Chapter Eighteen Alexandra #2
"Three weeks." He looks at me, and his eyes are dead. Not angry, not sad, ... absent. Like the part of him that feels things has checked out entirely. "They found her in a drainage ditch outside the city. She'd been dead for at least a week."
My stomach drops and tears blur my vision. A nine-year-old girl. Three weeks of terror. A body in a ditch.
"I'm so sorry," I whisper. “Why didn’t he go to Aurelio?”
"He didn’t want to bring hell to his door.
Aurelio had bigger problems and he’d cut my father from his ranks.
We were in the family, but not really in it.
I found out later that the men who took her never intended to give her back.
The ransom was a game to them. Something to do while they waited.
" He stops. Swallows. "She wasn't the first girl they'd taken.
Just the first one anyone had bothered to count. "
I stand. Cross to him. Kneel in front of his chair and take his hands in mine. They're cold. Rigid. Holding on to control by the thinnest thread.
"You don't have to keep going," I say.
"No. You wanted to know." He meets my eyes. "You should know all of it."
I wait.
"It took me a few months to find them. The man who grabbed her. His name was Carlo Benedetti. He ran a chop shop on the south side, cut up stolen cars, kept to himself. No one suspected him of anything worse than grand theft auto."
"How did you find him?"
"I listened. Watched. Asked questions that didn't sound like questions. I was fourteen. People don't notice twelve-year-old boys. They talk in front of them like they're furniture." His mouth twists. "Eventually, someone said the wrong thing to the wrong kid."
"And you killed him."
"I killed him." The words come out flat. Factual. "Waited outside his shop until he closed up for the night. Followed him home. Broke in through a window while he was watching television." He pauses. "I used a kitchen knife. I didn't own a gun yet."
I don't flinch. Don't pull away. I hold his hands and I look at him and I let him see that this doesn't change anything.
"What happened after?"
"I went home. Washed the blood off. Went to school the next day like nothing happened." He shakes his head. "My mother knew something was wrong. She could always tell. But she didn't ask. I think she was afraid of the answer."
"And your father?"
"Dead six months later. Someone returned the favor for what I did to Benedetti.
Shot him outside a bar while I was at school.
" Leone's voice is distant now. Disconnected.
"My mother fell apart after that. Stopped eating.
Stopped leaving the apartment. She was dead within a year.
The doctors said it was her heart. I think it was grief. "
I squeeze his hands. "Leone."
"I was seventeen when Aurelio tracked me down. He’d heard what happened apparently.
Felt guilty. Living on the streets, picking pockets, running errands for anyone who'd pay.
He offered me a job. I said yes." He looks at me.
"That's the whole story. That's who I am.
A boy who lost his sister and killed the man who took her and has been killing ever since because it's the only thing that feels like ice. "
I rise. Stand between his knees. Cup his face in my hands and make him look at me.
"You are more than that," I say.
"Alexandra."
"You are more than the worst thing that happened to you.
More than the first man you killed. More than the violence and the blood and the years of emptiness.
" I press my forehead to his. "You are the man who defied his don for me.
Who slept in a chair for two weeks because he didn't trust himself to share a bed.
Who laughs like he's forgotten how and kisses me like I'm the only thing in the world that matters. "
His hands come up to cover mine. His eyes are wet. I've never seen him cry. I'm not sure he knows how anymore. But the wetness is there, hovering at the edges, fighting to fall.
"I don't know how to be anything else," he whispers.
"Then let me teach you." I kiss him. Soft. Brief. A promise. "Let me show you what it feels like to be loved for who you are, not in spite of it. Not because you're useful or dangerous or good at killing. because you're you."
He pulls me into his lap. Wraps his arms around me. Buries his face in my neck.
We stay like that for a long time. Not speaking. Not moving. holding on.
Eventually, his grip loosens. He pulls back. Looks at me with wonder. Like he can't quite believe I'm real.
"How did I get so lucky?" he murmurs.
"Luck had nothing to do with it. You kidnapped me, remember?"
He laughs. The sound sends tingles down my spine. "I remember."
"Best worst decision you ever made."
"The best." He tucks my hair behind my ear. That gesture. The one that started everything. "Definitely the best."
I lean in and kiss him again. Longer this time. Deeper. His hands slide down my back, grip my hips, pull me closer.
"We have work to do," I murmur against his mouth.
"I know."
"Giovanni isn't going to find himself."
"I know that too."
"So we should probably..."
"Probably." He stands, lifting me with him, and carries me toward the bed. "In a minute."
"Leone."
"One minute." He lays me down, covers my body with his. "God, maybe two."
I laugh. The sound surprises me. Light. Unguarded. The laugh of a woman who has found, against all odds, a place where she belongs.
"Fine," I say. "Two minutes."
He grins. "Generous."
"I'm a generous person."
"You are." He kisses me. "You really are."
Two minutes becomes twenty. Twenty becomes something longer. We don't talk about Giovanni or the war or the dead sister whose ghost still haunts the corners of his eyes. We simply exist, together, in the space we've carved out of the chaos.
Afterward, we lie tangled in the sheets, my head on his chest, his hand tracing lazy patterns on my back. The compound has gone quiet around us. Evening shift settled in, the rhythm of the building slowing toward night.
"Thank you," he says quietly.
"For what?"
"For asking. For listening." His hand stills on my back. "For not running."
I prop myself up on my elbow, looking down at him. In the dim light, he looks younger. Softer. The hard edges smoothed away by whatever passed between us.
"I told you I'm not going anywhere."
"I know. But hearing it and believing it are different things." He reaches up, traces the line of my jaw with his thumb. "I'm working on the believing part."
"Take your time. I'll keep reminding you."
He pulls me back down, tucks me against his side. I settle into the familiar position, cheek on his shoulder, arm across his chest, leg thrown over his.
"Tomorrow we need to go over the New York intel," I say.
"I know."
"Claudio found a contact who might be able to get us building access. If we can get inside the tech firm's server room..."
"Tomorrow." His arm tightens around me. "Tonight, I only want this."
I smile against his skin. "Just this."
"Us."
He's right. There will be time tomorrow for war councils and intelligence reports and the slow, grinding work of hunting a man who's been hiding for twenty years.
There will be time for arguments about New York and risk assessment and all the practical considerations that come with loving someone in this world.
But tonight, there's only this.
His heartbeat under my ear. His warmth surrounding me. The steady rise and fall of his breathing as it slows toward sleep.