Chapter 3 Leone #2
The question hangs in the air. I think about her eyes, the way they burn, the way they challenge, the way they refuse to look away even when she should be terrified.
“I trust that she wants to survive,” I say. “That makes her predictable.”
Aurelio nods slowly. “Bring her into low-level analysis. Nothing sensitive. Let her prove herself.”
“Yes, sir.”
He releases my arm and turns away. I’m halfway to the door when he speaks again.
“Leone. The mole in our organization. Find them. Quickly.”
“I will.”
“I know you will.” His eyes hold mine. Could be approval. Could be a test. With Aurelio, it's always both. “You’ve never failed me. Don’t start now.”
I leave room and head for her door.
She’s doing pushups when I enter.
Not the half-hearted kind most people do… real pushups, military form, arms burning and sweat dripping onto the carpet. She sees me and doesn’t stop. keeps going, counting under her breath, until she hits some number that satisfies her and collapses onto her back.
“Knock much?” She’s breathing hard, but her voice is steady.
“The door was locked. Knocking seemed redundant.”
She laughs, short and sharp. “Fair point.”
I watch her lie there, chest heaving, hair splayed around her head like a dark halo. The expensive clothes we provided are rumpled, slept in. She looks human. Vulnerable. Nothing like the snarling creature who threatened me with a decanter.
I don’t trust it.
“I have a proposition,” I say.
She sits up, crossing her legs beneath her. “That sounds ominous.”
“You want to be useful. I’m giving you the chance.”
Her eyes narrow. “What type of useful?”
I pull a chair from the corner and sit across from her, maintaining distance. “You were a courier. You know routes, drop points, timing protocols. I want you to review some documents. See if anything looks familiar.”
“And if I help you, what do I get?”
“You get to stay in this room instead of the cells downstairs. You get meals. Books. Whatever entertainment you want within reason.” I pause. “You get to live.”
She studies me, her expression unreadable. Then she smiles, and it’s not a nice smile.
“So, I’m an asset now. Not a prisoner.”
“You’re both. The distinction depends on your behavior.”
“Cute.” She stands, stretching her arms above her head, and I force myself not to track the movement. “Fine. Bring me your documents. I’ll play your game.”
“It’s not a game.”
“Everything’s a game.” She walks to the window, pressing her palm against the glass. “Some people don’t know they’re playing.”
I stand to leave, then stop. There’s something I need to say, something that’s been gnawing at me since last night.
“Viktor.”
She goes still. Doesn’t turn around.
“He died quickly,” I say.
Her shoulders tighten. “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
“No. It’s supposed to be the truth.”
She’s quiet. When she speaks, her voice is softer than I’ve heard it. “He told me I was too smart for this life. Said the debts weren’t meant to be paid—they were meant to own me.”
“He was right.”
She turns to face me, and her eyes are wet but not crying. “Then why am I still here?”
“Because I’m not the Castillo’s.”
The words come out before I can stop them. They hang in the air, heavier than they should be, loaded with meaning I don’t want to examine.
Alexandra tilts her head, studying me like I’m a puzzle she’s trying to solve. “No,” she says quietly. “You’re not.”
I leave before I can say anything else.
The door closes behind me, and I stand in the hallway, breathing slowly, trying to remember who I was before she looked at me like that.
The gym is empty at midnight.
I prefer it this way. No soldiers watching, no subordinates pretending not to notice, no one to perform control for. me and the heavy bag and the demons I can’t seem to outrun.
I wrap my hands with practiced efficiency, the gauze tight across my knuckles. The first punch lands with a satisfying thud. The second. The third. I fall into rhythm, letting the impact travel up my arms, into my shoulders, through my chest. Pain becomes white noise. Thought becomes unnecessary.
Dahlia used to hate when I did this.
“You’re punishing yourself,” she’d say, watching me from the doorway of whatever shitty apartment we were hiding her in that week. Away from whoever Aurelio had pissed off. “The bag can’t hit back. What’s the point?”
“The point is control.”
