“Your boy stepped on my honor, Tino. No fortune could have fixed that. Family always comes first. You know that. We follow the same rules. You’d have done the same thing if the roles were reversed.” Don Lanza stood. “Now, I took your boy, you took mine. My cousin tortured him, and you shot him. We’re even.”
“Not even close, Enzio. Not even close. Your fucking cousin comes with me. If he’s still alive, his fate will be decided by Leo and Nicole. Remember my daughter he stole with lies?”
“The boy you’re trying to protect kidnapped her.”
“He never hurt her. He kept her at a safe place.” Don Bellomo glanced at Leo. “Good thinking keeping her with Arancia.”
“I did it so you could find her if I didn’t make it,” Leo said.
His father nodded. “She’s on a plane back to Chicago.” His head tilted toward Don Lanza. “And for kidnapping my wife and son, I should fucking kill you.”
“I only brought them here to get Nicole back. Your wife insisted on coming to save her sister. The doctor is enough proof my only intention was to pressure him to tell us where your daughter was. I’d have never let your boy near her or your baby.”
“You still used them as bait behind my back. You still lied to my face over and over and over.”
“So did you. You lied to me for years about your boy’s Russian girlfriend when he was betrothed to my cousin, and then Angelina. You lied to me when you took her on her wedding night and brought her here, leaving your boy behind thinkingwedid it, letting him go mayhem on our men and operations, costing us millions. We can go on and on all night about the mistakes we’ve fucking made, but that won’t solve anything. My son has to go home, Tino, and I have to live to raise him. We can either work something out to make that happen without any more blood or we settle it the best way we know how, right here right now, except it’s not my whole family that would be in the line of fire.”
Shit. Enzio Lanza was a firm believer in retribution. He’d told me once everybody had to pay for their mistakes. He believed what he’d done was right. Il Tagliatore wouldn’t just surrender to Il Lupo.
Would Don Bellomo make the right decision and cease fire? Leo was growling next to me, scaring me to death. He could snap at any moment, and he was obviously not content with the outcome of the battle. He didn’t get to kill his father or Enzio, and Don Bellomo would never let him take his baby brother away. I hoped capturing his torturer was enough for him to stop seeking a lethal revenge.
I couldn’t lose him again.
CHAPTER 32
Leo
One arm in a cast, walking down the hall—my leg felt much better, and my other arm didn’t need a cast, even though my fingers would never look the same again—at my father’s mansion toward a room I’d once been lying in with gunshot wound. One I took to win the heart of a woman I realized now never belonged to me. “Are you ready?”
“How can I ever be ready for this?” Nicky said, as distantly as she’d been speaking since we returned to Chicago.
I stopped and held her arm gently. “Ravenna says keeping a healthy mentality and a positive psychological environment is crucial to the fetus’s health. That’s all you need to think about. Everything else isn’t worth it.”
“Are you for real? It might not be worth it for you, but it is for me. My sister has been locked up for two weeks. No one but Tino is allowed in her wing. The only time she gets to see her son is when he needs to feed. I haven’t laid eyes on her since we came back. God knows what he’s doing to her in there.” Distraught, she peered at the room we were heading for. “And then there’s him…”
“If you’re not ready to see him, I can wait.”
“Aren’t you dying for your pound of flesh?”
Pounds. One wasn’t going to cut it. “He’s not going anywhere. Domenico is our prisoner until we decide differently.” Enzio had to give him up in exchange for his son because my father wouldn’t budge. “You have a right to his torture, too.”
“Because Tino decided I’m now labeled a Bellomo?”
“Because Domenico fucked you up as much as he fucked me up. Whether you’re a Bellomo or a Lanza that’s up to you to decide.”
She let out a long sigh, circling her arms around herself. “Will it be too crazy if I say I don’t want revenge anymore?”
“Ah…yes. Didn’t you tell me revenge is sweet if you live to remember it? We’re both alive, and so is he. The bastard survived a hit on the head and a gunshot wound. In all honesty I’m glad he did so I can take my time with him. Dying is too easy for the fucker.”
She just stared at me, dread and shame mixed together.
I rubbed her arm. “There’s nothing to feel guilty about. He didn’t feel guilty when he played you all this time. He certainly didn’t feel guilty every time he entered that fucking cage. He’s only getting what he deserves.”
She glanced up, her eyes glistening. “He’s still the father of my baby.”
“I thought we agreed some men should never be fathers, and their children would be better off without them.”
“Stop lying to yourself, Leo. You’re a mess because all you’ve ever really wanted was your father. No matter what you think of him, no matter how bad he is, no matter how hard you convince yourself you hate him and want him dead, you’re desperate for his love. You had a chance to kill him but didn’t because you want him to be there for you.” She shrugged in resignation. “It’s just the way it is.”
