Chapter 26
MIA
“Eat,” Leo says, lifting a fork full of pasta to my lips. I give him a flat look before grabbing the fork and swatting his hand away.
I inhale the bite and muffle a moan. Leo smiles and leans against the counter, grabbing his own fork to share my plate.
“You’re stroking my ego, Teroso,” he purrs, his eyes flashing with delight. “Now I know how to make you moan outside of the bedroom too.”
I crack a smile, deciding he’s earned it for once.
Rolling up the sleeves of his dress shirt I’m currently swimming in, I continue to devour the savory dish.
“What does Tereso mean?” I ask, attempting to roll my r’s, but failing miserably. But he doesn’t seem to care as he wipes Vodka sauce from the corner of my mouth.
“It’s a term of endearment, so in English it can mean a number of things like sweetheart, darling, and baby. But I prefer the literal translation.”
“Which is?”
“Treasure,” he says, grinning from ear to ear. My heart clenches.
I clear my throat and refocus on the plate in front of me. “You know using Google Translate to impress women isn’t classy.”
He laughs, setting his fork down and grabbing my waist. Leo lifts my body effortlessly onto the counter, and my eyes drink in the way his muscles flex. He looks good in a suit, but I think I prefer him shirtless.
“My Nonno taught me,” he says, keeping his hands tucked underneath my exposed thighs. “He immigrated to the States from Sicily when he was nineteen. Moved here with my Nonna and opened up a restaurant together.”
“Your biological grandparents?” I ask, biting the inside of my cheek.
He stiffens slightly but quickly relaxes back into me like we’ve done this a thousand times.
“Yes. My Nonna passed away before I was born, but my Nonno used to watch me after my parents took over the restaurant. He passed away when I was eight, but before that he taught me Italian so I could impress girls,” he says with a playful smirk.
“He also taught me food is the only real way to show that you care,” he smiles, reaching around me to grab another fork full of pasta and pushing it toward my mouth. I curse inwardly as I open my lips and accept the bite.
I lick my lips and lean back, using my hands to prop up my body as Leo sets the fork back down and continues.
“But the most important thing he taught me was that trust matters more than anything. It’s not something you’re guaranteed.
It’s something you earn. And you have to keep earning it every day. ”
I exhale softly, gripping the edge of the counter. “And do you think you’ve earned it?” I ask, watching the way his smile slowly slips into a straight line.
“Not yet,” Leo answers quickly, lifting my chin and leaning in close enough to feather kisses along my jawline. “But I promise you I will.”
Pressure builds behind my temples as I lean forward and place my palms flat against his bare chest. He pulls back, scrunching his brows, but still looking incredibly handsome.
Deciding to test his promise, I ask, “Why did your family get weird the other night when I told them I’m a detective?”
His facial expression softens and he pushes himself between my legs. “You never turn down an opportunity,” he sighs.
His hand snakes around me, reappearing seconds later with the glass of wine he poured earlier. He takes a sip and then presses the glass to my lips, prompting me to do the same.
Again—against my better judgment, I let him tip the glass against my lips and swallow the dry liquid. There’s something incredibly erotic about how domestic he’s being right now, and I’m not sure whether to run or lean into it.
“After my parents died, I didn’t have anyone,” Leo explains, a distant sadness lining his pupils.
“I was only nine at the time, but I knew I didn’t want to be put in the system, so I thought my only option was the streets.
I couch surfed most nights and still tried to go to school, but eventually I fell in with a bad crowd and figured out quickly that if I wanted to make it on my own, I needed money. ”
Without thinking, my hands find their way to his arms, gently stroking as he tells me his story.
“I stole, begged, pawned anything I could get my hands on, but at some point it all caught up with me. One night I got wrapped up in a gas station robbery and when the attendant pulled a knife on us, my fight or flight kicked in and when I fought back—” Leo’s lips close and his fingers dig into my sides as he fights whatever imaginary demons are crawling inside his skull. “I killed him.”
I blink slowly, my hand stilling for a minute before wrapping around his arm. “And then what happened?”
He looks at me; his gaze laced with anguish and a version that I’ve never experienced before. He almost looks young. Innocent.
“Everyone else bailed, and I was arrested. They threw me in jail without bail—as if anyone was coming to save me. I was pushed around from lawyer to lawyer while they tried to decide what to do with me. The detective on the case was pushing to have me charged as an adult.”
Even though I know his story has a happy ending, my stomach drops. I find myself inching closer to him, our bodies clinging to each other for comfort.
“That’s when I met Frank. He was working at the DA’s office and was able to get the charges dropped. He convinced the jury it was self-defense and somehow he got me out of juvie. I still don’t know how, but he did it. And then before I knew it, he was taking me home with him.”
Leo’s voice trails off, the memory taking over.
“He didn’t have to help me,” Leo adds, his thumb sliding up and down my hip where my shirt is bunched up. “He could’ve let me rot in jail. Let the system do its thing. But he saw something in me—he gave me the life I have now.”
My throat tightens as I tuck my head into his chest. “I’m sorry that happened to you. You were just a kid.”
