Chapter 36 Leo
LEO
The storage yard Alfonzo led us to reeks of oil and rot. It’s buried on the edge of the industrial district, surrounded by empty buildings and silence.
It’s the kind of place people come to disappear. And somewhere behind these steel walls, the Bratva think they’ve won. They think they’ve captured a prize that will bring me to my knees.
But they’ve only brought a fury down on their heads that they aren’t going to survive.
I nod once to Miko as he lifts his gun, ready to storm their hideout. Sandro and Gio cover us while Raf stands behind me like a storm, eyes burning with the same vengeance that’s been chewing me from the inside out since I learned my wife was taken.
I thought I hated Sora. I thought she’d sold us out. But I was wrong. And now that I know they took her, I’ll destroy every last one of them.
I give the signal, and my brothers and I move forward on silent feet, ready to leap into action as soon as we find her.
My heart pounds against my ribs as I move in, relying on instinct now, eyes scanning, breaths ragged as we reach the door to the warehouse where Alfonzo said they took Sora less than an hour ago.
I’m beyond grateful for my butler and Marco’s quick thinking. Without them, I wouldn’t have had a prayer of getting here in time. But I can only hope I’m not too late.
Even if Marco found us quickly and we knew right where to go, Sora’s been in enemy hands for well over an hour—and a lot can happen in that time. The thought makes my stomach turn.
I want nothing more than to barge in, guns blazing, to free her, but I need to be careful, take my time, or Sora might get caught in the crossfire. I don’t even know where and how they’re keeping her.
Then I hear her frightened voice.
“My family will come for you,” she says quickly, stopping me in my tracks. “They won’t let you get away with killing me. I’m too valuable.”
Miko and I exchange a look, and we creep closer to the door as I signal for my brothers to get into position for a quick and quiet entrance.
“Valuable?” Someone gives a harsh laugh from inside the warehouse. “You’re nothing more than Leonardo Chiaroscuro’s little fuck toy now. You might have been valuable before he touched you, but no one’s going to want his sloppy seconds.”
My blood boils at his words, a possessive rage swelling inside me at the thought of any man touching Sora.
“Besides,” someone adds, “who’s to say they’ll ever find out we were the ones responsible for your disappearance? Anything could have happened to you, walking around a battlefield like that.”
I raise my hand, ready to make our move, but Sora’s plea freezes me in place.
“Please,” she cries, barely loud enough for me to hear. “I’m pregnant.”
Someone laughs as my mind reels, the oxygen vanishing from my lungs.
My ears ring, drowning out the words that follow as my pulse roars inside my head. Sora’s pregnant?
Behind me, Gio grips my shoulder, shaking me roughly from my stunned vortex of disbelief.
The conversation taking place inside the warehouse comes flooding back to my ears with sharp clarity all at once.
“You think that makes you less of a target, you little Mafia whore? You’re carrying the next generation of Chiaroscuro filth. That means you die twice.”
The panic infusing Sora’s next words douses me like a bucket of ice water.
“Leo doesn’t even know!” she cries. “I didn’t tell him.”
Someone chuckles. “Don’t worry, love. We’ll be sure to pin a note to your chest. Who knows? Maybe he’ll cry when he finds out. But in the end, he’ll die like the rest. And your baby will never draw breath.”
Sora hisses something too quiet for me to catch, and the distinct sound of flesh violently meeting flesh makes my vision go red. I’ll rip them apart, limb from limb, if one of them dared to lay a hand on my wife.
“Where should we start?” I hear, but I’m already in motion, surging forward with blind hatred, my strategy of stealth demolished as my rage drives me forward with reckless bloodlust.
Miko swings the door wide and we surge into the room as one as a thin man looms over Sora, blade in hand. “I say we see what’s underneath the little slut’s dress since no one will shut up about it.”
A Russian with a scarred face chuckles. “I like the way you think, Gleb,” he says, seemingly oblivious to our presence, but they’re all going to find out real fast now.
Sora whimpers, pressing her eyes closed and turning her head as I catch the sound of tearing fabric, and the world narrows.
All the blood in my body rushes to my ears, and I charge toward the sound, raising my gun as I look for an open shot that won’t endanger my wife.
The room explodes into motion—the four Russians are too stunned to react at first as my brothers and I converge on them without hesitation.
The thin man turns, stepping to the side enough that I get a full view of Sora for the first time.
She’s strapped to a chair, her dress sliced open, her left cheek blooming with a fresh bruise and blood on her lip.
The thin man has a knife, and my stomach plummets as my instinct to protect Sora screams for me to take him out before he can put it to use.
Sora’s eyes fly open, widening as our gazes lock. “Leo—”
That’s all I hear before I raise my gun and shoot the man with the knife in the head. He drops instantly.
The others scream as chaos erupts.
The stocky one reaches for a pistol, but Raf steps in, shooting him center-mass.
Miko drops the black-bearded one with a knife to his throat in one brutal thrust. Sandro tackles the fourth, pummeling him into the cement as he pulverizes the man’s face within seconds.
