28. Max
MAX
How could she do that?
Why would she?
They’d given her the perfect out. A way to protect her family. Give me up and save herself. It would have gotten the RICO case and me off her back in one swoop.
But she didn’t. She made a choice, and it looked like she had chosen me over herself.
“Leona,” I rasped. “That was so stupid.”
Behind her, Ryuji grunted an agreement, but I tuned him out.
I tuned all of them out. It was only us—her in Wynn’s shirt that barely covered her thighs with a bandage wrapped around her upper arm, and me still wearing the black combat gear I’d borrowed from Cas.
She’d never looked more perfect, and I’d never felt more like a fraud.
Her face contorted into a scoff. “Hah! You’re one to fucking talk. Idiot.”
She tried to turn away, but I snatched her arm and whirled her back to me. “You protected me.”
“I did.” Her chin upturned like she were daring me to fight her.
My mind whirled. She didn’t give me up. She could have handed me over. She could have turned me away, just like I’d rejected her for years and years.
Even though I was protecting her in my own way, I never did for her what she did for me.
I thought I had been putting her before myself, trying to get her out of this life and finally free from the mafia, but I knew the truth.
I had chosen my desire for revenge over her.
It was tearing me apart from the inside out.
The guilt. The shame. She was better than me and she always had been. I didn’t deserve her.
I didn’t deserve this.
“Leona.” My voice broke. “You should have given me over. You should have turned me in. It would have fixed everything.”
She shook her head. “No, it wouldn’t.”
“It would have,” I choked out. I needed her to understand. “The FBI would have backed off. You could move more freely against the Camorra. Everything your father did would have been put to rest with it.”
“Max, listen to me.” She grabbed my hand. “I didn’t want to turn you in. Okay? I didn’t want to. It would have been shitty and unfair, and I would have hated myself for it.”
She made her choice. It was time to make mine.
“Fine,” I breathed. I pulled the pistol from the back of my waistband and pressed it into her hands. “End me, Leona. Please.”
“What—”
I gripped both her hands and trained the gun on my heart. This entire night was my fault. The casino, the Camorra, the arrest, the RICO case—it all traced back to me. If I had done things differently, we wouldn’t be in this position. She wouldn’t be.
Tears pooled in my eyes. “It would be a pleasure to die at your hand. It’s what I deserve. Just kill me and all of this can be over.”
“Max—”
“Do it,” I pleaded. This was the only thing that felt right. The only way to bury the past so she could move forward without me.
She tried to pull away, pull the gun from my chest. “I can’t.”
I yanked it closer. My grip was unyielding.
“All I’ve ever done is hurt you,” I whispered. A tear tracked down my face. “Please. Just finish this.”
I got down on my knees, but I kept my grip on the gun. On her.
“Please,” I begged. “This is the only way I can atone.”
This felt right. This was supposed to be my end. I was never supposed to make it past revenge for my father. I was never supposed to live past fixing what Luciano had done.
But she had already done it. The only problems left were my fault, not Luciano’s.
There was no point in continuing, especially if I was only going to cause her pain.
If I died, the FBI would be back at square one again.
It would give her—give them all—more time.
More time to fight the RICO case. More time to defeat the Camorra without having to worry about protecting me.
I stared up at her, watching her face as she considered it. Her golden brown eyes flamed orange from the crackling fire. Her face stared at me with confusion and hurt.
Couldn’t she see?
Couldn’t they all see that my death would fix so many things?
I’d die a happy man if she were the one to end me.
“I won’t kill you.” Gently, she pulled her hand free from mine. She took the ammo magazine out of the pistol and dropped it to the ground. Slowly, she dismantled it piece by piece. The parts clattered to the ground at my knees.
“Why?” I looked up at her, so beautiful and shining that it hurt. Everything hurt.
“Death is the easy way out.” She cupped my cheek and bent forward. I angled toward her even more. “If you really want atonement, earn it on your knees.”
My throat worked as I swallowed. The air crackled between us. On my knees?
Was she saying what I think she was?
Slowly, my arms wrapped around her waist, and my face pressed against her belly. I breathed in, slow and deep. Letting myself feel her. Letting myself consider—even for just a moment—that the reason she didn’t want to turn me in or kill me was because she still cared about me.
It was a long shot, but I had nothing left except that hope. That belief that one day I could atone, if I just took this chance.
