Chapter Five LEO #2
He lifted his glass without a glance. I poured.
Careful. Measured. A single drop would’ve been enough to kill him late at night, in his bed.
He never would have found out what happened.
His autopsy would determine the cause of death as a heart attack - believable for a man of Salvatore’s stature and age. I used more, just for fun.
I wanted to see him die. There was a special pleasure in watching my victims exhale their last, panicked breath. And tonight, I intended to sate my blood lust.
“Leave it here,” he muttered, waving me off.
I did. Set the bottle down within his reach.
Then I stepped back. Waiting wouldn’t take long, but I’d cherish it.
The moment Caruso realized his life was over would make up for the stressful day I’d had.
Maybe then I wouldn’t take my anger out on my pretty captive…
Although just thinking of her, locked up and waiting for me, got me fucking hard.
It didn’t take long for Salvatore to register something was off.
First, the pause in speaking to his family members.
Then the slight shift in his posture, due to his muscles weakening, death slowly settling into his bones.
Salvatore raised a shaky hand to his throat. Confusion was written all over his face. Good.
He looked up then, eyes scanning the room, looking for a culprit.
The doors had already been locked. The staff cleared. The kitchen silent. It was just his unsuspecting family, him, and me.
Salvatore’s chair scraped loudly as he stood, knocking the glass over. Red wine bled across the white cloth like an ominous premonition of the blood he was about to cough up.
“What in the fucking-” His voice broke as he stumbled a step back.
“No need to shout,” I said calmly from my position by the other table. I set down a fork I’d been polishing, smiling easily at Caruso, who was already panicking.
Recognition flickered across his face. He’d seen me before, often enough to recognize my face now that he started to realize something was off.
Still, it was too late.
“Cazzo,” he choked.
I reached up, pulling the white cotton gloves tighter at the wrist. “Sit down, Salvatore.”
He didn’t. He stumbled instead, legs giving out as the poison started doing its work. Fast enough to hurt, slow enough to matter.
He hit the floor hard, in time for his family members to start screaming for help. My men quickly surrounded them, restraining his sons, forcing his wife and daughter to sit down and watch their loved one’s demise.
I crouched beside Salvatore and watched him with a peaceful smile.
“Don’t worry,” I said, my tone placating. “It won’t take too long. But it will hurt. And your family will watch.”
His fingers clawed at his throat, breath coming in short, broken gasps. Panic spread across his face, raw and ugly. I tilted my head.
“Let’s not waste time,” I said pleasantly. “We have business to attend to.”
Salvatore’s eyes locked onto mine. Wide. Desperate. Pleading for something I wasn’t willing to give - mercy. It was already too late, anyway.
“I’m going to need some names, if you want me to spare your lovely daughter and wife,” I continued. “You know why you’re here, don’t you?”
He shook his head frantically. Lie.
I pressed my gloved hand against his chest, pushing him flat against the floor as another wave of pain hit him. His body arched, a strangled sound tearing from his throat.
“Be ready,” I murmured. “It gets worse.”
He believed me. I saw it, saw his mouth open, ready to beg. Instead, blood trickled pathetically down his chin.
“Were your sons in on it?” I asked. “Did you teach them to be Moretti traitors, just like you?”
His lips trembled.
“Don’t hurt me, please-” he gasped.
I leaned closer. Close enough for him to feel my calmness.
The control was in my hands. The certainty of his death loomed before Salvatore Caruso, and I could tell he knew it was too late as blood pooled on the floor beneath him.
His wife and daughter were screaming and sobbing, but his sons remained silent. Complicit.
“You’re already dead, Caruso,” I said softly. “What you decide now just determines which bodies I’ll transport out of here tonight. If your sons are innocent, I’ll take your wife and daughter. If they aren’t… I’ll take them, and spare the women.”
A tear slipped from the corner of Caruso’s eye. Pathetic. Every man was when the moment of death finally came knocking, and I fucking loved delivering it.
Caruso broke quickly after that.
They usually did when you threatened them with their family dying.
“My s-sons,” he choked out. “My sons worked with me. I’m sorry, Leo-”
“What makes you think,” I said calmly. “That we’re still on a first name basis?”
“Mi scusi,” he sobbed. “My sons are guilty, but, please… Please spare my wife… my daughter…”
“Papa, no!” one of his sons screamed, but Sergio quickly put a hand over his mouth.
When the poison started shutting things down, I adjusted my grip on the soon-to-be corpse of Salvatore Caruso.