The fight is over just as quickly as it began. Then there’s only the ringing silence and the sound of Sora’s ragged sobs.
I drop to my knees in front of her, my heart shattering as I take in her face, bruised, bloody, but alive. “Sora,” I breathe, reaching for her restraints.
“You came,” she sobs. “You actually came…”
Her whole body trembles. I can barely see through the red clouding my vision.
She’s shaking so hard, I’m afraid she’s going to pass out, but she keeps trying to speak, her lips moving even as she cries.
“I tried to warn you,” she whispers. “Leo, I swear—I didn’t know what they were planning. I didn’t… I never would have let them—”
I silence her with a hand to her face, cupping her jaw, careful not to touch the bruise. “I know,” I whisper. “I know now.”
Her eyes fill again, spilling over with disbelief. “How?” she chokes out.
“My brothers talked some sense into me.” I glance over my shoulder at them as all four come to a stand to scan the warehouse, looking for any remaining threats. “I was too angry to see it, too scared to face the truth. I was such an idiot. I’m so sorry, Sora.”
She sobs harder, seeming overcome by the entire situation, and I’m desperate to hold her, but first, I need to free her.
Picking up the Russian’s blade, I cut through the zip ties on her wrists and ankles, then pull her gently into my arms.
She clings to me like I’m the only thing tethering her to reality.
Maybe I am. I don’t care. I bury my face in her hair and just breathe in her calming scent.
“God, I’m sorry, Princess. I’m so, so sorry. Can you forgive me?”
She nods against my chest, her fingers fisting in my shirt as she clings to me and cries, and even if she didn’t say the words, the relief her answer brings me is so intense, it nearly knocks me on my ass.
But as the shock and chaos in my mind slowly start to settle, something nagging at the back of my mind rises to the surface.
“Sora?” I ask softly, pulling back slightly. “Earlier, when you were pleading with these pigs. You said… Are you…?” I can’t bring myself to say the word. Because if she is pregnant, that would mean she knew before now and didn’t tell me.
“Pregnant?” she breathes, looking anxiously up at me through her thick, dark lashes.
Then she nods, ever so slightly. “I’ve known for a while.
I was going to tell you—really, I was. But then I heard you…
talking to your father. And I thought…” She pulls back just enough to look me squarely in the face, her eyes wide with remembered pain. “I thought you didn’t love me.”
“What?” I ask, frowning in confusion and disbelief. How she could possibly think that is beyond me, and after last night, I don’t see how there could be any doubt in her mind.
I’ve spent hours thinking she’s the one who didn’t love me. And if she overheard me talking to my father, she must know everything I gave up for her—for us.
“You said I wasn’t useful. That I was just another tool in the game, and you didn’t have feelings for me.
I couldn’t—” Her voice cracks. “I couldn’t stay, Leo.
Not if it meant raising our child in a place where I was just leverage.
So I went to my family to figure things out.
But when I got there, it all went to hell.
They… they said our marriage was a ploy from the start.
That I wasn’t supposed to get pregnant and that I should get an abortion and remarry after you were gone… ”
My heart clenches as Sora sobs, and I pull her closer, horrified by what her family told her—and by what she thought she overheard. I remember my conversation with the don vividly.
I can recall perfectly the words I said, but taken out of context, I can see why she would have interpreted them the way she did.
At the time, I was being sarcastic, pointing out how unrealistic my father’s expectations were, but to Sora, they sounded like a truth I’d kept from her.
And how could she think otherwise when I spent the first half of our relationship treating her exactly like the tool I said she was?
“I was…” I swallow a painful lump in my throat as I search for the words to explain myself.
“I didn’t mean a word of it, Sora. I was trying to point out how ridiculous my father’s expectations were.
I told him I didn’t care about the empire,” I insist. “That I was done playing by his rules. I gave it all up. My inheritance, my role as don. I didn’t want any of it if it meant I couldn’t have you, so when he forced my hand, I walked away from it all. ”
Her breath catches. “You did?”
I nod. “I was trying to protect you, Sora. I didn’t mean for it to sound like… like you didn’t matter. You’re everything that matters to me.”
Tears stream down her cheeks again. I’ve never seen her cry like this—never seen her so emotional and undone. Even after she nearly drowned. But there’s a raw honesty between us now, a truth too painful to avoid.
“I thought I’d lost you,” I whisper.
“You almost did,” she says, her voice shaking. “And if you hadn’t come when you did… our baby—”
I press my forehead to hers.
“I’ll never let my doubts put you in danger again,” I vow. “You or our child. No matter what. I swear it.”
She lets out a shaky breath, her fingers curling in the torn collar of my coat. “What happens now?”
“I’m done with this life,” I say quietly. “If you’ll come with me—if you want—we’ll go. We can leave all of it behind—the Mafia, the blood, the legacy. I don’t want any of it. I just want you. And I want our child to grow up free of all the violence.”
Her eyes widen. “You’d walk away?”
“For you?” I murmur. “For our baby? I would do anything.”