Chapter Fifteen Leone
I leave her sleeping.
It's the hardest thing I've done in twenty-four hours, and I spent most of those hours killing people. But the sun is up and Aurelio is waiting and the longer I delay this conversation, the worse it gets.
She's curled on her side, one hand tucked under the pillow, the other reaching toward the space where I was. Her hair is a mess of tangles across her face. The bruise on her cheek has deepened overnight, purple and blue spreading toward her eye. She looks small in the bed. Small and tired and mine.
I bend down and press my lips to her temple. She stirs, mumbles something, doesn't wake. Good. She needs rest more than she needs to watch me walk out the door.
I write a note on a scrap of paper from the kitchen counter. Gone to see Aurelio. Emilio is outside. I'll be back. Don't leave.
I add one more line, then fold the paper and leave it on the pillow beside her.
I love you.
Emilio is waiting in the SUV at the curb. He looks like he hasn't slept either, dark circles under his eyes, but he's alert, coffee in one hand and a pistol in the other.
"She okay?" he asks as I climb in.
"Sleeping."
"And you?"
I don't answer. He takes that as the answer it is and pulls away from the curb.
The compound is quiet when we arrive. Too quiet. The kind that happens when everyone knows something big went down and no one wants to be the first to mention it. Soldiers watch me as I walk through the corridors. Some nod. Some look away. None of them speak.
Word has spread. Of course it has. You can't slaughter men in a Castillo safehouse without the entire underworld hearing about it by morning. By now, every crew in the city knows that Leone Costa went off script, and they're all waiting to see what happens next.
So am I.
Aurelio's study is at the end of the east wing. Heavy oak doors, always closed, guarded by two men who step aside when they see me coming. I push through without knocking.
He's standing at the window, looking out at the courtyard. His hands are clasped behind his back. He doesn't turn when I enter.
"Close the door," he says.
I close it.
The silence stretches. Ten seconds. Twenty. I stand in the center of the room and wait. I've played this game before. Aurelio uses silence like a weapon, letting it build until the other person breaks. I learned it from him. I won't break first.
Finally, he turns.
His face is unreadable. Grey eyes flat, mouth set in a thin line. He looks at me the way he looked at me twenty years ago, when I was a seventeen-year-old kid with blood on my hands and nowhere else to go. Assessing. Calculating. Deciding whether I'm worth the trouble.
"Fourteen men," he says.
"Fifteen, including the spotter on the roof."
"Fifteen men. A Castillo safehouse. Against my direct orders."
"Not technically. You said go."
"And the girl?"
"Safe. At the east side location."
He nods slowly. Walks to his desk. Sits down. His movements are deliberate, controlled, giving nothing away.
"Castillo called this morning," he says. "He's demanding blood. Your blood, specifically. He wants you delivered to him in chains, along with full territorial concessions and a public apology."
"And your response?"
"I told him I'd consider it."
My jaw tightens. "Aurelio."
"I told him I'd consider it," he repeats. "That's what you say when a man is screaming in your ear, and you need him to stop long enough to think." He leans back in his chair. "What I'm actually going to do is something different."
"Which is?"
"That depends on you."
He gestures to the chair across from his desk. I sit.
"You defied me," he says. "First time in twenty years. I gave you a direct order and you walked out of my war room and did exactly what I told you not to do." He pauses. "Why?"
"You know why."
"I want to hear you say it."
I meet his eyes. "Because she matters more than your orders. Because I would rather burn my entire life to the ground than let someone take her from me. Because you asked me if she was worth everything, and the answer was yes, and I meant it."
Aurelio studies me. Then, slowly, he smiles.
It's not a warm smile. Aurelio doesn't do warm. But there's a look in it I haven't seen before. Understanding.
"Your father said something similar to me once," he says.
I go still. "My father?"
"Thirty-five years ago. Before you were born.
He was my right hand, same as you. Best soldier I ever had, until you came along.
" He shakes his head. "He fell in love with a woman I told him to stay away from.
Said she was a distraction, a liability.
Same things I said to you. And he looked at me the same way you're looking at me now and told me to go to hell. "
I've never heard this story. Never heard Aurelio mention my father outside of the bare facts. He died when I was thirteen. I barely remember him. Trauma, they say. Just impressions. Big hands. Deep voice. The smell of smoke and gasoline.
