4. Leona
LEONA
Igot lost twice heading for the guest room where we’d kept Max.
I took a wrong turn on the main floor and went to the sparse library at the back of the house, overlooking the backyard.
Obi had already started moving things around; I could see his presence through the laptop on the antique desk and the backpack sitting in the desk chair.
But the last I’d seen him, he was heading to catch a few hours of sleep.
Next, I went upstairs and unknowingly walked past Max’s room. Somehow, I got turned around, and I absentmindedly walked down the stairs again before I realized what I was doing. I blamed it on sleep deprivation.
This house was absolutely huge and gorgeous with flashes of natural light now that the sun was breaking over the horizon, but I had a feeling that it would be quite a while before I got used to it.
The previous owners left furniture haphazardly around—large sofas, statement coffee tables, lounge chairs, bed frames, tables.
There was even a table in the dining room that rivaled Max’s mother’s wood table, without Ryuji’s recent additions.
Everything seemed in good shape. Maybe a little outdated, but it was more than we expected.
Apparently, Obi had purchased the house and all the contents after the previous owners died and left everything behind with no one to inherit it.
Even though we weren’t officially owners, which I was still a little salty about, it was genuinely the best-case scenario.
He told me we could redecorate, but for now, we needed to rest without the threat of imminent death. We lucked out with the beds.
When I finally found Cas, he was sitting in a loft area upstairs which overlooked the dining room below.
This space was large enough to use as some kind of sitting room or game room.
Right now, there was only a plush couch and a lounge chair pushed against the wall.
Cas sat in the chair, looking out the floor-to-ceiling windows of the dining room, holding a cup of what I hoped was water but was probably something else.
“Hey.”
His head popped up, and he gave me a small smile, which made his blue eyes crinkle. “Hey, love.” The words were heavy and thick with exhaustion. Dark circles sat in bags under his eyes and invisible weight curled his shoulders inward.
Guilt sliced through my chest like a blade. One day, when all of this was over, I would give him that tropical island we joked about once. A safe place for us to grow old together, where he could relax after a lifetime of pain and conflict. He deserved it.
“How are you?” I leaned against the chair and looked out the window with him. Ciel hated these windows already. Too hard to keep secure from snipers, he had grumbled earlier.
“Fine.” He yawned. Cas had been with Max all night while the rest of us sat up shop.
Obi, Ryuji, Ciel, and Wynn had just finished installing new cameras and setting up a few perimeter alarms. Ciel had brought spares into his go-bag before we left.
He complained they weren’t as secure as he’d like, but it was the best we had right now.
I’d fallen asleep for a few hours on a couch in front of the unlit fireplace in the living room.
I’d practically begged to keep helping until Wynn had plonked me there and sternly told me to sleep.
The rest of them had been up all night, but after I’d woken up, I’d ushered them off for some food and sleep.
We’d meet back in the living room for a family meeting in a couple of hours.
“How is he?” I glanced toward the hallway. Max’s room was the furthest away from all the others.
“Sleeping,” Cas answered while he dragged his hand down his face. “Bandaged and stitched up. He’s been out for a while. As long as nothing gets infected, he should be fine, but he’ll be in pain for a while.”
I slipped into Cas’s lap, and his arm wrapped around my waist. My palm found his cheek, and I turned his face to look at me. “You need to sleep.”
His nose nudged mine. “I’m fine. Did you rest?”
“A few hours.”
Obi and I were supposed to go to the meeting with the FBI later today, which was the worst fucking timing ever, but Obi had called Samuel Achebe, our lawyer, to postpone it after the mess at the penthouse.
Samuel didn’t think the FBI would be happy, but fuck them.
It wasn’t safe to be on the streets right now, and we needed a game plan to deal with the much bigger threat bearing down on us.
Cas kissed me softly before inhaling deeply and resting his forehead against mine. “I can’t believe Obi bought this fucking house.”
I smiled against his lips. “You honestly can’t?”
“No, you’re totally right. He would buy this house and then four more just like it. Just so you’d have options.”
“Worked out for us.”
He sighed. “I guess so.”
I missed the penthouse and everything that home had done for me. It was my refuge when I’d lost everything. It was where I’d fallen in love with my men. It was a witness to my tears, my pain, and my growth. It saw me become a queen.
