kidnapping piece of shit,’” I remind him, but I’m fighting a smile too. “That’s my personal favorite.”
“Noted.” Leo’s still watching me with that intensity that makes me hyperaware of how close we’re sitting and how the candlelight catches in his dark eyes. “For what it’s worth, you’re not horrible to look at either. Objectively speaking.”
My face flushes hot and my palms grow clammy. “That’s—you can’t just—” I splutter, feeling like a fish out of water.
“What?” Leo’s smile widens slightly, his eyes crinkling. “Give you a compliment? You just gave me one. I’m returning the favor.”
“I said you weren’t horrible,” I point out, my voice higher than normal. Goddamn it’s warm in here. Is Leo too much of a cheap ass to turn on the AC? “That’s barely a compliment. That’s like saying someone isn’t actively ugly.”
“Fine.” Leo leans forward slightly, his elbows on the table, and I’m acutely aware of how his shirt pulls across his shoulders.
“You’re beautiful, Emma. Even when you’re calling me names and throwing forks at my head.
” He pauses for a moment. “Especially then, actually. The rage makes your eyes brighter.”
I don’t know what to do with that.
I don’t even know how to respond to Leo Santoro—my kidnapper, the man I’m supposed to hate—telling me I’m beautiful with complete sincerity in his voice.
“That’s…” I struggle for words, truly at a loss before I grasp on a thought tendril. “You’re trying to distract me!” I glare at him triumphantly.
“I’m really not,” Leo says, his voice going quieter. “I’m just stating a fact. You asked about my scar, I told you. Then you said I wasn’t horrible to look at, and I’m telling you that you’re considerably better than ‘not horrible.’ That’s just honesty.”
“Honesty,” I repeat, my heart doing the tango in my chest. “From the man who kidnapped me and won’t let me call my mother.”
Leo’s face draws in, the moment breaking. “Fair point.”
We sit in awkward silence for a moment before I force myself to speak again, needing to move past whatever that was.
This is Stockholm Syndrome, I tell myself firmly.
This is my brain trying to rationalize my situation by making my captor seem human and interesting and attractive instead of monstrous.
Except Leo is human.
And he is interesting.
And the more time I spend with him, the harder it is to hold onto the pure hatred I felt that first day in the cathedral.
Which is a problem I don’t know how to solve.