CHAPTER 4
Tino
Since the day my first wife and my unborn baby girl died, I’d only cried twice. Both of them because of Angel.
Once on the night she was about to marry my own son. The other time was now, as I sat in the darkest corner of Leo’s room, watching my firstborn sleeping off the pain her betrayal caused.
There wasn’t an inch of his body that wasn’t injured or scarred. I could only imagine the visible aches he’d endured but not the ones hidden, marking his soul forever.
The things he’d said to me on the island…
You should have loved me more than you loved her. You should have embraced me, not pushed me away. You should have helped me heal after our loss and used my love to heal you, not searched for consolation somewhere else. You should have been there for me, not fucking replaced me. You should have been my hero instead of playing that role with strangers. You should have seen me . You should have saved me .
Another tear dropped from my eye. Was I that blind with him, too? Did I care for the wrong person and neglect the one that needed me the most?
“I can hear you breathe, and your thoughts are too loud,” Leo said without moving.
I uncrossed my legs and my foot hit the floor with a sigh. “How long have you been awake?”
He rolled slowly and rested on his side facing me. “Since you walked near the door. I heard your footsteps. One stalker to another, you’re getting sloppy, Don Bellomo.”
I wasn’t. I should have thought this through, though. After what he’d seen, he must be wary of every sound, every step, every breath. A whole year of hearing the same footsteps approaching, the hope they weren’t Il Coyote’s, the dread and despair and rage they were.
“What are you doing here?” he asked.
“Watching you,” I said.
“Creepy much?”
I wiped my eyes with the heels of my palms. “When you were a little boy, I spent hours in your room every night, watching you breathe, as if I had to make sure you were.”
“I know.”
“You know? How? You were always sleeping and you were too young to even remember.”
“Oh I remember. I heard you every night, but I was pretending to sleep so you wouldn’t go.”
I blinked. “All this time you knew? You could feel me in your room?”
“Yes. I told you. It takes one to know one.”
How did I miss that? I knew I’d been making a lot of mistakes with him since his mother was killed, but it looked like I’d been missing thing way before that. “What do you mean you were pretending to sleep so I wouldn’t go?”
“I thought if I woke up, you’d think you were disturbing my sleep and you wouldn’t do it again…and I didn’t want you to stop. I liked it. I liked when you were there. It was like we were having a conversation with no words, in a language only the two of us could understand. I liked that.”
“Leo, I—”
“But you stopped anyway.”
“Only when I thought you were old enough to be on your own, when I thought you didn’t need me to watch over you anymore.”
“I thought I did something wrong that pushed you away. I tried so hard to get your attention, but it pushed you away from me even further.”
“What are you talking about? You were always so distant from me and anything related to la famiglia. You were always with your mother and—”
“I found solace in Mamma.” His breath became higher with rage. “The only parent that loved me and never rejected me. She was everything you’re not.”
He thinks I don’t love him? And rejected him? When have I ever?
“Is that what it was all about? You thought I only loved Mamma, and you hated me for it because you couldn’t own me? That’s what you do. You get so obsessed you need to own and never share. Trust me, I know the feeling. Is that why you’ve been punishing me ever since, taking away everyone I’ve ever loved? Mamma, Sia, Lina.”
“I had nothing to do with your mother’s death,” I warned.
“Your greed took her away from me, just like you took Lina.”
I banged my fists on the arms of the chair and jumped to my feet. “Being the capo was my right. It wasn’t greed or thirst for power that made me take that throne. I earned it, paid for it with blood. You would have known that if you’d been paying attention to the business, if you’d gotten involved as much as you should have.”
“I was thirteen.”
“And I’d been more than patient and protected you as much as I could. Back then, and with Anastasia, and even when you shot me.”
He laughed hysterically, and then he gestured at his body. “You call this protection?”
“It’d never been what I intended for you, Leo. You know that. Once I found out, I fixed it. I made them all pay. I’ll still make every single one of them pay.”
“Maybe, but what about Lina? Were you protecting me when you took her from my wedding, wearing my ring, so you could fuck her all you want, have her pregnant with another son because you couldn’t stand the one you already have?”
Anger bubbled up inside me. “Stop it!”
“Where is she?”
“None of your business.”
“I have a pretty good idea. Nicky searched for her all over the mansion and couldn’t find her. That only leaves one place you could have locked her up.”
My fists clenched and I spun toward the door. “Buonanotte, Leo. Get some rest. The doctors said you’d need it.”
“I’d always wondered when you shut down the old nursery wing and turned the very same room you built for my baby sister into a torture block, was it only theatrics, a psychological warfare to let whoever was misfortunate to be a guest of that room know their inescapable, similar destiny to those who caused her death, or were you torturing yourself as well with the reminiscences? Could the sadist, psycho capo feel guilt like anyone else? Could he be secretly punishing himself, too, over it?”
I stared at the door for a moment, my hand still on the handle. “Whatever you want to do with Il Coyote, I’ll back it up. Whatever you want to do to the Lanzas for revenge, I’ll probably double it.” Then I glanced at him over my shoulder. “But you won’t see her again, Leo. That revenge is mine.”