“After that, Frank was asked to resign from the district attorney’s office. I guess he burned too many bridges trying to help me,” he says, letting go of a quiet breath. “He traded his career for a kid he didn’t even know.”
My fingers curl into the waistband of his sweatpants, pulling him closer.
“I think that says a lot about the kind of man he is,” I say, pulling my head back just enough to lock eyes, “and the kind of man he thought you could be.”
Leo swallows, the thick swell of his throat bobbing up and down. “You say that like you think I’m a good man, Tereso. I think we both know you don’t believe that.”
He’s right. I don’t think he’s a good man. He did try to blackmail me. But then he shows me a different side. A much more complex and complicated side that I find it impossible to hate.
Just like my father and brothers, Leo has done bad things, but maybe that doesn’t make him a bad man. Maybe that makes him an incredibly flawed man who had to learn how to survive before he even contemplated a moral compass.
“I think I’m allowed to change my mind,” I sigh, pushing out the hot air trapped inside my lungs. “It doesn’t make you a better person in my eyes, but now I feel like I understand you better.”
Those green eyes scan my face closely like he’s trying to memorize every tiny micro-expression that wrinkles across my forehead. His hands continue to hold steady at my sides, but they don’t tighten. They ghost against my side, not forcing me to stay, but asking me to choose.
“That’s more than I had at the beginning of the day,” he says.
That sentence makes me swoon with a heaping side of sheer panic. I reach for a way back into the conversation. “Why take down Enzo now? It seems like your story had a happy ending and yet you’ve been planning your revenge all these years.”
Leo’s jaw snaps into place at the mention of Enzo’s name. His lips go from soft and sweet to flat and rigid.
“I was planning on being a lawyer. I was going to follow in Frank’s footsteps and I guess Gio’s too. I passed the bar and everything. Even practiced for a while under the firm Frank started when he left the DA’s office.”
“I was perfectly content with my life,” he says, his hands pulling away from my body and curling into fists pressed against the granite island. “And then I went back to where my old family restaurant was to pay my respects. That’s when I saw it.”
He pauses, his teeth clenched tightly together. “Enzo bought the property and built his headquarters on the ashes of my parents. The ashes that he created because they refused to sell to him.”
“That bastard probably doesn’t even remember their names. Doesn’t think about the child he left with nothing.”
He pauses again; this time his eyes are burning with the fire that he dulls for everyone but me. “And I cannot wait until the day that he finds out exactly who I am.”
A chill slides down my spine.
“The Velvet Room,” I whisper, feeling my own anger rise up to meet his.
Leo nods, grabbing the wine glass and taking another drink before setting the glass down so harshly that I have to check it didn’t shatter.
“You’ve been waiting a long time for this,” I say, not questioning, just observing.
His head tilts up until his face is level with mine. The overhead lighting shines across his face, highlighting the sharp curve of his jaw.
Every inch of him is beautiful and sinister all in one. And I hate that I understand him.
“Every decision I’ve made in the last few years has been for his downfall, and I will never apologize for any of it,” he says, but then his face drops. “Well, except—”
“Don’t,” I say, reaching out and cupping his jaw. Vince’s face flashes through my mind like it does almost every second of every day. “I understand.”
It feels odd to say out loud.
Maybe even wrong.
But something seems to click as my thumb gently strokes the stubble growing along his chin.
“I don’t blame you for what happened to Vince,” I sigh, picturing myself waving a bright white flag as the words come out. “He wanted out and he thought helping you was the way to do that. My brother was a lot of things, but he wasn’t dumb and he knew what he was getting himself into.”
I blink slowly, trying to replace the image of his corpse with happier memories, but the truth is the last time I saw him wasn’t a happy time in our lives.
“He was never afraid to endure the bad to get to the good part. I just wish he had the opportunity to experience the good,” I say, my voice faltering at the end.
Leo grabs my hand and moves it to his heart. I can feel the organ beating fast and uneven, fighting against its cage to meet the soft side of my palm.
“Your brother didn’t deserve what happened to him,” he says breathlessly. “And I—”
“Neither did your parents,” I say, not letting him sink in his regret.
The seam of his lips slips for a second before perking up into a telltale smirk. “I can’t say I love the interrupting thing.”
I muster up a smile of my own, desperate to crawl out of our shared moment of despair. “Well, get used to it. Someone has to stop you from monologuing all the time.”
He shakes his head, his chest vibrating with quiet laughter. I melt into the feeling.
When the laughter fades, his warmth doesn’t. Leo grabs the back of my thighs and slides me closer until my hips are flush against his.
“Does that mean you’re sticking around for a while?”
I mash my lips together, too worried about what promises might come out with his hot breath mixing with mine.
“I’m yours until this is over,” I say, eyes catching on the way his hand seems to flinch at my sides. But every other surface of his perfect face is unbothered.
“Keep telling yourself that, Emilia,” he says, his eyes dipping to my lips before bouncing back, dripping with hunger. “I think you’re in a lot deeper than you want to admit.”
My breath catches.
But before I can answer, his lips smash against mine, and I forget what I was about to say.