Chapter 15 IZZY
IZZY
Leone’s car rolls up less than five minutes later.
He rolls down a window and grins at me from the driver’s seat. “Somebody order an Uber?”
Any other moment, I would have laughed. Leone has a way with jokes and comedic timing—unlike my asshole of a baby daddy.
I almost don’t get in.
Almost.
But the memory of the blond man at the bar, the way he watched me like he was measuring something invisible, still crawls under my skin.
So when Leone opens the passenger door and gestures, I get in without arguing.
“Hey there,” he says cheerfully as he slides behind the wheel. “If you’re in the mood for a silent ride, I’m afraid you’re shit out of luck. But don’t worry. I got my license fair and square. Only had to bribe the guy at the DMV a little bit.”
That drags a weak smile out of me. “Thanks.”
Leone looks nothing like the silent, intimidating shadow he usually plays behind Nico. Up close, he has an easy grin and a kind of restless energy, like someone who learned early that if you laugh first, the world hits softer.
Usually that kind of personality would put me at ease.
Tonight it just makes me tired.
He starts the car and pulls away from the curb.
“So,” he says lightly, “I take it my boss was kind of a dick?”
I stare out the window. “That’s one way to put it.”
The city slides past outside—streetlights, closed storefronts, the occasional late-night couple laughing too loudly on the sidewalk. The normal world. The one I’ve been trying very hard to stay in.
For a while, Leone doesn’t say anything.
Then he sighs. “Real mad at him, huh?”
“That obvious?”
“Only to people with eyes.”
I huff quietly and lean my head against the window.
Mad doesn’t even begin to cover it.
Mad is simple. Clean.
What I feel about Nico is something messier. Something that has been sitting in my chest for seven years, refusing to go away no matter how many times I tried to convince myself that night meant nothing.
“He’s impossible,” I mutter.
Leone chuckles under his breath. “You’re not wrong.”
The car stops at a light. Red spills across the windshield like warning paint.
“But,” he adds after a moment, “he’s also not what you think.”
I glance at him. “Oh? Enlighten me.”
Leone drums his fingers on the steering wheel, like he’s deciding how much he should say.
“Boss has been carrying the weight of the world since he was ten years old.”
That catches my attention, and makes me curious. “What do you mean?”
The light turns green and he pulls forward again.
“There was a war,” he says. “Back when he was a kid. Borough War. Ugly business.”
I’ve heard whispers about it. Everyone in the city has. One of those half-legendary stories that float around in the background of New York’s darker corners.
But hearing it like this feels different. It makes it real.
“His mother died in it,” Leone continues. “He saw it happen.”
The words land heavy in the car, like something solid dropped between us.
I swallow.
“Oh.”
It feels like the smallest, most useless word in the English language.
“Yeah,” Leone says quietly. “Oh.”
For a moment neither of us speaks.
“After that,” Leone says, “he stopped letting people close. No wife. No kids. No soft spots anyone could use against him.”
The city lights smear across the windshield as we drive, and I find myself staring at them without really seeing anything. All I can picture instead is a ten-year-old boy standing somewhere he shouldn’t have been, watching something no child should ever see.
His mother dying.
And the boy growing up into the man I know now.
The man who keeps everyone at arm’s length like affection is a loaded gun.
Something twists uncomfortably in my chest.
Because suddenly the way he pulls back from people makes terrible, perfect sense.
If the last person you loved died because of the world you live in, of course you’d spend the rest of your life trying to make sure it never happens again.
You’d build walls, and of course, you’d run the second someone got close enough to hurt.
I stare out the window, feeling something soft and painful settle in my ribs.
And for the first time since this morning, I start to wonder if I’ve been wrong about Nico all along.
It’s not just that, either. It feels familiar—all of it.
Because I did the exact same thing.
When I found out who Nico really was seven years ago—what he was—I ran. Packed up my life and disappeared like a thief in the night before he could ever come looking.
I told myself it was to protect Noah.
But, if I’m honest, it was to protect my heart too.
I could have told him.
I could have knocked on the door of whatever terrifying mansion mafia kings live in and said, Hey, remember that girl from the club? Surprise.
Instead, I vanished.
And when he walked into Notte Bianca a year ago and didn’t react, I had been relieved.
Relieved he didn’t recognize me.
Except now, I know that was a lie I told myself to sleep at night.
Because Nico had recognized me.
And one look at my son had told him the rest.
The car turns onto my street. For a brief moment, something dangerously close to understanding flickers through my mind.
Maybe, he wasn’t pushing us away because he didn’t want us. Maybe, he was doing exactly what I did. Trying to protect something fragile by pretending it didn’t exist.
I open my mouth to say something—
And Leone suddenly shouts.
“Get down!”
I drop instinctively.
Gunfire explodes around the car.
The sound is deafening, sharp cracks that shatter the quiet street. Glass sprays across the dashboard as a bullet punches through the rear window.
“Oh my God—”
“Stay down!” Leone barks.
The car jerks violently as he slams the accelerator. Tires scream against the asphalt.
Another burst of gunfire rattles against the metal frame.
I curl into the seat, hands over my head, heart hammering so hard it feels like it might crack my ribs open.
“Leone—!”
“Still here,” he grunts.
Something wet splashes across the center console.
For a second, my brain doesn’t process it.
Then, I see the blood.
“You’re hit!”
“What, this?” he says through clenched teeth. “‘Tis but a flesh wound.”
I nearly punch him. “You’re quoting Monty Python at me with a bullet in your arm?!”
“Nope. Think it went clean through.”
The car swerves hard around a corner, engine roaring as he pushes it far past any legal speed limit. Behind us, the gunfire fades.
Leone grabs his phone with one hand and hits a button.
“Nico,” he says.
The call connects immediately.
“I’m here,” Nico’s voice answers, sharp and focused.
“We had company,” Leone says. “Took a few shots. I can’t reach her apartment. Too exposed.”
A pause.
“Understood,” Nico says. “Bring her to the penthouse.”
My heart lurches. “What about Noah?” I shout, leaning toward the phone. “He’s at home!”
Silence crackles through the speaker for half a second.
Then Nico’s voice comes back, low and steady.
“I’ll get him.”
“No,” I say instantly. “I’m going—”
“Izzy.”
That’s all he says. Just my name.
But there’s something in the way he says it that stops the words in my throat.
“I will get him,” he repeats. “You need to trust me.”
Trust him.
With our son.
My fingers tighten around the edge of the seat.
Every instinct in my body screams to go to Noah myself. To run through the streets if I have to, to get to him before anything else can.
But Nico is already moving.
I can hear it in the background of the call—doors opening, voices barking orders, the quiet chaos of men who know exactly what they’re doing.
He’s going.
For Noah.
For our son.
My throat feels tight.
“Please,” Nico says quietly.
And just like that, I realize something.
The man who refuses to let anyone close—the man who keeps pushing me away—is asking me for trust.
I close my eyes for a second.
Then I nod, even though he can’t see it.
“Okay,” I whisper. “Go get our son.”