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“Your obvious scheme to bring me and Leo any closer will do nothing but—”
“What? Make you hate me more to the point of murder?” I chuckled. “That’s already accomplished.”
“I…no longer hate you, Tino. If anything, I understand you now, not fully but enough.” She sighed. “And Leo… You know better than to think he’s ever hated you a day in his life.”
Different emotions resurfaced above the anger. It pleased me to hear her say that. Finally. As for Leo… There was nothing I wouldn’t give to hear him say those things to me.
“But that wasn’t what I was going to say,” she added. “Trying to bring us together will do nothing but bring more pain to your son and me, your daughter, if you still consider me your—”
“Always. You’ll always be my daughter. I couldn’t have wished for a better one.”
“Then Leo can be nothing more than a brother to me, if ever, and again, you know better than to hurt him like that. Ravenna means the world to him, and not like how he used to feel about Lina. It’s something I haven’t seen before. Those two are made for each other. You can’t take her away from him.”
“Sometimes I wonder how different things would have been if I’d thought of my scheme earlier, set it in motion before all was lost.”
She pursed her lips. “Well, you’ve already tried, and it didn’t work.”
“Have I?”
“When you took Lina to the island and left me here with him?”
I laughed quietly. “I understand why you think it was that way, but I’m afraid that wasn’t my plan. Full disclosure, I never wanted Leo to be with you, Nicole. I know my son, what he’s capable of, more than anyone, and you deserved better.” I grimaced. “Come to think of it, it was a misjudgment. Leo with all his flaws and darkness would have been a far safer choice than that sick traitor I forced you to marry.”
“I regret so many things ever since I’ve found Leo in that cage, Tino, but marrying Dom isn’t one of them.” She took a deep breath as she made herself look at me. “I understand his ways were extreme and cruel and savage, but weren’t yours, too, when you were in his position?”
My grimace deepened. “What do you mean?”
“You did everything in your power to have my sister. He did the same to have me,” she said warily and swallowed. “He betrayed his friend, yes, and you betrayed your son.”
My eyes narrowed at her. “You can’t be that naïve, Nicole. How dare you? Are you comparing me to Il Coyote and the unforgivable treason he committed?”
She was about to speak again, but I raised a hand to stop her. “I won’t hold you accountable to what you’ve said because you’re hormonal and blinded by your love for him. I’ll even educate you on the situation even though I know you’re smart enough to have grasped already the intentions of your husband all along.
“If all Il Coyote wanted was to have you, he’d have come to me, and I’d have helped him have you, just like I did, but no. He took advantage of what your sister immaturely offered to have his revenge.”
“Revenge?”
“For Claudia, in appearance, but in reality, it’s his revenge for what Giovanni Lanza did to his mother.” Pain squeezed my heart, and it seemed all I could breathe was rage. “He took it all out on my poor boy.”
She stared at me for a moment, and then her eyes misted with understanding and despair. “But Leo only broke the engagement. He never…compromised Claudia by your rules, and she’s happily married.”
“It didn’t matter. Domenico’s scars are beyond healing. He sees every man who breaks a promise of honor to a woman another Giovanni Lanza, the reason beyond what happened to him and his mother. I mainly bought Enzio’s forgiveness for Leo’s indiscretion so he wouldn’t get his cousin involved. But they both took advantage of the time I was recovering from the shooting and stabbed me in the back.”
“And Enzio couldn’t say no to Dom because of…their history.”
“Yes. Dom was rabid and the only way to contain him was giving him what he wanted so he wouldn’t turn on his capo and claim the throne that should have been his,” I said. “Friendship doesn’t stand a chance against blood. Blood always wins, but you know what wins against blood?”
“Power.”
“Brava. That’s why Enzio agreed to give Domenico up. It was obviously his plan from the start. Play the game Angel gave them the winning cards to on a silver plate. If all goes well, everybody wins. If things go south, he sacrifices the thorn in his heel, the only threat left to his throne, without having to shed any more blood of his own. It was a win-win for Enzio.”
“And I thought you were the master manipulator…”
“Don’t worry, figlia mia. He won’t get away with it.”
“He already did.”
I smiled. “That’s what he thinks.”