A deep sadness took root in my chest…but we didn’t have time to dwell.
“I want a house in the Hamptons next. And then I want my own private island.”
He laughed while his palms squeezed me. “Tell Obi, not me.”
“Mission accepted,” I said while I kissed him again. My hand brushed over his stubble. I had come here to check on Max, and now that I knew he was sleeping, I should start thinking of a plan or some way to deal with the Camorra.
Part of me thought we could bargain with them, get them to leave, but clearly that didn’t work too well for Max. If they really wanted New York, as we thought, then war was inevitable.
War between mafias hadn’t been seen on the streets since the eighties and before.
The last generation of the Five Families did everything they could to avoid law enforcement.
With the Camorra and the FBI breathing down our necks…
this felt so much bigger than the conflict we had with Max—and skirmishing with him still took a toll on our income and our men.
We needed a plan for how to fight back and resist their takeover—or at least a next step.
But Max was just down the hall.
All I could think about was peeking my head in the door to make sure he was alive.
Cas’s eyes crinkled as he smiled crookedly. “You want to go in there, don’t you?”
I cringed. “A little?”
“You should.” His head tilted to the side cryptically, eyes flitting around my face before he swallowed. “I think it would be good for you.”
“Really?”
For a second, he looked like he wanted to say something, but he changed his mind and nodded instead. “Just go see him, and then you won’t have to worry about it.”
I inhaled and exhaled deeply. “I’ll just be a minute.”
He helped me stand, his hand circling my waist and pulling me tightly against his chest. His heart thumped a steady beat against my cheek. “Take your time. I have a feeling you’ll have things to talk about.”
I looked up. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing.” He let go and held up his hands in defense, but I didn’t buy the coy act for a minute.
Something was up. Was Max worse than I thought?
My stomach rolled until Cas cupped my cheeks.
“Everything is fine, princess. I’m going to check in with the rest of the guys.
Maybe shower if the water works. Did you make the list of food we need?
I’ll ask Giulio to bring it discreetly. We can’t go back to the penthouse, so we live here now. Might as well make it home.”
“Yeah, I’ll text it to you.”
He was right, though. Max and I had things to talk about, especially if he was going to be hiding out with us. He hadn’t told us all the details of how the Camorra had attacked him, but I doubted they’d leave him alone. He needed us; that much was clear.
“Come downstairs when you’re done,” Cas said as he pressed a soft kiss to my cheek. “I love you.”
“Sempre e per sempre.”
We parted ways on the stairs. After a deep, steeling breath, I quietly slipped through the door to his room.
Max slept on the bed, lying on his stomach with his head on the pillow and his hands stuffed somewhere underneath it.
The giant comforter—a little outdated in style but still clean-looking—tangled around his legs.
Another item on the to-do list? New bedding.
I glanced at the chair Cas must have been sitting in on the far side of the bed, and I took a step forward to sit in it for a while, but my eyes caught on Max’s back.
I sucked in a breath as my eyes went wide.
His entire back was exposed. Shirtless. A wide expanse of muscle stretched between his shoulder blades, with bandages wrapped across his middle to cover up the wound on his side.
But that wasn’t what caught my attention and set my heart racing. It wasn’t what had my hands fisting into the covers at the foot of the bed.
His back was completely covered with a tattoo.
A full-maned lion, framed by red roses, yet partially obscured by bandages.
Leona. My name meant lioness in Italian.
This was a lion. A lion.
It couldn’t mean what I thought it meant. It couldn’t be my namesake on his back.
“What…” I mumbled as I stumbled around the bed and collapsed into the chair.
Roses that looked exactly like the ones our mothers grew together, and that he gave me every single year on my birthday. The lion’s face seemed sad and in pain, yet it held its chin upward in determination.
My chest was cavernous. How long had Max had it? Did Cas know?
Was that why he said I should sit with Max?
I stared at all the details of that tattoo while Max slept soundly for a full thirty minutes.
Finally, he stirred on the bed. His head popped up with a groan, his sandy blond hair askew in all directions.
He looked around the room while he groggily pushed himself to a seated position, grimacing and cursing in pain.
“Lay down,” I murmured. From my position in the chair on the far side of the bed, he hadn’t yet seen me. “Stop moving so much.”