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“They killed him because of me.”
“But I thought you did it… never mind, tell me about it, Nico,” she says softly, and the sound washes over me like a balm.
I drop into a chair, throw my head back, close my eyes, and picture her face. “He was promised a shit-ton of cash if he did a job—enough money to move across the world and start a new life. But one job turned into two. And then one more…” I can picture the stricken look on Leo’s face when Romano told him what he had to do.
She’s silent, but I know she’s listening, giving me time to get it out at my own pace.
“I was the job. Leo was supposed to kill me.”
“But he couldn’t do it,” she states. It’s not a question.
“No,” I reply quietly.
“So, in the end, even though he’d made a mistake, he redeemed himself.”
“Si, you could say that.”
“But that doesn’t make you feel better.” Again, not a question.
“I was going to kill him, Sophie. When he told me what he’d done, I had no choice. But they got to him before I could…”
“It would have ripped you apart if you pulled the trigger.”
I close my eyes and see Barzini as if the dead man was in front of me. I have no qualms, no regrets for any of the things I did to him. The sight of blood and his severed windpipe doesn’t bother me. But the memory of that single, clean bullet hole in my best friend’s head…
My stomach roils. I lean forward and breathe deeply, fighting the urge to vomit.
“I’m sorry, Nico,” she says like she means it.
“That’s it? No wise words?” I reply more harshly than I’d intended.
“Would it matter if I had any?” she asks gently, not rising to my tone.
I inhale deeply and blow out a heavy breath. “No,” I admit.
“I think Leo proved to you with that final act that he loved you. And I know you loved him too. But still, love is never enough, is it?”
I lean forward, dropping my elbows on my knees. It feels like I’m reaching toward her, trying to draw her next words out.
“Trust… loyalty… they matter more in your world.”
I say nothing, but I don’t need to—she gets me. I want her to keep talking. It doesn’t even matter what she says at this point. I just want to hear her voice. It’s soft and calm, but with an undercurrent of steel.
“If one of the club brothers betrayed my dad, there’d be no regaining that trust. Once trust dies, there’s no reviving it.”
“I know.”
“My mother left when I was eight,” Sophie suddenly says.
“I’m sorry to hear that. Why did she leave?” I thought Phoenix was widowed.
“She, uh…” Sophie hesitates. “She wanted a different kind of life to what Dad could give her. A clean, new life.”
“Ah fiammetta…” I see why she hated my reference to a shiny new life.
“The thing is, Nico, she came back five years later, all changed and so determined to win us back. For a whole year, Dad kept turning her away. He didn’t want to expose us to being hurt like that again.”
Sophie pauses, and I imagine her bracing herself for the rest of the story.
