30. Leona
LEONA
“Iknow I said sorry out there, but I have to say it to both of you again.”
My heart thumped hard in my chest, and I was certain Cas could feel it through our clasped hands. I needed him right now. Whatever Max was about to say was going to shatter me and Cas had held me together for my entire life.
“I know it changes nothing about what I did, and I know I’ll never make up for it, but I swear I’ll try. I’ll spend my whole life, however long I have left, trying. You two, this…home, you’re all I have.”
Cas squeezed my fingers and spoke when I couldn’t. “We’ll listen.”
Max leaned against the door. He stared at his feet. A part of me ached to reach out to him, pull him to me, but I couldn’t move.
“Everything changed the night of my father’s funeral.”
And then he told us.
How that night he’d found his father’s journals and learned that my father had killed his.
Massimo had figured out that my father had fallen into debt, and my father was about to lose the legitimate side of our construction business.
Without VCI, we would have lost the gun smuggling business and a huge portion of our income—let alone the control it brought the mafia over New York City itself.
So my father had made dangerous deals. He’d compromised whatever morals he’d had to make money on the sly.
He’d started stealing other drugs and cutting our supply to extend it.
He’d sold some drugs he’d stolen to the South American cartels, drawing them into this mess.
He made a deal with the Albanians to give him a portion of their profit for access to the city, and he’d convinced all the other Heads to do the same.
Then, when things were at their worst, and the government came knocking down his door because of his debt and because of his crimes, he’d made a deal with them. He’d sold our guns to the CIA, and he’d worked with the FBI to build a case against the rest of the mafia.
That was how it was all connected. The guns, the shipping manifest I had found in his files months ago. He’d been doing all of this behind the scenes. He sold out our entire organization, our entire livelihood and legacy, and all the people who worked for us.
All of it for money. All of it because he felt trapped.
“So that’s why my father was snitching to the FBI.” The words tumbled from my lips in a whisper as all the puzzle pieces finally came together. “To get himself out of the hole he had created. To go after everyone else around him in order to hide it.”
“Yes,” Max said quietly. His hands clenched together. “My father’s journals explained how he would have tried to help Luciano. I don’t know what he would have done, but he felt so betrayed that Luciano didn’t go to him first.
“Max,” Cas said, a sad smile on his face. “Can’t you see?”
Max kicked off the wall and sat on the side of the bed next to ours. His back was half-turned, avoiding eye contact.
“I know,” he mumbled. “I did the same thing. I felt so trapped in this knowledge, and I could have asked for help, but I was too scared. I was blinded by how desperately I wanted to make him feel the pain I felt. I wanted him to suffer, and I think I knew the two of you wouldn’t want me to go down that path.
So I told myself that I couldn’t trust either of you without putting you at risk, and it was up to me to fix everything. ”
“Max—“
“There’s something else,” he gusted out. “Something even worse.”
I couldn’t even bring myself to ask. How could it get worse?
“It’s okay. You don’t have to carry it alone anymore, Max,” Cas said, gently encouraging him to continue. “We’re here.”
Max’s fingers tangled in his hair. I inched closer, and he pulled away, like he couldn’t even bear to look at me.
“The car bomb that killed both our mothers wasn’t for them.
It was an accident. Luciano meant it for my father—once he realized how close Massimo was getting to uncovering his crimes.
When he found out, my father was devastated.
He wrote in his journals that he was going to confront Luciano. That was right before he died.”
“What?” I breathed. No, no, no. That couldn’t be true. “It was another gang. I remember. He said it was a turf war. He and Massimo hunted the whole gang down until they had killed them all.”
Max’s voice was dead. Lifeless. “Luciano was just covering his tracks. They did wipe out an entire street gang, but they hadn’t done anything wrong.”
A rock sat in my throat and moisture stung the corners of my eyes. My stomach pitched and rolled so much I thought I’d be sick. I closed my eyes and held my head in my hands. “Oh, my God.”
Cas’s warm palm spread over my back. “I’m so sorry.”
I could barely breathe. Everything in my chest felt tight, but we couldn’t stop now. I needed the whole truth. I had to know. “What else happened?”
Max kept talking. Kept explaining. And my heart kept breaking.
At fifteen, Max had felt the entire weight of my father’s corruption on his shoulders. He’d wanted to kill my father, but he feared what would happen if he did. And he was afraid that if he told me or Cas, Luciano would find out that he knew—and somehow he’d hurt all of us.
So he kept it to himself and planned. For years, he’d worked against my father.
He carried the weight of our dead mothers for years so that I didn’t have to.
He had gained allies and waited to take my father out until he was strong enough to fill the power vacuum and lead the Family in his place.
He’d made plans to get me and Cas free so we could live a life of peace.
“Everything went wrong when I turned twenty-one.” He rested his forearms on his knees, but he still wouldn’t turn around and look at us. “Do you remember that night, Leona? When you followed us and got drunk at the nightclub?”
My cheeks burned with embarrassment from the memory. “Yeah, I remember.”
