Chapter 4 #2
“Nothing that can be proven, but all the best gossip is that way, isn’t it?” Anthony’s dark eyes swept over Leon, taking in his bunched fists and the tension vibrating through his shoulders. “For someone who has nothing to do with her, you’re awful interested in what’s going on with her.”
Refusing to be baited more than he already had been, Leon snarled, “Where did you see her?”
“I went to see Bianchi. From what I gathered, she’d just left Lamberti’s office.”
“Tell me what she said to you.”
“Not much. Mostly about our family having done enough damage. Something about three days.”
“Three days?”
“Yes, that no one could fix it in three days.”
Leon spent far more time at his father’s house than he’d intended. Hours lost with his own businesses and dealings. Wasted over Anthony and his bullshit.
The Irish their father sent Anthony to might have been skimming the profits, but Anthony had laid waste to them before boarding a plane and scurrying back home. Any connections the Marchetti family had in that security tech were gone. Blown up, quite literally.
Shutting the door to his home, Leon engaged all of the locks and pressed all the right buttons for the security system.
His small fortress held every technological gadget it could, with old fashioned physical fail safes should someone try to get past them.
There were of course the sensors in every room, cameras that could be called up with a tap on his phone, night vision, heat vision.
All the bells and whistles. Every window was also bulletproof.
The exterior walls had metal plates. His basement was fully stocked with semi-automatic weapons and a trap door that led out into the garage.
It was deadly and cold as hell.
Loosening his tie, he poured a generous measure of whiskey into a glass at the bar then headed for the private deck. The roaming guards would know his whereabouts, but when he opted for the smaller space walled in by greenery, they knew to leave him alone.
Leon threw his tie and jacket down on a chaise, working the top button of his collar free. The sudden loss of the restriction felt so damn good, he undid three more and settled his large frame in an oversized chair.
Sipping the rich amber whiskey, he watched the lightening horizon. He needed to get his head on straight. To stop thinking about the damned girl, but that became more difficult each time he thought of her.
He remembered her best in the lacy dress that started the evening as the purest white with a wide red ribbon at her waist. Costanzo’s Omegas must have spent hours primping her for the event, every inch of her neat and tidy.
When he’d found her in the dark library, it’d been torn and muddy from the gardens.
She’d snuck out of the party and then it’d begun to rain.
All of thirteen and she’d been trying so damned hard to be brave as he demanded to know what she’d been doing and who with.
Leon only meant to scare her a little, remind her of her place, but someone overheard.
All the Costanzo males came rushing in, shouting and pointing. Laying blame at her feet.
She’d been carted off by the women after that, and Leon never saw her outside of a formal function again. Forever surrounded by cadges of adults and guards. Anthony told him they’d even taken her out of school.
Of course, she blamed him for all of it. As if he had some control over her father’s wishes. If that had been the case, Leon never would have stumbled into that restaurant intent on apologizing and found her with that fucking Russian.
Elena had no business being with Ivanov to begin with. He was old enough to be her father and not from a pure line. What Costanzo had been thinking, if he had been at all, was beyond Leon. Finding her sitting alone with Ivanov, the bastard holding her hands, had enraged him.
Ivanov was a lesser being in their world, and his hands didn’t belong on any woman within their ranks as far as Leon was concerned. To risk Elena’s reputation by not only being seen alone with her like that, but to touch her!
Leon relaxed his grip on the glass, easing his fingers open one by one to stop from shattering the thing.
Despite her tears and pleas, it was Leon she responded to in her moment of panic. Elena scaled his body of her own will, clinging to him with those delicious whimpers as she sought his protection. Proof enough Ivanov wasn’t a good choice for her.
He shouldn’t have made such a public display though.
Losing his shit and challenging another Alpha with a territory had been less than smart.
He’d lost his temper, already angry about Marjory, the viciousness of the friends slithering around her.
They’d demanded Elena’s head for her daring, plying him with calculated tears and pretty whines about Marjory’s name being tarnished.
Stupid bitch.
He’d ended it right there on the sidewalk. Cruel of him, but he had no time to waste on her kind. The thought of a woman capable of such hatred and cruelty birthing his children was too much, no matter how his mother railed at him over it.
Which somehow led back to Elena. She’d lost her temper, too, and it’d been a sight to behold.
The vividness of her hazel eyes, the green so much more pronounced with her anger, had been breathtaking.
Maybe it was just the shock of an Omega standing up to anyone, but she’d been incredible in that moment.
Elena told Anthony their family had ruined her, and perhaps she was right.
Leon hadn’t thought about what all this would mean to her.
She was a blooded name, an Omega from a long line of important Alphas.
A rare enough creature that he’d banked on society tucking her back into their fold once the dust settled.
Leon had half expected Valente to appear on the doorstep of the Marchetti family home to demand recompense, and he’d have gladly paid it out of his own pocket.
He knew he’d hurt her, saw it in the dimming of those same hazel eyes.
Making it right would have been the only option, and money made everything better in this world.
Things hadn’t panned out that way. He didn’t take into account she’d been promised to two Alphas and that both had gone so badly.
One dead before she’d even properly presented, the other lost during the fight with him.
Costanzo was dead now, too. Without an Alpha to manage her and her estate, she had nothing.
He could still make things right, though. After a fashion.
Leon pulled his cellphone out and brought it awake, thumb hovering over a name he didn’t call often. Clearing his throat, he tapped the screen and brought it up to his ear.
“Yeah, I’ve got a favor to ask.”