“No.” She’d cross her arms, that stubborn set to her jaw I learned to love and dread in equal measure. “The point is you don’t know how to feel things without bleeding.”
She was right. She usually was.
I hit the bag harder.
Dahlia came into my life like a storm—unexpected, overwhelming, impossible to ignore. Aurelio’s daughter. I was her bodyguard and I never noticed her until one day I did. I noticed her the way you notice a blade pointed at your throat: with respect and a healthy dose of fear.
She noticed me too.
We were never supposed to happen. She was his daughter. I was his weapon, his right hand, a man who’d forgotten how to want things that didn’t involve blood and obedience.
But she smiled at me once—really smiled, not the fake ones she gave the soldiers—and it blew me away.
We had eight months. Eight months of stolen hours and secret meetings and learning how to be human again. She taught me how to cook. How to laugh. How to sleep without a gun under my pillow. She made me believe that maybe, someday, I could be more than what Aurelio made me.
Then she left.
Not dramatically. Not with tears or screaming or accusations. She … slowly disappeared. A note on the pillow, a kiss still lingering on my lips, and an empty apartment where a life used to be.
I don’t love you the way you love me. I’m sorry.
I burned the note. I sealed the wound. I went back to being exactly what I was before: a weapon with no wants, no needs, no weaknesses.
Then she shacked up with that asshole from Westpoint. And I was assigned to watch her. Protect her.
Fat lot of good that did.
She chose him anyway.
The bag swings wild from a hook that lands wrong. I catch it, steady it, then hit it again.
Alexandra isn’t Dahlia. She’s nothing like Dahlia. Dahlia was soft where it counted, gentle even when she was fierce. Alexandra is all edges, all defiance, a woman who spits blood and calls men like me cowards to our faces.
But the way she looked at me tonight…
I hit the bag until my knuckles bleed through the wraps.
Three days pass.
I bring Alexandra documents: shipping manifests, route schedules, communication logs from the courier network we’ve been trying to crack. Nothing sensitive. Nothing that could hurt us if she decided to play games. enough to test her.
She sits cross-legged on the bed, papers spread around her like a nest and she just works.
I watch from the chair by the door, pretending to review my own files. In reality, I’m studying her. The way she chews her lip when she’s concentrating. The way she mutters under her breath, arguing with the data. The way her eyes light up when she finds a puzzle piece that clicks.
“This route doesn’t make sense,” she says on the second day, jabbing a finger at one of the manifests. “They’re moving product through the harbor on Tuesdays, but there’s a gap here—see? Every third week, nothing. No shipments, no pickups, no activity.”
I lean forward. “What does that tell you?”
“Either they’re resting the route to avoid pattern detection, or—” She pauses, frowning. “Or they’re using that window for something else. It’s big. They don’t want it on the regular books.”
I take the manifest from her, scanning the dates. She’s right. There’s a gap. Every third Tuesday, like clockwork.
“I’ll have our analysts look into it.”
She grins, smug and satisfied. “You’re welcome.”
“Don’t get cocky.”
“Too late.” She leans back on her hands, watching me with those storm-grey eyes. “Admit it. I’m useful.”
“You’re adequate.”
“High praise from a man who probably irons his socks.”
I almost smile. Almost. “I don’t iron my socks.”
“But you thought about it, didn’t you? At least once.”
I stand, gathering the documents. “Get some rest. I’ll bring more tomorrow.”
“Leone.”
I stop at the door.
“Thank you,” she says quietly. “For letting me do something. For not—” She gestures vaguely at the room, the cameras, the locked door. “For not making me feel useless.”
I don’t know what to say. So, I nod once and leave.
In the hallway, I press my back against the wall and close my eyes.
The ghost of Dahlia whispers in my ear, soft and sad: You know what happens when you let someone in.
I do.
I remember everything.
And I’m starting to think it doesn’t matter.
She’s already under my skin. Already in my head. Already taking up space I swore I’d never give anyone again.
I push off the wall and walk toward my quarters.
Three days.
That’s all it took.
I’m fucked.