I’d just wanted them to pay attention to me. I was so lonely in that big empty house, all by myself, and I thought that if I snuck out, if I made him pay attention to me, maybe he’d see how alone I was. I’d wanted him to love me. But he was dealing with this, and I had no idea.
“That night, after he scolded you, your father moved against me. He said he knew what I had been doing, how I’d planned to take him out. He pulled the rug out from under me, and he caught me by surprise.”
“How?” I asked. Cas moved his hand to loop around my back to my waist.
“He threatened you and Cas.” His voice broke, and he paused. He wrung his hands so much I thought he might pull his fingers from them.
My father threatened us. Both of us? How?
“Keep going,” Cas said. “It’s time.”
Max nodded with a heavy sigh. My heartbeat thundered in my chest. “He told me that if I didn’t fall in line and help him, he could easily kill Cas and no one would know or care.”
Cas’s jaw clenched, and I reached up to brush my hand against it.
My father would have killed him, like he were nothing.
Like he wasn’t a boy he’d taken in and cared for when no one else would.
Like he wasn’t one of my best friends, and had loved me since he was a child.
My gut churned at my father’s vileness. At the depths to which he would have gone, and how I never knew the truth.
If Luciano stood here in front of me now, I would have killed him.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered to Cas.
He gave me another sad smile. “Not your fault.”
“What else?” I asked Max. He’d said my father had threatened me, too.
He dragged his hands through his hair. “Your father tried to force me to marry you.”
“What?” I gasped as my eyes went wide. My brain stuttered, trying to make sense of it. He had the chance to marry me all this time. But he didn’t. Why? The hurt I’d thought I’d moved past was suddenly jagged and raw again. “You said no.”
His eyes were rimmed in red. “It’s not what you think. I said no because it was a trap. He was going to use you against me and use me against you. I couldn’t do that to you. I wanted you free.”
My lips pressed together as I fought back the urge to cry. The weight of what he said settled over me. The years of rejection. The way he pulled away from me, from us both. It was because he wanted a different life for us.
“He was manipulating you,” I choked out. “You didn’t want to give him more control over you. And you knew that if you married me, neither of us would get free.”
He shook his head. “You deserved better than all of this. You deserved a life free of nightmares and dead mothers and lonely homes. I thought I could give that to you, even if I couldn’t give you what you wanted.”
Tears rolled down my cheeks. A sob broke from my chest. Cas’s palm gripped the back of my neck, keeping me steady, but my heart broke for Max.
His hand reached up to brush between his shoulder blades. “I got the tattoo on my back a few weeks after that. It was for you. It was supposed to be my secret memento. I never planned for you, or anyone, to see it.”
“Did you love me?” My voice cracked. “Not like a sister. The way I loved you.”
“I did.” A tear rolled down his cheek. “I do.”
My eyes squeezed shut while my chest felt like it was being torn apart.
“I’m so fucking sorry.” His hand grabbed mine.
“I can’t believe I’ve done what I’ve done.
I was just so lost, so heartbroken. I died inside.
To fight your father, I had to kill the pieces of myself that loved you.
I had to bury the warmth my mother taught me.
I would have stayed dead if you had left.
If you hadn’t fought me, if you hadn’t broken me down piece by piece, just like you said you would that day at Trattoria Luminosa during the VCI board meeting, I would have never admitted it.
You revived me, Leona. I don’t know how I can ever make it up to you. ”
My mind raced as quickly as the tears spilled down my face. Max scooted closer on the bed. He tentatively reached up to touch my cheek, but I snagged his hand and pressed his palm to my face. His touch was hot, and it made my entire body ache.
Cas was right.
This changed everything.
He’d fucked up, but I finally understood why. I could see how the scared boy he was turned into the man before me. He’d taken the brunt of all the shit my father was doing, taking the blows year after year so that Cas and I wouldn’t have to.
It had twisted him, turned him into a husk of the boy I used to know, but the man in front of me was changing. He was coming back to himself. He was finding his heart again.
And he was here.
My feelings for him burned hot inside my chest, a long-dead star flaring back to life.
It wasn’t the same love. I wasn’t the same girl. He wasn’t the same boy. Too much had happened, both to us and between us, for that love to be the same. I didn’t want it to be.
This was new. This was true.
“Say something,” he rasped. “Please. Kick me out or kill me, but please say something.”
I let go of his palm, and I reached for him. My arms wrapped around his neck, and I pulled him into a kiss. Our tears mixed on our cheeks. One of his arms braced on the bed beside me while the other wrapped around my waist and held me to him. I felt his heat from my scalp all the way to my toes.
“I understand,” I murmured against his lips. “I’m sorry.”
He shook his head. “You don’t say sorry. That’s for me.”
“My father ruined you.”
He leaned back, just enough for his titanium eyes to bore into mine. “You saved me.”
Slowly, I brought him back to me. Lips brushed lips.
Soft touches. Whispers. The kiss was so tender, it made my heart break.
His body pressed forward, deepening the kiss, pushing me back against Cas’s broad chest. Cas’s hand curled around my waist, and then I felt breath against my neck.
They kissed me together; Max at my front, Cas at my back. Assaulting my senses from all sides.