Chapter Twenty-Four LEO #2
The pit sat beneath reinforced steel grating in the center of the warehouse floor. Most people thought it was a myth. A Moretti horror story parents whispered to their children. It wasn’t.
Dim industrial lights illuminated the movement below in shifting flashes of gold, black, and bronze scales sliding over one another in thick living knots. Dozens of snakes. Venomous. Deadly. Beautiful.
Angelo went pale. “No.”
I crouched slowly beside the pit while the snakes hissed beneath us.
“You know,” I said conversationally, “Chiara was bitten by a snake the night I met her.”
Angelo swallowed hard.
“She cried when it hurt,” I continued softly. “Did you know that?”
“Leo…” he gasped.
“And then she looked at me like I was salvation,” I carried on. His breathing quickened violently.
“That was your first mistake,” I said. “Making me watch her suffer.”
Rainwater dripped steadily somewhere behind us.
“This is insane,” Angelo whispered.
“No,” I corrected calmly. “This is personal.”
I grabbed him by the front of his ruined shirt.
“Second mistake?” I murmured. “Putting your hands on my wife.”
Then I threw him into the pit. Angelo screamed before he even hit the bottom. The snakes exploded into motion beneath him. The first strike came. Then another. Then another.
His screams tore through the warehouse as venomous fangs buried into his arms, throat, legs. He stumbled blindly through the writhing mass, slipping in blood and panic while snakes struck again and again and again.
“LEO!” he screamed. “GET ME OUT!”
One snake lunged upward and sank its fangs deep into the side of his throat. Angelo choked violently. Foam gathered at his lips. His body convulsed hard enough to slam against the concrete floor.
Still the snakes kept biting. His screams weakened. Then broke apart entirely. Finally, he stopped moving. Silence settled slowly over the warehouse except for the wet hiss of scales sliding over his corpse.
Behind me, Sergio exhaled shakily. “Jesus Christ.”
I stared down into the pit at Angelo’s swollen body tangled among writhing snakes. Then the bullet wound in my side pulsed violently again, blood running warm beneath my shirt. I pressed my hand harder against it and turned away.
By the time Sergio dragged me back into the penthouse, the worry was already eating through my bloodstream.
I knew because I recognized the feeling. Not the pain. Pain was ordinary. I’d been taught pain before I could properly read. This was different. This was cold.
A freezing sickness spreading beneath my skin in slow, deliberate waves, like ice water threading through my veins instead of blood. My fingers kept going numb. My vision pulsed strangely at the edges. Every heartbeat felt delayed, sluggish, wrong.
Poison. Of course it was poison. Edoardo never did anything halfway.
The elevator ride blurred around me in fragments of sound and light.
Sergio shouting at someone. Blood dripping steadily onto polished black marble.
The metallic scent of it thick enough to taste.
I leaned harder against the wall once the elevator doors opened because the floor tilted beneath my feet.
“Boss,” Sergio said sharply.
I ignored him. Because Chiara was standing at the end of the hallway barefoot in one of my shirts. And for one horrible second, I thought I was hallucinating already.
Her blonde hair spilled wildly around her shoulders. Her eyes looked swollen from crying. My shirt swallowed her body nearly to her thighs, the black fabric making her look pale enough to break apart under my hands.
Her gaze dropped to the blood pouring through my fingers. The color drained from her face. “Oh my God.”
Fear hit her expression so violently it nearly brought me to my knees. Not fear of me. For me. Something in my chest twisted painfully. Interesting. I hadn’t expected to survive long enough to see that. Then Chiara ran toward me. Actually ran.
“Leo!” Her voice cracked apart as her hands grabbed my arms. “What happened? Oh my God, there’s so much blood-”
I tried answering. Nothing coherent came out.
The poison spread fast now. My heartbeat felt strange. Too slow one second, too hard the next. Sweat slid cold down my spine despite the warmth flooding the penthouse.
Sergio grabbed my shoulder. “We need the medic now.”
Chiara looked up sharply. “Medic?”
“The bullet was poisoned,” I managed roughly.
Her face went completely white. Then the world tilted sideways. The next few hours came apart in pieces. Voices. Pain. Darkness. Hands holding me down.
At some point someone cut my shirt open. I vaguely remember Chiara screaming when she saw the wound. I remember Sergio swearing. The medic barking orders while blood soaked expensive sheets beneath me.
And through all of it… Chiara stayed. Every time I surfaced, she was there. Like a ghost my poisoned brain invented.
Sometimes I thought I was thirteen again.
Back in my father’s underground rooms where the air smelled like chemicals and fear.
I remembered restraints biting into my wrists.
Silver trays lined with tiny crystal vials.
My father watching emotionlessly while men forced poison down my throat to “build immunity.”
You survive enough times, he used to say, and eventually death gets bored of chasing you.
