Chapter Eighteen LEO #2
“He told us she was weak,” Chiara whispered. “Papa said love makes people weak. Then he forbade us from ever speaking about her again.”
My chest felt unnaturally tight.
“If we mentioned her,” she continued, “he’d beat all of us. Together.” A broken sound escaped her. “So we stopped saying her name.”
I shut my eyes. Jesus Christ.
“I haven’t talked about her in a long time,” Chiara admitted. “Not out loud. Not to anyone.”
Something sharp twisted through me hearing that.
“I held it in because I had to,” she whispered. “Because if I cried, Aurora cried. And if Aurora cried, Sienna cried. And Matteo…” Her breath hitched violently. “Matteo always looked at me like I was supposed to fix everything.”
Another sob tore out of her. “But I couldn’t fix any of it.”
I leaned my forehead against the door again, anger burning hot beneath my skin now. Not at her. At him. At the idea of her as a little girl standing in blood, trying to save her mother while that pathetic excuse for a father destroyed everything around him.
“You saying that word…” she whispered shakily. “It reminded me of her.”
Understanding hit me all at once. Not fear. Grief. Raw and rotting and buried alive inside her for years.
“I don’t know how to hear it anymore without feeling like something is being ripped open,” she admitted. “And I hate that you saw this.”
Something inside my chest shifted painfully. “Chiara, baby.”
“No,” she whispered quickly. “Please don’t say anything nice right now. I can’t survive it from you.”
That silenced me completely. For the first time in a very long time, I had no idea what to do. But I needed to be close to her. Something inside me snapped. Not anger. Something worse.
I stood up. The door splintered beneath my shoulder with a violent crack, the lock ripping clean out of the frame. Marble echoed with the impact as the bathroom door slammed inward against the wall.
Chiara gasped. She was curled beside the bathtub in a pile of white silk sheets and tangled blonde hair, knees pulled tightly to her chest. Mascara streaked beneath swollen blue eyes. She looked so small like this. Too small for all the grief she carried inside her.
Fear flashed across her face when she saw me storming toward her. “Leo, no.”
I dropped to my knees in front of her before she could retreat farther.
Then I pulled her into my arms. She froze.
I expected fighting. Expected panic. Instead, the second my hand slid into her hair and held her against my chest, she broke apart completely.
A sob tore out of her so violently it shook her entire body.
“Shh,” I muttered instinctively, cradling the back of her head. “Enough. Enough.”
“I hate that you saw me like this,” she cried against my chest.
“I know.”
“I hate crying,” she whispered. “I hate being weak.”
“I know.”
Her fingers twisted weakly into my shoulders while I held her tighter against me. Water from the still-running sink dripped softly somewhere behind us, but the rest of the penthouse had gone dead silent. I stroked her hair slowly. And for the first time in my fucking life, I questioned myself.
Not my decisions. Not my power. My fucking feelings. I looked down at the trembling girl in my arms and thought about the word she couldn’t survive hearing from me. Love.
Did I love her?
The thought should have disgusted me. Instead, it terrified me. Because I’d never felt anything remotely close to this before. Not obsession alone. Not lust. Not possessiveness. This hurt. Seeing her cry hurt.
Hearing about that monster she called a father made something murderous and protective wake up inside me. Something vicious enough that I felt profoundly glad Lorenzo Ventura was already dying. Slowly. Painfully. I didn’t tell her that. I just kept stroking her hair while she cried into my chest.
“My father used my mother too,” I said quietly after a long silence. Chiara stilled slightly against me. I kept my eyes fixed on the marble floor.
“She wasn’t important to him,” I continued. “Not really. She was beautiful. Well connected. Capable of producing an heir.” My jaw tightened. “That was all he cared about.”
Chiara looked up at me slightly through wet lashes.
“She died giving birth to me.” The words came out flat. Emotionless. Practiced. But something ugly still moved underneath them.
“I don’t remember her,” I admitted. “I only know what Sergio told me afterward. She screamed for hours while my father sat outside the room smoking cigars and talking business.”
Chiara’s expression crumpled softly.
“When they handed me to him afterward,” I continued quietly, “he apparently looked at me for less than a minute before asking whether I was healthy enough to inherit.”
Silence settled heavily between us.
“My father believed weakness should be burned out early,” I said. “He thought softness ruined men.”
I laughed once under my breath.
“He liked poisons. Experiments. Tests.” My fingers tightened unconsciously in her hair. “When I was a child, he started feeding me tiny amounts.”
Chiara stared at me. “What?”
“He wanted me resistant,” I said calmly. “At first it just made me sick. Violently sick.” My mouth twisted bitterly. “I spent more time vomiting blood than playing like other children.”
Her hand slowly tightened against my chest.
“He’d sit there watching me choke on it,” I continued. “Then tell me if I survived, I was becoming stronger.”
“Leo…” she whispered brokenly.
“That’s where the nickname came from originally,” I admitted. “The Serpent.” My gaze drifted somewhere distant. “Because even as a boy, people said I was filled with poison.”
I remembered it too clearly. Cold marble floors. Silver spoons. The metallic taste coating my tongue. My father watching me convulse without blinking.
“He tested me constantly,” I said quietly. “Business. Violence. Loyalty. Pain.” My jaw clenched harder. “Nothing was ever enough for him.”
“And Sergio?” Chiara asked softly.
Something shifted in my chest hearing his name from her.
“Sergio was older than me,” I said. “Already working for my father.” A faint breath left me. “He’s the only person who ever stepped between me and that man.”
I remembered Sergio dragging me out of bathrooms after I got sick. Teaching me how to shoot. How to fight. How to survive without becoming exactly like my father.
“He practically raised me,” I admitted. Chiara looked at me carefully now. Like she was piecing something together for the first time.
“What happened to your father?” she asked quietly.
I leaned back slightly against the bathtub, one arm still wrapped tightly around her.
“The bratva happened.” The words came cold.
“Shootout at the docks.” I stared ahead emotionlessly. “Messy. Brutal. He died bleeding out on concrete with half his empire collapsing around him.”
Chiara swallowed hard.
“And you know the worst part?” I asked softly.
“What?”
“I was relieved,” I muttered. The confession echoed heavily through the bathroom.
“I didn’t cry at his funeral,” I continued. “I didn’t mourn him. I walked into his office the next morning, promoted Sergio, took control of everything…” My mouth hardened. “And swore I would never let this organization become what he made it.”
Chiara studied me silently.
“My father ruled through fear alone,” I said. “Drugs. Women. Sloppiness. Chaos.” Disgust curled through me. “Weak men pretending brutality made them powerful.”
“And you?”
I looked down at her slowly. “I prefer control.”
The words settled between us. Not kind. Not gentle. But honest. Chiara’s eyes searched mine again, softer now than before. Like maybe she finally understood why darkness recognized darkness so easily between us. I brushed my thumb beneath her cheek, catching another tear before it could fall.
“You’re not weak for loving people,” I said quietly.
The words surprised even me.
Chiara stared at me like they hurt worse than cruelty ever could.
And God help me, I almost said it then. The truth, however, remained lodged in my throat.