I barely hear him, too busy staring down my sister. “Isabella.”
She doesn’t look at me; her chin points up stubbornly. “You almost died, Leon. We thought…I thought…”
“Issy. Look at me.”
When she does, there are tears in her eyes. “I’m sorry, Leon.”
My mind is already racing, calculating, planning. Already jumping to every worst possible conclusion before she has a chance to draw another breath and speak out the last words I want to hear.
“They took her. The Cartel took her.”
For a moment, I let the words wash over me, feeling an eerie kind of calm settle into my bones. Then, the world narrows to a singular focus: Mia.
I shove the blanket off me and swing my legs over the side of the bed, ignoring the fire burning in my chest. My breath hitches, but I grit my teeth against the pain. Every second wasted here is a second Mia is at their mercy.
“Sir, please don’t—” the doctor tries.
“Leon, stop!” Isabella begs.
“She’s out there, Isabella. I’m not going to sit here and do nothing,” I roar as the room tilts violently, my knees buckling under me.
Before I can hit the ground, the door slams open, and Dante storms in, followed by Teo. Dante’s face is tight with worry as he slides himself under my arm and hoists me back up.
But Teo’s expression is stone cold, his eyes seemingly entirely black as they lock on me like a predator about to pounce.
“Sit down,” Teo orders, his voice like a whip.
“I’m not staying here.” I shrug away from Dante, gripping the edge of the bed to steady myself. “Mia needs me.”
“She needs you alive, Leon,” Teo retorts, crossing the room in three long strides.
He grabs my arm and shoves me back onto the bed with more force than necessary. There’s no mistaking the ruthless don in his dominance, and I instinctively snarl and push back. But his hands are too firm, his jaw tight as he holds me there.
“You’re no good to her dead. You are no good tomedead. We need everyone right now, and you will NOT lose your head over this.”
I narrow my eyes at him, ready to rip out his damn throat if I need to.
“Enough!” she snaps, her voice slicing through the tension. “Leon, calm the fuck down. You’re acting deranged. This is exactly why I didn’t want to tell you.”
“You lied to me.”
“I lie to youall the time,dingus,” Issy groans. “Snap out of it. We need you firing on all cylinders here, not throwing yourself on a suicide mission trying to climb a flight of stairs, all right?”
No one speaks to me like Issy. No one has ever had the death wish, honestly. Yet it’s her words that temper the near-endless pit of rage that has consumed me since the moment I found out Mia was missing.
Sensing the shift in mood, Dante takes a bold step closer. “Leon, listen. You need to know what happened at the casino.”
I close my eyes, grit my teeth, and exhale. “Tell me.”
Everyone around me visibly relaxes. The doctor coughs awkwardly and makes his escape. Dante starts speaking once the door is firmly closed.
“It was chaos after Max shot you. He wasn’t working alone. The Cartel had servers planted as operatives. They were waiting for his signal. As soon as you hit the ground, they went straight for her.”
He steps closer, as if he can block my escape if I try again to race out of the room.
“Mia fought like hell,” Dante continues, his voice softening. “She was holding her own until they overwhelmed her. I saw them dragging her out just as reinforcements arrived. By the time we pushed the Cartel back, they were gone. Max included.”
“Max…” I growl, the betrayal cutting deeper than the bullet ever could.