She stood perfectly still, not pushing me away, but also not encouraging me. Not touching me back. Her earlier words came back to me.
I’ve spent my entire life trying to get you to love me, Max. I’m not doing it anymore.
Suddenly, it all clicked.
Me. It was me. I needed to show her how I felt. She wouldn’t chase me, but she never said I couldn’t chase her.
My hands traveled up her sides, and her breath caught in her lungs. She froze as I began my slow exploration. Her ribs. Her arms. Her belly. All of it over her shirt. Just touching, just watching her from my place at her feet. Her cheeks darkened, and finally she sucked in an unsteady breath.
Nothing else existed except this.
“If you won’t take my life, I give it to you,” I murmured. “And I will spend the rest of my days atoning.”
Gently, I pulled the hem of her shirt up, over the curve of her ass. She didn’t tell me to stop, so I pressed a kiss to the bare strip of her stomach. Shivers erupted across her skin.
“Is that what you want?”
I closed my eyes and leaned my forehead against her belly. “This is all I’ve ever wanted.”
“Tell me the truth.”
My eyes locked on hers. “Leona Theresa Vero, you are the one thing I’ve told myself I can never have, and the only thing I’ve ever wanted. I was always meant to be here, on my knees, in front of you. It has always been you.”
Her lips pressed together and her chin wobbled just as another tear slipped out of the corner of my eye.
I’d spent years running from a future I thought I could never have. Here it was, right in front of me, and I swore to myself I would not let it slip through my fingers.
Not again.
Dimly, I was aware of the rest of the guys still present in this living room.
Watching. Waiting to see what I would do.
As much as I wished this was private, it was good that it wasn’t.
They needed to see. This thing between Leona and me included them.
If that was the deal, I’d take it in a heartbeat.
All my walls had crumbled, and she stood at the top of their ruin.
My choice was made.
“I love you. I have always loved you, even when I couldn’t admit it,” I said.
“I’m so sorry. For everything. For all of my failures and secrets.
For hurting you. For choosing my darkness over you and Cas.
I wish I’d never done it. I wish that night—when I was fifteen and I found out your father killed mine—I had told you both the truth. ”
Only then did I let the rest of them come back into my vision. With my arms still wrapped around her, I finally let them in. “I’m sorry. I don’t have any excuses. I know I fucked up. If she’ll have me, if you’ll have me, I’m here.”
She laughed, eyes full of tears and a smile so wide it could light the night sky. She leaned down at the same time I surged forward, and I kissed her with all that I had. Everything I’d held back for years and years.
All of me ached. My cock spurred to life in my pants, practically demanding to feel her, but I didn’t want to rush it. I didn’t want to fuck it up already. Yet when I broke the kiss, I could see in her eyes the message she’d been telling me all along. The one I’d only just realized.
I had to chase her.
So my fingers went to the tops of her thighs.
I found her thong and peeled it down, inch by agonizing inch.
I kissed a line from her navel, down, down, down.
I didn’t stop my kisses until I finally pulled it all the way to her ankles and helped her step out of it.
Her hands flew to my hair when my breath gusted over her skin.
I breathed her in, filling my lungs with her.
Her scent. The natural musk of her fused with the scent I’d known for almost my entire life.
The one I’d savored when she’d cuddled up next to me on the Albanian ship.
The one I’d dream about on the loneliest nights, when I’d tell myself her smell was the only thing I could have of her.
“Leona, Leona,” I murmured, pressing a kiss right at the mound of her pubic bone. It was heaven. It was enough to make me feel like I was having a heart attack. “Maybe you did kill me. Maybe I am dreaming.”
My kisses pressed against her core. Her hands tightened in my hair when I let my tongue flick at her clit.
“We’re both very much alive,” she squeaked. “But I will kill you if you don’t keep going.”
I smiled against her skin, the first real smile I’d felt on my face in weeks.
Months. Years? I couldn’t think straight while I gently kissed my way across her skin.
She was a delectable dessert, one I’d starved myself from for far too long, and now it was like I finally had permission to taste. To feel.
A shift on the couch beside us brought the world rushing back in.
They were all watching this. Through lidded eyes, I could see their gazes locked on us. At first, I felt like they were invading our privacy. Intruding on a moment that only I needed.
But then I remembered Cas’s words from earlier. They were family. They faced it all together.