A little pressure on his chest, to delay the inevitable. Just enough to keep him conscious. Just enough to make it last, so I could really watch him suffer.
His nails scraped weakly against the floor, leaving faint marks in the polished hardwood. His voice dissolved into broken sounds, no longer words, just nonsense.
“Please,” he managed coherently, only once.
I almost smiled. “Too late for sorries, Caruso. Thank you for your service to the Moretti Famiglia. May you rot in hell. Say fuck you to my father for me, would you?”
After Salvatore, his sons died. We didn’t make the mother and sister watch. I still had some compassion left, despite the rumors that I was a monster.
Once the restaurant was cleaned up and the bodies disposed of, I sat in the car driving back home to Chiara. My mind was still on the news that dreadful lawyer had delivered. How would Chiara take it?
On one hand, I couldn’t wait to rub it in her face. I relished the thought of her shock and resistance. And yet, I worried what it meant for my captive. I wanted her to come to me willingly, and this unwelcome complication would make that harder.
I could have had a woman spreading her legs for me in minutes. But I chose the hard route, with Chiara. Because I couldn’t deny the spell she’d put me under the first time we met. I still remembered the sight of her in her family’s estate gardens. So scared, so needy for me to rescue her.
At first, I thought she’d be more willing. If nothing else, because of her fear of the infamous Serpent. But I enjoyed her fight. I just knew her defiance was now a ticking time bomb.
A year. That was all my father gave me, before I lost the empire I built, and he took credit for. Twelve months to produce an heir before the vultures started circling what was rightfully mine.
Once I got back home, I slammed the office door harder than necessary, the sound echoing down the empty hallway.
The old man knew exactly what he was doing.
He didn’t give me enough time to be patient. Not enough time to make a family happen the way I wanted.
My jaw tightened as I crossed the penthouse in long strides, the city lights bleeding through the glass like something distant and irrelevant.
Chiara had been a distraction. An indulgence. Something to break slowly, with care.
Now? She was a solution.
The shift sat cold in my chest as I came to a stop in front of her room. I didn’t knock when I reached her door. I unlocked it and walked in.
Chiara was by the window, staring out into the city lights below her.
Of course she was. Like every trapped thing, she kept going back to the only place that looked like freedom. I mentally congratulated myself on making the windows impossible to open. She was safe, but not free. Never free.
Her back was to me, shoulders tight, one hand pressed against the glass like she could melt through it if she tried hard enough.
“Planning your escape?” I asked.
She flinched.
Then she turned, chin lifting like she hadn’t just been caught.
“I don’t need to plan it,” she said. “I’ll find a way regardless. You won’t be careful enough forever. And all it takes is a minute of you looking away.”
I shut the door behind me. Locked it. The click was deliberate. Her eyes flicked to the door handle, memorizing something.
“You won’t get far,” I said simply. “But I’ll enjoy dragging you back by your hair.”
Her mouth tightened. “You sound very sure of yourself.”
“I am.” I took a step closer. Then another. She didn’t move. Not this time. That was new.
“Did you come here to repeat the obvious,” she asked, voice sharp, “or do you actually have something to say?”
I stopped in front of her. Close enough to see the tension in her throat, the faint bruising still shadowing her skin. Close enough to remember exactly how pliable she felt under my hands.
“You have some will power,” I said. “I’ll give you that. Did you have fun plotting your escape while I was away?”
“No,” she hissed. “I never have fun. Not when you’re around.”
I ignored her, glancing at the vanity table. On it, the silver tray from earlier - now empty. I smirked. “Hungry, were you?”
“Go fuck yourself,” she said, flushing lightly. Nonetheless, I was pleased she’d eaten. I didn’t need her to starve. “Where were you? Making more horrible decisions? Ending more lives?”
“I had a meeting,” I said. “And yes. Some people died tonight. Since you care about it so much, would you like to hear all the gory details?”
“I don’t care,” she said defensively.
“I didn’t ask you to,” I reminded her. Her lips pressed together.
“Then why are you telling me?” she snapped. “What do I care about your meetings? They all end the same way. Either with a literal death, or a metaphorical one.”
I chuckled. “You think this is death?”
“It’s no life,” she spat out. “Locked up in your tower, nowhere to go. I’m a prisoner. But that doesn’t mean I have to listen to your scary stories.”
“They’re not stories,” I said. “There’s truth hidden in every rumor, Chiara.”