"What happened?" I ask.
"He married her anyway. Had a son and a beautiful daughter named Sofia.
Built a life outside these walls, even while he worked inside them.
" Aurelio's eyes are distant, looking at something I can't see.
"And when he died after Sofia, his wife fell apart.
The boy ended up on the streets. Ended up in my office at seventeen with a body behind and nowhere else to go. "
"Why are you telling me this?"
"Because I hated your father for choosing her. For making himself vulnerable. For loving something more than the work." He focuses on me again. "And I respected him more than any man I've ever known. Because he was willing to go against me for something that mattered."
The words settle into me. Rearranging things. Shifting foundations I didn't know could shift.
"You're not going to hand me over to Marco," I say.
"No. I'm going to tell Marco to go to hell.
That the assault on the safehouse was a sanctioned operation in response to the kidnapping of a protected Bonaccorso asset.
" He holds up a hand before I can speak.
"That's what she is now. Officially. Alexandra Clark is under family protection.
Anyone who touches her answers to me, not just you. "
"Aurelio..."
"I'm not doing this because I approve of your choices.
I'm doing this because you were right." He leans forward.
"They penetrated our compound. They used our own systems against us. They took something from inside our walls and expected us to negotiate for it back. If we had negotiated, we would have looked weak. What you did, going in there and burning them down, that sent a message. Touch what belongs to the Bonaccorso’s and die. "
"She doesn't belong to the Bonaccorso’s. She belongs to me."
"Same thing. As long as you're my right hand, what's yours is ours.
" He stands. "Go back to your woman, Leone.
Take a few days. Rest. But when you come back, we have work to do.
Whoever is behind Apex Meridian, whoever engineered this entire war, they're still out there. And now they know we're looking."
I stand. There's more to say, questions about my father, about the past, about everything Aurelio just revealed. But that conversation can wait. Right now, there's only one place I want to be.
"Thank you," I say.
Aurelio waves a dismissive hand. "Don't thank me. Don't make me regret this. And Leone?" He catches my eye as I reach the door. "Your father would have been proud of you. I hated him for what he did, but I never stopped wishing I had his courage."
I nod once and leave.
The drive back to the safehouse takes twenty minutes. I spend every second of it thinking about her. About the way she looked this morning, asleep in my bed. About the note I left on the pillow. About the words I wrote and meant with every fiber of my being.
Emilio drops me at the curb and pulls away without comment. He'll be back in a few hours to relieve the overnight guard. Until then, we're alone.
I unlock the door and step inside.
She's standing in the kitchen. My shirt hangs off her frame, falling to mid-thigh. Her hair is wet from a shower. She's holding a cup of coffee in both hands, and when she sees me, she sets it down on the counter.
"What did he say?" she asks.
"You're mine. Officially. Bonaccorso protection."
Her eyes widen. "He agreed?"
"He agreed."
She crosses to me. Stops an arm's length away. Her grey eyes search my face, looking for something, checking for damage, making sure I came back in one piece.
"Are you okay?" she asks.
"I'm better now."
"Leone."
"I'm okay." I reach out and touch her face. Cup her jaw, brush my thumb across her cheekbone, feel the warmth of her skin beneath my palm. "I'm okay, Alexandra. It's done. You're protected. You're mine."
She moves.
I don't know who closes the distance first. Maybe both of us at the same time. But suddenly her hands are fisting in my jacket, and my hands are in her hair and our mouths crash together with all the desperate, frantic energy we've been holding back since the rescue.
This kiss is nothing like last night. Last night was soft. Tender. Two people too exhausted for anything more than comfort.
This is fire.
She pulls at my jacket and I shrug it off, letting it fall to the floor.
Her hands find my shirt, yanking it from my waistband, sliding underneath to touch bare skin.
Her palms are warm against my stomach, my ribs, tracing the edges of the bruise on my chest without pressing. Careful even in her urgency.
I walk her backward. She goes willingly, her mouth never leaving mine, her fingers working the buttons of my shirt. Her back hits the wall beside the kitchen counter and I press into her, pinning her there with my hips, letting her feel what she does to me.
"I almost lost you," she gasps against my mouth.
"I know."
"I sat in that room for hours thinking about what would happen if you didn't come."
"I came."