I remembered vomiting blood onto concrete floors while my father calmly took notes. I remembered convulsing hard enough to fracture teeth. I remembered him disappointed when I survived too quickly.
And somewhere inside those memories… Soft hands touched my face. Not my father’s. Chiara’s.
“Leo,” she whispered shakily. “Please wake up.”
Hallucination. Had to be. Because Chiara Ventura hated me. Didn’t she?
I forced my eyes open. The room swam in and out of focus slowly. Warm golden light spilled through the penthouse windows. Rain hammered faintly against the glass outside.
Chiara sat beside me on the bed. Actually sat there. Her knees tucked beneath her while one hand pressed a cold cloth against my forehead. Her blonde hair looked messy, tangled from hours of panic. Tear tracks still stained her cheeks. She looked exhausted. Destroyed. Beautiful.
“You’re real?” I asked hoarsely. Her face crumpled.
“Oh my God,” she whispered.
I tried sitting up. Agony ripped through my side violently enough that black spots exploded across my vision. “Jesus fucking Christ…”
“Don’t move!” Chiara cried, pressing both hands against my chest. “Leo, stop!”
I froze. Not because of the pain. Because she was touching me willingly. Her palms flattened against my bare chest while panic flooded her face. I could feel how badly her hands trembled.
“Medic said the poison almost reached your heart,” she whispered shakily. “You lost consciousness three times.”
I stared at her. The words barely registered. Because she looked terrified. For me.
“You stayed,” I said quietly. Something flickered across her face. Then her eyes filled with tears again.
“Of course I stayed,” she whispered.
Hallucination. Definitely hallucination. The poison was making me delirious. I laughed weakly and regretted it when pain sliced through my ribs again.
Chiara looked horrified. “Don’t laugh!”
“You hate me,” I murmured.
“I do not,” she said.
I looked at her properly then. At the way she sat beside me in my shirt. At the dark circles beneath her eyes. At the dried blood still staining her fingers from trying to help stop the bleeding earlier. She looked like she’d been dragged through hell. And still she stayed.
“Interesting,” I muttered.
“You almost died,” she whispered.
“Not yet,” I managed.
“You almost died because of me.”
That finally dragged my attention sharply back to her. “No.”
“Yes!” Her voice cracked apart. “I ran straight into their trap. Angelo used me and…”
“Chiara,” I said, the warning clear in my voice. She stopped. I lifted my hand slowly despite how heavy it felt and touched her jaw weakly with bloodstained fingers. “You ran to me. That’s all I remember.”
Something broke in her expression then. Completely. A sob escaped her before she could stop it. And she leaned forward hard enough that her forehead pressed against my chest while she cried.
I froze.
My brain genuinely stopped functioning for a second. Because Chiara Ventura was curled against me voluntarily. Crying into my skin. Holding onto me like she couldn’t bear not to.
Hallucination. Absolutely a hallucination. My hand slid shakily into her hair anyway. Soft. God, she was soft.
“I killed him,” I murmured eventually. She didn’t ask who. We both knew. “He touched you.”
Her fingers tightened painfully in the sheets beside me. “I know.”
I closed my eyes briefly. The poison still dragged strangely at my thoughts, pulling me under in slow waves. Every few seconds reality blurred around the edges again.
“Leo.” I hummed weakly at my name on her lips. “You scared me.”
Something dangerous twisted inside my chest at the trembling honesty in her voice. “I’m hard to kill.”
“That isn’t funny,” she whispered.
“No,” I agreed softly. “Not really.”
Silence settled over the room again except for rain striking the windows. Then Chiara lifted her head slowly. Her eyes searched mine with terrifying intensity. “I love you.”
The words slid through the room quietly. Softly. Impossible. I stared at her. Then laughed weakly again.
“Definitely hallucinating now,” I said.
Her expression shattered. “Leo!”
“You hated me yesterday,” I muttered.
“I still should.”
“Mm.” I brushed my thumb weakly beneath her eye. “That sounds more believable.”
Fresh tears spilled over her lashes. “I’m serious.”
“No, you’re traumatized,” I reminded her.
“I love you!” The desperation in her voice finally cut through the poison haze enough to make me pause.
I looked at her carefully. At the panic. The tears. The sincerity wrecking her expression. And suddenly… I wasn’t completely sure this was a hallucination anymore.
Dangerous thought. Very dangerous. My chest tightened painfully.
“You don’t understand what loving me means,” I said quietly.
“I don’t care,” she whimpered.
I almost smiled at that. Then exhaustion crashed over me again all at once. The room blurred violently. Chiara’s face became soft around the edges.
“Leo?” Her voice sounded far away. “Leo, stay awake!”
I tried. Really. But the poison dragged me downward anyway. The last thing I felt before darkness swallowed me again was Chiara’s hand clutching mine tightly against the sheets.
Like she thought she could hold me in this world by force.